The Annual E3 Microsoft press conference thread, 2017 edition

[BRiT]

@Riddlewire , I don't think that's an overall fair assessment of the conference. Yes, it was focusing on Xbox One X (Project Scorpio) but all the games they show still run and operate on Xbox One S which received a $50 price reduction today. I do think they failed to showcase enough reasons to upgrade to Xbox One X, but they still showed amazing games for the Xbox Family of consoles.

 

[Cyan]

C+

Pros:
- Indie Games
- Forza
- Metro
- OG XB BC

Cons:
- 499
- Very few 1st party games looking interesting

D- for me. Metro, Ori 2 and original Xbox BC saved the conference. But it shows they dropped the ball in regards to invest in exclusive games. Hope they bring the Xbox/Xbox 360 emulator to the PC. No Diablo in the conference either..

 

[Riddlewire]

@Riddlewire , I don't think that's an overall fair assessment of the conference. Yes, it was focusing on Xbox One X (Project Scorpio) but all the games they show still run and operate on Xbox One S which received a $50 price reduction today. I do think they failed to showcase enough reasons to upgrade to Xbox One X, but they still showed amazing games for the Xbox Family of consoles.

You're right. I wasn't thinking of the conference. I was thinking of the new device.

The conference was very standard issue. I think it probably looked pretty good for people who own an Xbox One/S and intend for that to be their gaming platform for the next several years. For Scorpio-hopefuls, I still consider it disastrous.

An overall C.

 

[Cyan]

F
Not a troll grade. It's an honest assessment. F means failing grade. I think this console fails to offer sufficient value at that price point.

also

I'm looking forward to the rush of "We built a Scorpio-crushing PC for $500" articles. Which, by November, will probably be pretty easy.

500€ for those who have a 4k TV or monitor might be good, though. For everyone else, I think the Xbox One S is the deal.

 

[Nesh]

C.
I feel that people genuinely had more expectations from this conference especially on new AAA exclusives that would turn the table. Underwhelming I d say.
X feels like a missed potential as well as the opportunity to demonstrate exclusive immersive high budget content similar to what competition has like Uncharted and GoW that has been missing for quite some time from the XBOX platform.

Its not like they demonstrated enough of X capabilities either. I was expecting MS to show at least a couble of new super impressive exclusives showing games you cant find on competition.

I would even go as far as to say that the crowd at the conference were partially dulled in a similar fashion as they were in some of MSs other conferences and required a push by placed attenders

 

[Jay]

I'm surprised they went into the tech the way they did, talking about things people including knowledgeable people will have know clue about.
a couple comparative zoomed in screen shots would've been better Imo.
I'm not sure people will understand/appreciate the benefits of xo-x, apart from ultra hd, e.g. 4k dvr & streaming. I'm assuming they will be shown in follow up shows, but i feel they need to get that message out at the reveal. Now it's $499 resolution resolution box.

a lot of peoples view of the show will be clouded by the price, would've happened either way to be fair.
all games seem to be released within a year window.

i wasn't overly impressed, but. I seem to have thought it was better than some of the people here.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Oh yah, cuphead finally getting a release date. That's an instant buy for me. Super Foxio World, I mean Super Lucky's Tale, could be a decent substitute for Mario since I don't own a Nintendo. Sea of Thieves is still a wait and see for me. Not sure how the game won't get repetitive really quickly. Lots of good games in the indie reel. Had my eye on Battlerite for a while.

But again, this was something like 100-110 minutes, including revealing a sports car on stage. WTF! I had to open a second browser window so I could read the news and watch soccer highlights and keep an eye open in the background. They made me bored of Shadows of War, which is a game I actually really want to play.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

F
Not a troll grade. It's an honest assessment. F means failing grade. I think this console fails to offer sufficient value at that price point.

also

I'm looking forward to the rush of "We built a Scorpio-crushing PC for $500" articles. Which, by November, will probably be pretty easy.

I'd be highly impressed if this happens. After Case, PSU, CPU, MB, memory, HDD/SSD, Keyboard, mouse, controller (some multiplatform games don't really support KB/m much to my dismay) and Windows OS (Linux Steam library is a joke and most of the new multiplatform games aren't going to support Linux) that doesn't leave more than maybe 50-100 USD (If that) for the graphics card at a 500 USD price point. And that's only if you go with extremely cheap components that could fail (IE - cheap PSU or MB) or be unreliable for 4k at XBO-X quality levels or provide unreliable framerates (cheap CPU).

If it was going to be that easy to do 4K @ console settings, we wouldn't have had to live through a year of people saying 4K on XBO-X is impossible because you can't do it on PC. And while 4K @ console settings is certainly possible on PC at the moment, it does require a beefy system.

Regards,
SB

 

[BadTB25]

I'd give it a B-/C+ largely due to the price of the XBOX

I had a lot to like in this conference for me---highlights being Ori, DBZ fighters, and Anthem that really stuck out. Some ID@Xbox games that I will probably get as well. OG Xbox BC was huge for me as I've kept almost all of my Xbox games.

 

[BRiT]

My Conference Rating

The variety and quality of games was nice. I really liked quite a few of the games shown, but I don't think that was enough. What was stunning, in a bad way, was the total absence of First Party Exclusives. Yes, they had Forza 7 and it looked amazing, but there should have been more. The material shown leading into Crackdown 3 was cringe inducing. It must be in development hell.

They didn't show enough compelling reasons as to why one should get their new mid-gen console, Xbox One X for $499. Despite many users saying that it provides $100 more than the other mid-gen console, they needed to come in at $449. This leaves the door wide open for Sony to crush it by announcing a $50 price drop.

After reading all the other assessments I feel a grade of a C is fair.

 

[manux]

I would side with C too. F would be to totally flop the show and MS definitely didn't do that. A+ would be to come out with a show where nearly everyone aspires to own xbox one x.

What failed for me was MS failed to justify why I should buy xbox one x. There isn't clear reason what is the advantage of xbox one x over traditional pc system or ps4pro. Most games that were shown were not my cup of tea. However I could easily see how someone else thinks the games and way they were shown are dynamite.

If I had been in Microsoft's shoes I would have tried to make it clear why xbox one x is the console to buy. Maybe emphasize and explain what 12GB of fast memory does when combined with scorpio engine. Now I feel the message was same tickboxes ps4 pro can check(4k, hdr). Or maybe we truly have hit the diminishing returns at it's nearly impossible to show difference over stream and microsoft folded that idea.

As a vr enthusiast I had hoped microsoft would have shown vr solution for scorpio. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

 

[DrJay24]

So no big surprises? $499 console (second one this gen!). Crackdown 3 this year is great, video was bad. I still have it pre-ordered.

I just don't get the Xbox X. They were so butt hurt over the XB1 being weak they over compensated and made an expensive console very few are going to buy. If someone did not buy a $400, $300 or $200 XB1 why would they jump in now? Consoles play games, having specs isn't enough especially late in the gen. Seems like they are reacting to 2014 and the war has moved on. I can see the hardcore MS fans upgrading, but that isn't a very big audience, I guess they can brag about power for the next couple of years, that is nice?

 

[mrcorbo]

Conference was OK. Nice mix of games, though not many of them were to my taste. That's on me, though. My tastes are narrowing as my gaming time shrinks. It's simply easier to wrap my mind around the familiar and the shorter the learning curve the more time I get to actually spend playing and enjoying.

Xbox Play anywhere continues to be the best thing going for me because I can play all of those games on my preferred platform.

That $499 price was what I was originally expecting, then I thought maybe they'd target $449 due to the price moves by Sony necessitating an adjustment by MS. Once Keighly said $499, though, I immediately went back to my original thinking. It's a halo product. To put it in graphics card terms, it's a Titan XP not a 1080 Ti. It's not about marketshare or selling in volume or being a great value, it's about having an offering for people who want to own the biggest baddest console on the planet and don't mind paying more for it. And I think there's a market there. This product isn't a game-changer for this gen that's going to move needles and change sales trends, but I never thought, from the time it was revealed, that it was intended to be one.

Xbox BC was a pleasant surprise and I think it fits nicely with their strategy of providing ongoing value for people who have invested in Xbox software over the years. If the goal is to convince people to buy software on their platforms, it makes a lot of sense to me to visibly reward those who have been doing so for years and especially those who have been doing so for the longest.

 

[Johnglen]

F.
No big exclusive games to showcase a new 500$ console. Most games being showed were bottom of the barrel small games that very few people care about. Unbelievable lack of big budget games. Scorpio price too high became unbelievably high when taking into account that ms showed nothing to justify scorpio's existence . Phil spencer looked so nervous on the stage, like he knew he was on a suicide mission, I have never seen him that nervous. No surprises whatsoever. The hype ms executives have created for a year turned against them.

Honestly I am speechless about how horrific this whole charade was. Hell even the t-shirts they gave were embarrassing.

 

[Scott_Arm]

F.
No big exclusive games to showcase a new 500$ console. Most games being showed were bottom of the barrel small games that very few people care about. Unbelievable lack of big budget games. Scorpio price too high became unbelievably high when taking into account that ms showed nothing to justify scorpio's existence . Phil spencer looked so nervous on the stage, like he knew he was on a suicide mission, I have never seen him that nervous. No surprises whatsoever. The hype ms executives have created for a year turned against them.

Honestly I am speechless about how horrific this whole charade was. Hell even the t-shirts they gave were embarrassing.

He did not look nervous at all to me. I'll talk a lot of shit about this conference, but that's not something I'd agree with at all..

 

[mpg1]

Upclose shots of Xbox One X:

https://twitter.com/x/status/874039079767121920

https://twitter.com/x/status/874041989309714433

https://twitter.com/x/status/874040563154026496

 

[Johnglen]

He did not look nervous at all to me. I'll talk a lot of shit about this conference, but that's not something I'd agree with at all..

He did. He was clearly stumbling, missing his lines and for a man who undeniably has charisma he looked as if he didn't want to be there, imo of course.

Anyway will freakin halo 5 even get a patch ? So many questions unanswered, but since I won't be buying an x , I won't bother wasting my time....asking them

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'd probably give the conference a B- or a C+.

Unlike many people (it seems), I didn't think the XBO-X was going to be a console for the masses or even meant to directly expand the user base. I thought it was going to be premium console for people with money who feel they must have the best. And like many such items (NV Titan X, anyone?) while unaffordable for many, it's a halo product that is meant to emphasize the commitment of the company to the console gaming market. In other words, it could indirectly expand the user base by showing how good the brand is, similar to halo products for gaming oriented video cards.

So the XBO-X price didn't detract from the conference, IMO.

What they failed to do to get a higher grade for me is.

• They didn't do enough to show the potential advantages of the XBO-X over the XBO-S. Devoting the whole show to do that as Dsoup mentioned wouldn't have been a good idea. It'd make the XBO-S seem like the unwanted console. However, they should have at least done 1 or possible 2 showcases where they showed the potential visual upgrade you could get with the XBO-X.
  • Caveat - It may have been hard to showcase some of those things in a stream with stream compression (like reduced aliasing or better AF)
• While I personally don't like exclusives, I recognize how important they are for bragging rights for console makers. And while there were a lot of timed exclusives, there weren't any pure console exclusives that have blockbuster potential. State of Decay 2, for example, is excellent but it's a bit of a niche market. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is likely to be absolutely amazing, but again platformers are a niche market.

Regards,
SB

 

[MrFox]

how would you rate the MS conference people?

From the point of view of someone with all sony an nintendo platforms, and a gaming PC, but no xbox to upgrade...

5/10
Difficult to figure out which games are timed, it was a weird footprint wording but the voice was misleading with a straight "exclusive" for everything. I hoped they wouldn't repeat past mistakes.
Lingering on very detailed specs we already knew about scorpio.
Zombie games is something I can't get excited about anymore. (I have the same comment about sony's upcoming one)
Forza looked great as usual, but the time spent introducing a real car was boring. Same as the previous stunt with the P1 on stage.
OG BC got the biggest cheer of the conference, which should be a little troubling for MS.
Cringy repetitive statements about how great some games will look on the 499 scorpio... But so many of those games are low-poly indies, and minecraft was the icing on the cake. It's not selling 4k or the cost of scorpio. Super high res hdr minecraft had journalists giggle. They pushed the PR too far here.
Didn't end on a high note, it was a third party artificially skipped from the EA conference.
On the positives, many non-exclusives looked great and should sell the scorpio proposition if the comparative videos eventually proves them right (I have doubts).
Among the true exclusives, sea of theives looks really fun despite the simpler graphics.

No VR. No AR. After calling VR among the important reasons to get scorpio, partnership with oculus, vive, PC headsets from acer, and a lot of time spent with (fake) AR last year... Now it's absolute radio silence!

 

[mpg1]

Biggest problem with the press conference was simply the lack of AAA games...especially not great when you are simultaneously showcasing "the most powerful console".