Every year, the E3 press conferences serve as the bombastic kickoff to a festival of big-budget games and indie innovators. This is where all the megaton reveals and announcements will happen; where developers, CEOs, and celebrities alike will take the stage and delight the audience with snappy or slightly awkward banter. And E3 2015 had more press conferences than usual, with a few newcomers joining the fray. But like gladiatorial combat, the real question on people's minds is: who won?

Every press conference had something great to offer, but some simply had more greatness than others. We've gone ahead and ranked all the press conferences, minus the (GR+ is owned by the same parent company, so we'd be contractually obligated to give them first prize). So, which press conference stood triumphant during E3 2015? In our minds, the ordering goes something like this...

The Square Enix press conference had the air of a Japanese investor meeting, which isn't necessarily good or bad. Everyone on stage was polite and calm, moving from one game demo to the next with minimal fanfare - a stark contrast to the whiz-bang theatrics of most other press conferences. There were a few gaffes, like a translator who seemed to be asleep at the wheel and an enthusiastic Kingdom Hearts fan who realized too late that he was cheering for the wrong trailer. But man, Square Enix has it where it counts: the games.

Any mention of the Final Fantasy 7 remake gets our hearts aflutter, the teacup attack in Kingdom Hearts 3 is a winner, and the tweaks to Hitman's assassination sandbox are definitely intriguing. Plus, the cult classic Nier is actually getting a sequel, something we never would've expected in a million years. And we'll never, ever forget the surreal weirdness of a presenter with a skull mask on, and absolutely no one in the room acknowledging it.

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Electronic Arts has a heavy burden: the need to show off a slew of sports games to an audience that, let's face it, is largely apathetic about Madden, FIFA, et al. Not only that: everybody watching had their hearts set on some in-game Star Wars Battlefront footage, and EA knew it. That made it all the more difficult to sit through Pele's absent-minded musings about 'the beautiful game', or a Minions mobile spin-off.

Of course, none of those somewhat dull moments seemed to matter after the glory of the Battlefront footage. Watching soldiers shoot their way through the trenches of Hoth looked incredible, and the shifting perspectives gave a great view into vehicle handling as well. And that ending where Luke and Vader clash... we got chills. Besides getting to see our nerdy lightsaber duel fantasies realized, Unravel looks adorable, Mirror's Edge: Catalyst seems like it'll have glorious amounts of freedom, and Mass Effect: Andromeda showed just enough to get us interested.

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We get the sense that E3 is becoming more and more irrelevant to Nintendo, and you can tell by the fact that its biggest surprises - the unexpected arrival of the unreleased NES EarthBound and Ryu's appearance in Super Smash Bros. - were announced on the Sunday before the big Nintendo Direct. Thanks to Nintendo's unique videos, they can announce whatever they want, when they want, and they don't have to be tied to E3 to do it.

That's not to say there weren't things to get excited about during the Tuesday Direct. We saw the first footage of Star Fox Zero, the reveal of a Paper Mario/Mario Luigi RPG mash-up, and a new multiplayer Zelda game on 3DS, and all of that looks great. There are even going to be Skylanders figurines for Donkey Kong and Bowser that will act as amiibo when you twist the base - a pretty big surprise, especially coming from a company as protective of its characters as Nintendo. Long-awaited titles like Xenoblade Chronicles X and the fantastic-looking Super Mario Maker finally got release dates, too. Nintendo's actual E3 conference may have been a bit lacking, but when you combine it, along with Sunday's announcements and the World Championship, Nintendo's E3 wasn't too shabby. Plus, it had Nintendo Muppets. And that's pretty great.

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Ubisoft didn't pin all its hype to one or two games - it spread the love across a diverse collection, which is great. By now, we know to brace for a few awkward moments when Just Dance hits the stage (this time with some off-key singing courtesy of Jason Derulo, aka Blueshirt McSingguy, aka Mikey '2Tyte' Jeanz), and some stilted recreations of actual conversations during multiplayer sessions. But any Derulo downers were offset by Aisha Tyler's charm, and Ubisoft had something for everyone with its game showcase.

Two surprise announcements stood out in particular: Ghost Recon Wildlands, a drug-busting take on the tactical shooter, and For Honor, a PvP battle between history's deadliest warriors. The tense multiplayer of had us enraptured (even with all the scripted teamchat), with Trackmania, Trials Fusion: Awesome Levels Max, and South Park: Fractured But Whole rounding out the strong showing. We could've done with some more Evie and/or gameplay for Assassin's Creed Syndicate, of course.

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Kinect was a no-show, there was no mention of apps, and there was nary an Usher in sight - Microsoft in 2015 is leaner, meaner, and all about games. There were the expected heavy hitters, of course, and Halo 5 and Gears 4 certainly didn't disappoint, but it was all of the little surprises that added up for Microsoft in a big way.

Backwards compatibility was Microsoft's bombshell announcement of the show. It doesn't seem like much, but when it feels like everyone's essentially written off the concept with this generation and doubled down on re-releases, seeing a big publisher find a way to get older games to work on its current hardware is a pretty fantastic move, and it'll be a great way to get more people to leave their 360s behind. Speaking of re-releases, Rare Replay shows the right way to go about it, packing in 30 classic and contemporary Rare games in one package for $30. Rare's even making a brand new game, and it's all about pirates! Microsoft also unveiled a unique spin on early access, letting potential buyers actually try a demo before they spend money on an unfinished game (what a concept!). And last but surprisingly not least, Microsoft HoloLens made an impressive showing with Minecraft (of all games). A solid show from Microsoft.

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This E3 marked the first time Bethesda has ever hosted a press conference, but you wouldn't be able to tell by watching it, as the publisher took the stage with a confidence and presence like they'd been doing this for years. Bethesda's conference boasted no frills, no nonsense, and no gimmicks - just a solid 90-minute block of fantastic-looking games.

Doom is shaping up to be a wonderful blend of old-school and modern game design, with fast-paced, fluid gunplay, ridiculous hellbeasts, and the newly-announced Snapmap allows for players to make and share their own levels and games. Dishonored 2 is coming next year, and bringing along a surprising new protagonist with Emily Kaldwin. But the big surprise here came from Fallout 4 and its November 10, 2015 release date. Bethesda kicked off E3 in spectacular fashion.

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Sony doesn't have a huge first-party lineup slated for 2015, instead relying on Batman, Destiny, and a slew of indie games to satiate PlayStation Nation’s hunger for games. And no, Sony didn't do much to tell us differently at its E3 conference. What it did do, however, is announce the arrival of three particular games - games that have long stoked the dreams of many a PlayStation fan.

Sony opened its show with The Last Guardian, reintroducing Team Ico's lost game to the masses, and revealed a 2016 release date to go along with it. Fans have also been clamoring for a Final Fantasy 7 remake, and have repeatedly been told no - until Sony unveiled a trailer confirming its existence. Then they gave the stage to Yu Suzuki, creator of the cult-favorite Shenmue series, and announced a plan to crowd-fund the closure that fans have been craving for years. Oh yeah, Sony's also the new home for Call of Duty, yoinking it away from Microsoft in dramatic fashion. An impressive gameplay demo for Uncharted 4 closed one of Sony's best conferences in years - , this is one for the history books.

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So you've already had our , which means that in the interests of fairness (and, you know, doing our jobs to a proper and complete degree), it's time for Microsoft. Now finally back on its feet after a very rocky new-gen start, MS is in a position to really impress this year. Brand new games were teased at the 2014 show, and we know that one or two big franchises are due to return sooner rather than later. But there's got to be more than that. So what will it be?

Click on, and we'll tell you what we expect. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll laugh again, but all being well there will at least be zero reference to putting TV in your TV so that you can... You know the rest. And make sure to check back throughout the week for our run-downs on Nintendo and the third-parties too. It will be great!

If you're playing E3 Bingo at home, this is your free square. With coming by the end of the year, we're bound to see some kind of gameplay at Microsoft's conference. But that's not where the Halo news will end. First, there'll be some kind of apology for the launch of the Master Chief Collection, which will be instantly hand-waved away by explaining how much better is now.

Microsoft will also stand behind the collection as a platform for Halo, announcing new plans for the Halo Channel, and maybe the addition of Reach to the MCC. And Halo Wars, if Microsoft gets really desperate.

You can already pick up the Xbox One for less than a PS4, thanks to various retailer bundles and promotions, but E3 will signal an official offer of ‘increased value’. Now, we deliberately made that vague because… an actual price cut is fairly unlikely. What we expect to see is some kind of juicy ‘trade in your Xbox 360 for big bucks off the Xbox One’ style offer.

See, a lot of people still haven’t moved on from the last generation, and Microsoft wants to keep its 360 players in the family. So, 18 months since XO’s nightmarish launch, expect to see MS make a big play for the folk thinking about upgrading. Because if Microsoft doesn’t do it, Sony definitely will.

This is followed by the new Gears of War: Cogs of Destiny card game coming to mobile and iOS this Fall. But don't confuse that with Gears of War: Destiny of the Cog, an MMO shooter that ties into the new live-action Gears of War series exclusive to Netflix (starring J.K. Simmons as a man who is angry).

Then there's the Gears of War breakfast cereal, and the Gears of War lawn maintenance kit, and the...

Forza Motorsport 6 will be a glossy act of reparation in some ways, walking back the damage done by the transaction models and content disparities of Forza 5. Beyond that, it’ll mark another round of actual human beings saying ‘drivatar’ without bursting at a molecular level.

Oh, and kudos to the poor trailer-making folks that have to think of yet another way to show cool cars doing their thing. There’s only so many ways to swoop over pearlescent paint jobs and jiggle the camera as a Nissan GT-R roars by. Not that we don’t enjoy that sort of thing.

Yes, we get it: Minecraft is a big deal, and Microsoft needs to show off what it’s got planned for its shiny new billion-dollar purchase. That won't change the fact that the Minecraft booth will continue to be a bigger wasteland than Pripyat.

Still, that exclusive aardvark will be adorable.

Take a sandbox game. Now make it the size of the Milky Way galaxy. That's the basic premise of . With that in mind, Microsoft will give the floor to series creator David Braben to drum up hype for Elite: Dangerous - and in doing so, accidentally spoil another much-anticipated space epic set for release in 2015. See, he's a big sci-fi fan and knows some people working on Star Wars.

Braben will play up the freedom to do almost anything in the vastness of Elite: Dangerous' universe, including the creation of a galactic Empire and the piloting of various starfighters. "You can even explore a player-driven narrative in which you recover the melted mask of a previous leader, resulting in..." - and just when Braben's about to inadvertently spoil the ending of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney's lawyers will yank him offstage by cane in 1950s cartoon fashion.

Listen, we're going to hear a lot of ‘The Nights’ by Avicii at E3. Given the number of montages during the show, it’s a statistical certainty. Also, all the Woodkid songs are taken.

Microsoft’s independent game montage will be different, however, in that it’ll claim exclusivity over several games both for Windows 10 and Xbox One. And, going by recent ID@Xbox releases like Nero and Lifeless Planet, it will demonstrate a need for weird, not-quite-great games that didn't make it past Sony’s seemingly stricter curation. With any luck, might even be a game featuring ‘The Nights’ on its soundtrack. Corporate view of the zeitgeist, nailed!

After a few less-than-successful attempts at reviving prior classics (like Conker and Perfect Dark) and a few less-than-successful attempts at creating new franchises (like Kameo), Microsoft has shunted Rare off into whatever circle of hell requires its denizens to work on Xbox Avatar clothes for the rest of eternity.

But no, finally, Rare has its chance at redemption, showing up at E3 with a new entry in the nostalgia-inducing Battletoads franchise. Now, the frustrated clerks at GameStop will actually have a copy of the game, so please stop crank-calling them.

If we've learned anything from the announcement of a new Phantom Dust game at E3 2014 and its almost immediate delay/cancellation (we're still not sure which), it's that Microsoft is committed to almost giving fans what they want by rebooting cherished franchises that they definitely sort of remember. In keeping with that mission, expect the company to announce the return of Blinx, Vince, and Brute Force through beautifully pre-rendered cutscenes that tell you nothing about the games in question, but really grab your interest.

That way, when the projects are canceled within months, and leaked footage shows they don't look anything like the trailers you saw, you'll be even trigued than you were at the start. Wait, actually, 'confused' is probably the word we’re looking for.

From mandatory peripheral to dirty little secret, the Kinect has apparently become press conference poison as far as Microsoft is concerned, so don't expect it to exactly be a show headliner.

In fact, you probably shouldn't expect to see at all, outside a few snapshots of it sitting next to an Xbox One, before it's immediately covered up by a picture of Master Chief's helmet and Lara Croft getting chased by something.

It’s a year of great potential for Microsoft. Having shifted its mantra from ‘TV, TV, TV’ to ‘games, games, games’, the company will now surely try to make good on last year’s promise of having more exclusives and more reasons to play.

It will do that partly by showcasing last year’s teases in proper depth. Scalebound will be an incredibly pretty grab at the Monster Hunter market, with slick Platinum combat,, while Crackdown will crank up the neon and deliver some serious kinetic spectacle.

Interest will immediately wane when the presenter brings up the game's companion TV program, and shows off a three-minute trailer that does its best to coherently mix 24 with Agents of Shield. The trailer will be followed by several seconds of silence, and the audience will clap politely once the Defiance flashbacks stop.

Microsoft's Games with Gold rewards program is like the little sibling to Sony's Instant Game Collection on PlayStation Plus: try as it might, it can't live up to the standard set by its superior senior. In either case, free games every month are nothing to sneeze at, but where Sony consistently offers new releases on the house, Microsoft seems insistent on lagging years behind the gaming zeitgeist.

To further cement its commitment to offering the best games from three years ago for free, a Microsoft representative will excitedly mention plans to bring Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2, and The Walking Dead (Season One) to Games with Gold in 2015. The camera will pan to an audience that can appreciate both the timeless quality and relative age of these titles, including a close-up of a fan who bought all of them at full price on release day shedding a single, bitter tear.

New realities are the future, and the future is now. Or rather, the future is Q4 2015/Q1 2016. Valve, Oculus and Sony are all poised to move into the burgeoning virtual reality market with their own headsets, and Microsoft would do well to not be left behind. HoloLens compatibility with Xbox One would go a long way to making that happen.

Now, that being said, we can’t imagine that such an announcement - if it’s to be made - will be more than conceptual in nature. The HoloLens was in very early stages when it was demonstrated to press last year, and the fact that it works using augmented reality instead of virtual reality means a whole other slew of problem, solutions and technology that needs to be developed. Still, if Microsoft wants this new technology to take off, getting early excitement from technophile gamers would be a very smart foot in the door.

Once upon a time, Microsoft was pretty good about backward compatibility, taking the time to make <(i>some) Xbox games playable on Xbox 360. Then it realized that good lord is that a lot of work, and so stopped, and basically just hoped you kept your old systems lying around. (Which, in fairness, we did.)

Now that the Xbox family has more than enough older titles to justify it, Microsoft will announce a streaming game service similar to PlayStation Now. Pay a certain amount each month and you’ll be able to access Xbox games you didn’t catch the first time around, like Breakdown, Crimson Skies and, of course, Phantom Dust.

FIFA 16 has taken a brilliant step by into the mix. It’s a move that aligns FIFA games closer to what modern football is, rather than the corporate box-ticking the game can sometimes be. Unfortunately, there’s still a long way to go before FIFA-the-game is an accurate representation of what football really is and not what the laughable Bond-esque villains who ru(i)n the game want to paint it as.

So, while adding women's teams is the best thing EA Sports has done in a long time - yes, even better than corner flag physics - there are some less impressive aspects of modern football that need addressing. Whether it’s the (ahem) 'banter' of Twitter, or ensuring the noble profession of diving is given its due reverence, here are some more tweaks EA need to make if we’re going to get the game football deserves.

Football might be called the beautiful game, but really it’s built on the hungover sweat of teams like The Red Lion Rovers and The Cross Hand Geezers. These teams have one genuinely good player and ten others who want him to pass to them. So, let’s bin all the idolisation of current superstars. No more fawning over how good a job they did capturing the soulless abyss behind the eyes of pixel imposters.

Instead, let’s celebrate the people who treat tackles like an invitation to commit GBH and reward themselves for a ten minute run out with a sausage roll and an ale. Because do we really need another year of the Premier League presentation in FIFA? Nah. There’s a team editor for the holdouts who absolutely need to have the correct team, while the rest of us can bask in football the way we usually play it.

Get any game of FIFA going and the first thing you’ll hear is Jim Stelling blabbering on about the match. But then you’ll hear the roar of thousands as they cheer your gang on, every second of the game, never relenting in their vocal appreciation of what’s unfurling. Even in the most turgid of 0-0’s, especially when you’re accidentally napping between tackles. If only it were anywhere near the truth.

This isn’t to say that stadiums designed to hold a small nation's worth of people don’t generate ear-ruiningly loud noises, it’s just they don’t do it as often as FIFA suggests. We’re here for realism, so someone needs to turn the crowd noise dial down from 11 to maybe 3 or 4 and ensure that only the biggest moments get the cheers they deserve. Nobody is leading a chorus of “Who are ya?” because you’ve put five passes together.

The Twitter population is so incredibly funny, with its lame jokes and hurried photoshops that really hammer home the fact that your team is getting scored on more times than your mum. I mean, technically that may be true (so where's the insult, really?) but it's an element of the game that FIFA the video game really hasn't included. It's in the game… so why isn't it in the game?

In honour of this, FIFA 16 should round up the ‘best’ of these 140 character tirades and have them flash on screen every time you concede goal. Playing as Arsenal and losing by a mile? “What time is it? Five-past Szczesny LOL”. Every goal conceded would bring a consuming sense of dread, knowing the Wilde-esque wit that’s waiting for you. There could even be some cheat codes to unlock some Lineker/Morgan classics.

Despite the fact the world has landlords, traffic wardens and taxmen, I’m yet to see a more hated profession than professional referees. These men and women are only trying to ensure a game of football doesn’t devolve into a colour-coordinated brawl, yet they’re always wrong (except when the decision goes the way the fans want) and everyone hates them. However, in the FIFA games, they’re robo-eyed demigods, capable of sensing a minor infraction even when it’s physically impossible for them to see it.

That needs to be sacked off right away. If we’re going to indulge FIFA’s obsession with using real names, then I want to see each referee being as consistent - or, rather, inconsistent as they are in real life. Dubious offsides, leg breaking tackles that aren’t noticed, and comical villainy that is ripped out of the pages of Marvel. There’s no greater pain in football than watching your team get robbed because of the ref who ate all the pies and now is the time to get the simulation right.

Diving is either a frowned upon evil or the figurative Liquid Snake of football depending on whether you support the team who are doing it. It’s a part of the game that will never truly go away, because then pundits might actually have to talk about what’s actually going on in a match. What’s surprising is that FIFA has never got out it’s moustache wax, given its upper-lip hair a good twirl and put a dedicated dive button in the game.

The rebellious PES does it, Sony’s long-forgotten This Is Football series did it, maybe EA Sports just needs to loosen up, bend at the knees dramatically take a tumble into giving us the option to dive. Preferably with its arms flailing and a look on its face that suggests every bone in it’s body has just combusted. It would be worth it for the videos of sore losers being cheated out of a game alone.

The greatest things football has given the population in ascending order: The genius of Lionel Messi; Goodison Park; the half-time pie. Overpriced and understocked, perfect in all weathers and the principal reason why people will wander off before the half-time whistle has even been blown. Yet, year after year, FIFA cruelly ignores the lukewarm joys of sinking Suarez like gnashers into a half-time pie.

It’s easily rectifiable of course. All I’m suggesting is that a real-time Kinect mini game replaces the current yawn-o-vision highlights. Said mini game should have you rubbing your hands trying to keep warm, moaning about the completely useless ref (with extra points for inventive profanity) and making exaggerated 'disappointed' gestures when you realise they’ve sold out of all the pies. All in the comfort of your living room! Only once have you experienced something as soul-crushingly awful as losing out on a (fake) pie can you truly appreciate beating Leyton Orient 1-0 in the 89th minute.

So why hasn’t FIFA given us a taste of football’s universal language? I’m not asking for commentators to swap their vocabulary with Ray Winstone, but the sanitized player reactions clearly need the occasional swear to really sell the idea that the game is bigger than life and death.

If you follow a football team, you and your wallet are acutely aware of just costly supporting them can be. Maybe you get this season’s kit and a ticket to one of their games. Then you realise that means no more food for the month. And if you want to go for an away trip? Well get ready for some non-essential organ harvesting...

Yep, EA needs to find a way of extracting the maximum amount of money once you’ve bought the game, something that will get you parting with your cash week in, week out... Hang on, sorry, I just realised I’m describing Ultimate Team. As a hapless, recovering UT addict, I try my best not to think about, lest I whack another tenner on fake player cards. Fair play EA, you’ve been nailing this aspect of football for years. Well played. Let's exchange shirts and walk into the tunnel hand in hand.