Monday was a big day in the world of video games, one that may go down in history depending on how the next few months play out. It was the start of E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) and the eyes of the video game world were all looking to see what the two superpowers of the Console Wars would do.
This is the year that Microsoft and Sony release their new video game consoles. While each company announced its new device weeks before, Monday was the official coming out party for the Xbox One and PS4. It was the day we'd see what new games were on the horizon, and how each company planned on winning the next front of the war.
Understand, however, that there's nothing particularly interesting about this. Every year both companies hold big events at E3 to fire up the fans and give video game journalists something to blog about, but rarely does anything interesting actually happen. Until Monday.
On Monday Sony launched the single most devastating attack in the history of the Console Wars.
We may never really know what Sony had been planning behind the scenes leading up to E3, but the facts are these:
1. Microsoft announced restrictions on disc-based games that would make sharing and reselling games costly for the consumer. They also announced that the system required users to be online pretty much all the time if they want their games to work, even if they're not playing them online. (If you can't be online all the time, Microsoft suggests buying an Xbox 360. Seriously.)
2. The majority of folks out there suspected that Sony would announce the same type of policies for the PS4.
It appeared that the Golden Age of Game Trading was coming to a close.
Then came Monday.
Truth be told, there's not a lot to say about Microsoft's presentation. It happened, and the only thing anyone seems to be interested in talking about is whether or not a rape joke was made during it. All Sony had to do was go out and give a variation on the same, tired presentation that gets trotted out every year, and everyone could move on to complaining about games that weren't going to be out for six months.
Instead Sony decided to break the mold and make an announcement that would cause the video game world to lose its collective mind: PS4 supports used games.
