E3 is the showcase for the “Big 3″ companies (Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) to unveil their brightest and most promising pieces of hardware and software, and encourage buyers and critics to stay loyal to them for the next 12 months. After every E3 conference, mixed reviews of the 3 press conferences result in an interesting pattern emerging  in the stocks and shares of the companies involved. For those who don’t really understand stocks, the higher the price of the shares, the better it is for the companies – more stock bought = share prices go up, and the inverse is also true – more stock sold = share prices go down. Lets see how the land lies after 2 weeks have passed.

Microsoft (MSFT) started the E3 conference off and gave a solid, if unenthusiastic, performance (see here for more info), and gave some interesting concepts that resulted in the stocks for Microsoft soaring shortly after the press conference. The stock prices have consistently remained high following the “leaked” news of the new games console and the features it may contain, and also the announcement of Microsoft Surface, the tablet announced to be used in conduction with Windows 8 and also “SmartGlass” (although any tablet is allegedly compatible with that feature). With Microsoft shying away from Kinect, and concentrating on sports games, hardware and TV, it seems to have renewed faith in it’s brand and the stock prices are reflecting this, and are currently the highest of the “Big 3″, and also their highest valued stock for over 2 years.

Sony (SNE) arguably had the best E3 conference this year, (read about it here) it was confident, had a number of strong new software products, but didn’t really have a lot to announce regarding the PSVita. It could have been Sony’s time to shine with a handheld device which has it’s own ability to game “cross platform” and could have easily outshined the SmartGlass announcement, and the WiiU gamepad announcement, but without the relevant software behind it, the PSVita ended up looking a little unloved. Following the confident showing, the stock prices for Sony soared, and stayed high for a few days after the conference, but soon fell again as most of the software on show was at least 6 months away from release, and the PSVita was all but ignored. Their stocks are rising again now, but for the moment they are in the weakest position of the 3, following their lowest stock prices for over 2 years and half of their value from December 2011, and much lower than either of their competitors.

Nintendo’s (NTDOY) stock prices started to fall as soon as the conference went to air. It was an odd show (read about it here), which didn’t feel cohesive or important, and it felt strange that they didn’t include any news on the DS console (instead referencing a second conference just for that). The main conference was devoted solely to their new hardware and it’s launch titles, the WiiU. It didn’t help Nintendo that some of their games had already been displayed by Ubisoft earlier in the conference, and that the games they were showing were essentially “Party” games or remakes of games that have been on existing consoles for a while (see Batman: Arkham City). Nintendo’s stock prices fell, and fell, and fell some more until they have also reached the lowest level they have for over 2 years. Thankfully, they have started to rise again, and are currently worth more than Sony’s, but they have halved in value from  July 2011.

This isn’t all related to their conferences at E3 though, this may be part of a long-term problem that reflects changes in the economy (following the Eurozone crisis), and changes in consumer buying habits. Microsoft seems to be right on trend at the moment, but will the others be able to keep up?