Sony, the king of the mountain
If there's one thing Sony knows, it's how to create a sense of theatre. Its E3 press conference in 2016 was a remarkably classy affair which was accompanied in its entirety by a live orchestra.
Better still was the way Sony allowed all of its games to speak for themselves. We weren't treated to executives telling us how great a game was, instead we were simply presented with the footage and allowed to make up our own minds. It was a confident move, and one that resulted in a remarkably fast-paced press conference.
Resident Evil 7's reveal was executed well. What appeared to be just another PlayStation VR experience soon broadened out into a much bigger game until it was finally revealed to be the next entry in the long-running survival horror franchise.
It looks to be an abrupt shift in tone for a series which has continued to use the blueprint from its fourth entry for years, but we're excited to see what its capable of. Apparently the whole game will be playable with PlayStation VR.
We may have only got a short trailer, but the reveal that Insomniac Games are currently working on a Spider-Man game has us very excited indeed. We haven't had a proper Spider-Man game since 2014's underwhelming Amazing Spider-Man 2 tie-in, so it's exciting to see the development studio behind Ratchet and Clank working on the game.
Finally, in its one excessive note of the show, Sony trotted out Hideo Kojima to show off the first trailer for his new game Death Stranding. Details are light on the new title, but the trailer (which was apparently all in-engine) painted an odd picture of the game, with a man waking up naked and confused in a wasteland.
But that's far from all Sony's press conference had to offer. We had new gameplay footage from Horizon: Zero Dawn, a live gameplay demonstration of The Last of Us-esque Days Gone and God of War.
If we had to criticise Sony it would definitely be for the way The Last Guardian was handled. It's now been seven years since the game was first revealed and with it being due out later this year we expected to see more that just another trailer.
Nevertheless, 2016 was another very strong year for Sony. The imminent arrival of the 4K Playstation Neo may mean now is not the perfect time to buy a PS4, but those who have already invested in the console have a lot to look forward to over the next couple of years.
Microsoft - making a Scorpio-shaped splash
Microsoft had a phenomenal E3 showing, filled with games, new hardware, and some tantalising teases about the future.
Let's start with the big stuff: two new consoles. Microsoft announced the Xbox One S, its slimmer, cheaper console that will also support 4K video and HDR. It will support all Xbox One games, and the even better news is that the power brick is finally gone.
It will, however, also be ditching the Kinect sensor port - you'll need a USB adapter if you want to use Kinect with the S.
The S will be launching in August, starting at $299/£249. But that's not all! Microsoft also teased the rumored Project Scorpio, which will arrive during Holiday 2017 and pack a whopping six teraflops of graphics power - nearly five times as much as the Xbox One - and an octa-core CPU.
It will be fully capable of 4K gaming and virtual reality - and we're dying to find out more.
Outside of hardware Microsoft had more than a couple of games up its sleeve to show off. A Gears of War 4 gameplay demonstration reminded us of everything we used to love about the franchise, and after an impressive reveal last year Recore finally got a September release date.
Fresh announcements came in the form of zombie survival game Dead Rising 4, open-world racer Forza Horizon 3 and the return of Tekken seven years after its last entry.
But our favorite game of Microsoft's press conference has to be Sea of Thieves, Microsoft's light hearted first-person pirate adventure. It looks goofy, it looks fun, and a return to form for development studio Rare who has been stuck doing Kinect games for far too long now.
