Gadgetory

- E3 presentations have been getting longer and longer over the years and based on the past few, the kind of normalish run time is somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half, but this year it sounds like Microsoft might be running potentially as long as a full two hours. And there is a lot of stuff you can cover in that time. I think there is three main general areas they're going to focus on. First off is hardware and I think it's something that a lot of people are looking for out of Microsoft's press conference this year. There's been a lot of talk about different projects in development and if we are likely seeing a system some time next year, now would be the time to at least do the early announcement of it. So if they do that, I could see it being sort of the capsule announcement, something that happens near the end of the presentation where it's like, hey, we talked about all this other cool stuff we're doing for the Xbox One right now, but here's the future. Now something that's a little bit different about this potential announcement though, is that it sounds like Xbox might be working on two new systems, not just one. Normally when we talk about a new generation or new cycle, new consoles coming out, it's usually like, hey, here's the new thing. This is the Xbox One, that's it. Sometimes there's multiple models of that, but they boil it down to being basically the same system, it's just a matter of oh, this one comes with a bigger hard drive and maybe a special color. This time however, it sounds like we might actually have two completely different models coming out at launch. They'd be running the same library of games, but with different emphases, the idea being that we have the Project Scarlett which is the high super power Xbox system in development that could be more powerful than what PlayStation has announced with the PS5, and then a more affordable cheaper option which may even rely on Project xCloud which is, they've been talking about a lot regarding the idea of stream playing games over having to just use the system directly. Now the popular theory slash rumor right now is that Xbox's new system or new systems will be launching in spring of 2020. If that's the case, then it's very likely that what we'll see at this year's press conference will actually be a full reveal which would be awesome. Now if we don't get a full reveal and instead, it's something that's a little more of just a hype up reel, where we just get an official title name and they show us a silhouette, kind of like when they first started teasing the Xbox One X, that means that either the system's going to be coming out even later, maybe more like holiday season of 2020, or it could be that they're just waiting to do maybe a standalone conference focused on the system and have E3 more dedicated towards games and services. I think what's most interesting about this possibility is that if we do get a full reveal that maybe even includes just a light bit of talking about launch titles or things that'll be coming out alongside with it, the possibility of actually seeing real playable demos of these things because on Sony's side, they've talked about the power behind the PS5, and kind of used a reference of like, oh look how much faster it loads these PS4 games. But if Xbox can actually show gameplay for its next gen system, that is a major win in the battle of trying to build up hype for their console versus what Sony has released thus far. Assuming it actually is more powerful. Now while the potential of a big hardware announcement is I think the thing a lot of people are excited for, of course the main focus of the press event is going to be games, lots of games. We're gonna see stuff from third party companies that'll be on Xbox, probably also things that'll be multi-platform as well, but in a recent Tweet, Phil Spencer already announced that they are going to have 14 first party games at the show, which sounds pretty high compared to they've done in the last few years. Now based on games that have already been announced since last E3 or at other events, there's a few of these games that we already kinda know what they are. There's gonna be of course Gears War 5. There's also two Gears of War spinoffs that might be counted as part of that list. One was this kind of more kid friendly POP game and the other one was a tactics game for mobile. There is of course, also Halo Infinite which we're still not entirely sure what separates that from the regular Halo franchise, but it is another title that we at least know exists. And then of course we have some smaller titles that we've talked about before like Ori and the Will of the Wisps which I am super excited for personally. And also a new Battletoads game, which again, we don't really know any fine details of, just that it's a thing that is happening. Now even with all those games in mind, that leaves a lot of space open for new things to be announced, especially if they're going to be first party, I mean, there's always the chance we're gonna see some announcements from EA or Capcom or other third parties they work with, but that is a lot of first party stuff to work with. So, there's rumors going around of whether or not we're gonna see some old IPs come back like Fable for instance or we're gonna see some brand new stuff. Now it is worth noting that the big focus of last year's conference was, hey we're buying up a lot of studios, and so we might be seeing the fruits of some of those start to come in this year. I don't think every single one of those teams is gonna have a game for this E3, but hopefully a couple will have something to show. I think what I'm most curious about when it comes to these 14 games and how many of them are unknowns is what the division is like between the triple A style titles and some of the more Indiesh ones 'cause Xbox usually has a pretty steady stream of some more Indie focused style games, but if we're seeing this many first party titles talked about this year, it would be great to have one surprise as far as something that's going to be really big budget. Whether that is a new Fable which would be cool or something entirely brand new. Whatever it is, one thing that I think we know it's not going to be which is kinda surprising this year is that we might not actually see a new Forza game. There's been a new Forza for Xbox one basically every year alternating between the Motorsport and Horizon games, but at least based on reports from earlier this year, the team behind Forza Motorsport is in still the very early stages of working on the game and instead, the focus might be this year on just working on Horizon a little more, maybe releasing some DLC for it and pushing a new Forza Motorsport all the way til next year maybe even making it a next gen title instead of something for the Xbox One. One other area that I think Microsoft could be spending a lot of time on at this presentation that could be very interesting is their services. This is something they always bring up a little bit for some of their press conferences whether they're talking about Xbox Game Pass where it's like, hey spend so much money a month and you get access to this library of games, and in fact, we already have in recent news the fact that they are gonna be bringing Game Pass to PC in some form. Then of course, there's also Project xCloud, a service that Microsoft has been pushing a lot which has the idea that you can play Xbox games through other devices, whether that's a phone or tablet. There's already been some discussion about the idea that we could be seeing a Beta later this year and full launch potentially next year lining up with their new system. Now what can be really interesting about the services aspect of this conference is that I think a narrative that Microsoft really wants to start pushing is the idea that they are no longer trying to directly compete with all the other companies. Yes, they in some ways wanna make a better system that what Sony's doing with PlayStation 5, that's still there, but at the same time, they wanna make it so that you can access Microsoft products no matter what device you're using. That no matter what you wanna play on or how you like to play, somehow Microsoft can be involved. So as a sort of long shot kind of prediction theory thing, I think there is the possibility that they could talk a little bit more regarding the partnerships they've been developing with both Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo more so, Sony's been a little more in the background, they've talked about working together on their streaming technologies, but Nintendo in particular, we're already seeing something's happened like Xbox Live features being put in certain Nintendo games that are cross-platform and even some originally Microsoft exclusive games making their way to the system like with Cuphead. Part of those early rumors about when we first started getting an idea that Microsoft and Nintendo might start working together, there was the discussion of the idea of Game Pass making its way to the Switch as well and maybe even Project xCloud. The idea that there is a membership that you can have that not only applies to Xbox and soon PC, but also the Switch, and the idea that you could play an Xbox One X quality game, say a new Gears of War title coming out, and do that portably on your Switch via Streamplay. This would be a huge move because they would be dedicating some of that long time of the conference towards pushing the idea that, hey, we're not just about us, we're about being friendly with everyone else. And to give Nintendo just a little bit of time on the show floor. I don't think this is 100% a thing that's gonna happen, but based on things that have been happening over the last year and the kind of narrative Microsoft's been pushing, I don't think it's actually that huge of a long shot. Overall I think this year's E3 is a little bit of an enigma, normally there's a lot of big stuff to look forward to from every company, but this time, with Sony dropping out, and other companies kind of running the well dry a little bit, I don't really know what to expect from all of them. But if anyone's going to have potentially some of the biggest surprises, I'd put my money on Xbox this year.