The Annual E3 Microsoft press conference thread, 2015 edition

[BadTB25]

Funny that they are showing more about the controller now on Xbox Daily with promises to go indepth tomorrow. I really like this format that MS is doing. Reveal game at conference and then take their time going into details in this talk show type format.

Yeah it's PR, but it does answer a lot of questions.

 

[Cyan]

Even if none of the content appealed to you, the best part of this conference was the general pacing. Very little talking, and straight to the point. I wasn't sure I truly appreciated it until I realized the amount of content they went through in 1.5 hours in comparison to EA's conference (also 1.5hrs)

That, and not seeing Call of Duty once again was a good thing too. It always took a lot of time in any conference where it was shown and that way there were other games that could be seen.

 

[Rangers]

Yeah, I am completely shocked at the $150 for the controller. I was thinking $75 to $80 range at most, though I was hoping it would be $60.

Yeah I thought maybe like $90. It's probably a pass for me at that price. I guess they are kind of using it as a boutique profit generator, like a high priced special edition of a game.

The Xbox 360 emulation was a matter of "want to" for Microsoft. It was always going to be doable for them, especially with the XBOne's eSRAM available to be a stand-in for the 360's eDRAM. I remember bkillian speaking on the arduous task of thoroughly testing each of the supported titles being a much bigger "cost" than actually making the games work for the team that handled the 360's original Xbox emulation.

I thought the sheer clock on the 360 CPU would make it impossible. The way they talked it sounded quite easy, like they dont even have to hand tune the games like they did on 360 (though I'm sure they do which is why it's only select games).

I did a lot of complaining earlier about the BC software emulation cost and that it should have been spent elsewhere, and I still stand by that in general, however thinking, BC may not be as expensive as I thought. Like this:

Cost a $50 price cut for one year, $50X (minimum) 10 million consoles shipped=$500 million

Assuming salary of one engineer~$100k, cost of ten engineers working on BC for a year=$1 million. Cost of 100 engineers working on it (seems reasonable to me) =$10 million. So maybe MS isn't crazy and it was a targeted expense they deemed worth it.

I played through Halo 2 on BC on 360, and it was a very poor experience. Loaded with bad visual bugs throughout. Considering how high profile that title was, I only shuddered to think what less high profile games must have been like.

 

[Scott_Arm]

that controller is for pro/competitive gamers

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'd spin off all the BC specific posts into a single thread. I suspect this topic will run a while.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/xb1-backwards-compatibility-e3-2015.56984/

 

[Cyan]

that controller is for pro/competitive gamers

So how would you rate the conference this year people? I'd score it with an 8.

Nice conference overall -one of the best E3 in years, all companies considered btw- and I only missed more Rare and Age of Empires.

 

[rokkerkory]

I'd rate the conference a solid 8.5 because they showed me games that would be coming SOON to the system, including BC games... glad I held onto some of my older 360 games that I really liked such as Viva Pinata. Good to see them invest in new IP as well, that's a great thing coming back to MS Studios. New controller is wish to have but way too rich for my casual gaming blood. Hololens is amazing but waiting to see more application of it. I'll admit I am not into VR but that was just too cool. Gears remake is great and looking forward to Halo 5 big time with warzone mode.

Great time to be an Xbox gamer.

 

[dobwal]

Funny that they are showing more about the controller now on Xbox Daily with promises to go indepth tomorrow. I really like this format that MS is doing. Reveal game at conference and then take their time going into details in this talk show type format.

Yeah it's PR, but it does answer a lot of questions.

In total agreement on this point. Best Xbox E3 conference experience for me so far. A big part of it is experiencing E3 through the Xbox One. At least the Xbox related content.

 

[Rangers]

I'd rate it maybe a 6 or something like that. Halo 5 I was beyond thrilled with, but beyond that it got dicey. Gears 4 didn't blow me away, Gears Ultimate wasn't really shown that much, etc.

Tomb Raider, another bland ice climbing demo like every e3 of the past 500 years, could not have been more dis interesting. Also the fact it's on 360 caps the visuals and kills my little interest (not that I play TR anyway)

I'd rather they did like a big stage demo of various games. It was odd Forza 6 was barely shown in some short trailer too.

I think no (especially) QB, Scalebound and Crackdown hurt them.

Too me I'd rather they had gone front and center with long demos of Halo 5, Forza 6, Gears 4, and Gears Ultimate to start off.

BC is neat to discuss I guess but realistically is not something I'll use. As I stated I played only one BC title on my 360 last gen (Halo 2). I still have my 360 hooked up too for that matter. And again with my poor BC experience on 360 I'm not expecting much, and it seems there will be a ton of hoops to jump through, starting with a large download of every title to even begin.

The controller is definitely cool but $150 is just crazy. Even $100 would have been far more realistic.

I'd have much rather they had focus the show more on triple A games and price. Even a cut to $329.

 

[MrFox]

$100 was what I expected. I have a logitech f710 on my HTPC which I'm dying to replace, this high end controller could have been worth dealing with the *cough* wrong layout *cough* for a much better build quality.

 

[AzBat]

Ton of hoops for BC? Don't you mean like very little? I tested one I had "Ready to Install" in my digital library: Viva Pinata 2. After a 5.6gb download & it was running with no problems. PAINLESS. This feature will be much more useful due to the digital games you own. A lot different than the original Xbox that had none.
MS can sell digital versions(or give them away to Gold subsribers) for the rest of the XB1 lifespan & don't have to worry about having to make expensive remastered versions. More time to spend on making new games as Phil would say.

Tommy McClain

 

[eastmen]

The controller is awesome but way to expensive. I would have instantly bought at $80 , thought about it long and hard at $100 and maybe if I could hide it from my gf buy it at $120... but $150 she will find out and I will be killed

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yeah, I am completely shocked at the $150 for the controller. I was thinking $75 to $80 range at most, though I was hoping it would be $60.

Yeah, literally too rich for my blood but it's smart marketing calling the controller the "Elite" and focussing on accuracy. They'll likely tell a ton to people who think it'll significantly improve their game. But as a concept, a customisable controller is a great idea

 

[Nisaaru]

I thought the sheer clock on the 360 CPU would make it impossible. The way they talked it sounded quite easy, like they dont even have to hand tune the games like they did on 360 (though I'm sure they do which is why it's only select games).

Thought the same especially because of Altivec. But I assume there is some advantage of faster memory, replacing some widely used engines/libraries with optimized x86 code giving a net benefit which compensates most CPU emulation/translation issues.

 

[FarticusMaximus]

I thought that was a very good E3 show. The pacing was perfect, the games shown were great, and mostly available now or soon, the previously unannounced stuff like Sea of Thieves, Gigantic and ReCore look lovely (Blue skies really are back!), and of course BC is a proper megaton.

Minecraft AR looked really cool but it's not something I'll ever experience. Same for the Elite controller. Too expensive for me and besides, the current controller is perfection.

The early access program announcement, along with Elite (hoorah for cross-play!) and DayZ was very good news, as was mod support in Fallout. That needs to be adopted for more titles.

Tons of Indie cuteness and oh my - a Rare collection.

The usual suspects (Forza, Halo, Gears) are all looking lovely too, especially excited about the new Halo multiplayer mode. PvPvE?

For me it's easily the best E3 show I've seen.

Kudo is still a bit weird though. Not as weird as the wild-eyed, overacting wizard-looking dude Ubisoft had on stage to show For Honor (which looked fantastic).

 

[Deleted member 86764]

BC? I tested one I had "Ready to Install" in my digital library: Viva Pinata 2. After a 5.6gb download & it was running with no problems. PAINLESS.

I guess it must be a full download then and you just need the disc to run it?

 

[AlNom]

Gears demo was awkward.
No Forza gameplay demo - looked like 30 fps replay.
Halo 5 showing was boring.
Croft was more linear cinematic nonsense.

BC was shocking, but it'll take time to deliver decent games.

 

[liolio]

Wow I'm quite impressed that MSFT managed to pull backward compatibility out of its hat, there might be some serious coding kung fu masters behind that feat.

 

[goonergaz]

I thought the Elite controller was a controller designed to help with the game Elite

Is there any decent footage of the BC what I saw looked like really low framerate.

 

[orangpelupa]

yeah Gears and Halo looks too CoD-ey.

and i really dislike the corridor closed heavy scripted gameplay in Halo 4. Much better when the arena is big and i can go there, go here, like in Halo Reach.

no complain with the gears though. It seems still fit to have cod-style.