And we’re onto day 2 of E3 and the first big hitter of the console manufacturers is Microsoft. They had a rough 1st day of E3 as many of their surprise announcements leaked. To make matters worse the leaks continued throughout day 2 with only hours remaining till the conference started. But the show must go on right? Here’s what Microsoft officially brought to us in their conference.
The show starts with a nice tribute from Phil Spencer to the victims of the shooting in Orlando.
Right off the bat we’re straight into the hardware reveal, the first thing shown in the Xbox One S. Price starts from $299 and will be available from August.
Straight to the games from here are Rod Fergusson from Coalition comes out to give information of Gears of War 4. It’ll be the first game that’s cross platform from Windows 10 and Xbox One. The initiative is called “Play anywhere”. The game will support co-op mode across platforms. Horde mode 3.0 is confirmed.
We’re treated to a demonstration of co-op in action. It’ll be out on October 11th.
A special edition GOW Xbox Elite wireless controller is revealed.
Next up Rukari Austin to discuss Killer Instinct. He introduces a new character to the Killer Instinct roster. It’s General Raam from Gears of War. Killer Instinct season 3 will be part of the play anywhere scheme.
Straight onto a trailer for an Xbox and Windows exclusive. Forza Horizon 3. It looks absolutely stunning as you’d expect.
Ralph Fulton from playground games is up to discuss Forza Horizon 3 and show off gameplay. A large emphasis is made of the different ways to play this game (PC, XboxS, Xbox1).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTSUgXkfooA
4 player co-op campaign is confirmed. Everything syncs up when sessions are joined such as weather and time of day. This game is also confirmed as part of the play anywhere scheme. It’ll launch on September 27th.
The next Xbox and Windows 10 exclusive is shown. It’s ReCore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnKT9ZCGgBE
Square-Enix are up next to promote Final Fantasy 15. It’s looking a little rusty to be honest, and the person playing it appeared to forget how to play it. Still, it’s Final Fantasy, and it’s a good call this game being show cased on Microsoft’s stage as it’s the type of game that gets neglected by Xbox owners traditionally.
Next up it’s Ubisoft and a look at The Division DLC. It’ll be hitting Xbox One first on June 28th.
Patrick Bach from DICE on after the Division DLC reveal to discuss Battlefield 1. Xbox and Access members can play Battlefield 1 from October 13th. This is followed up with the trailer from the EA conference yesterday.
Mike Ybarra is on stage after the Battlefield trailer. He discusses Xbox Live and presents some figures. He mentions about the cross play between servers for games like Rocket League.
Background music is confirmed for Xbox Live as well as Cortana.
3 of the most requested features confirmed. Clubs is announced. It’s to create communities between players. Next up looking for group feature. “It’s a want add for multiplayer”. You place adverts looking for gamers to play with you. Finally Arena for Xbox Live. it’s a tournament based platform for Xbox Live.
EA are bringing some of their sports titles to Arena such as FIFA.
Lydia Winters and Sax Perrsons from Minecraft gaming are introduced to the stage. They announce that with Xbox Live players can now play Minecraft with other communities such as IOS. It’s called the friendly update. Minecraft Realms is announced.
Oculus is shown on Minecraft. New texture packs are being released for Minecraft. Addon’s also being released this fall. You can turn zombies to aliens.
Next up is controller customisation.
This is followed up with a Inside from the creators of Limbo. It’s coming to Xbox One on June 29th. Chris Charla from ID@Xbox is up to discuss Inside. He confirms that Limbo will be free for Xbox One owners from now. Next up is the indie reel. Ark will be part of play anywhere.
Guillaume Provost from Compulsion games is on next showcasing We Happy Few. It reminded me of Bioshock. It’s announced as first to Xbox One.
CD Projekt Red next, The Gwent game we all wanted is shown. Xbox One and PC gets the exclusive BETA.
Namco Bandai logo flashes on the screen. Tekken 7 is shown. Michael Murray and Katsuhiro are on stage to announce Tekken will arrive on Xbox One. They confirm a story mode for the game. it’ll be out in early 2017. Xbox Live gold members get a free copy of Tekken Tag tournament 2.
Dead Rising 4 is shown next coming to Xbox One and Windows 10.
Shannon Loftus is brought to the stage after the Dead Rising 4 trailer. Since the launch of Xbox One, Microsoft have brought 13 new titles.
Next up we’re shown Scalebound which is due in 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ZVMU_KA-M
Onto another Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive, Sea of Thieves from Rare. We’re treated to 2 trailers. One of which is the first look at actual gameplay.
And another Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive. A trailer for State of Decay 2.
Another Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive. A trailer for Halo Wars 2 It’s coming February 21st 2017.
Week long BETA starts from now.
Phil Spencer is back on the stage discussing the shift in gaming. Playing without boundaries, a world without generations and uniting gamers wherever they play. Re-caps on the Xbox Live features that were announced. He re-caps on the Xbox One S. But that’s the beginning, Beyond generations…4k Gaming and VR must be delivered. Phil reveals what they’ve been working on. A teaser for the Xbox 1.5 or Project Scorpio. It’ll ship next year. some details…
8 Cores
6 TFlops
320GB/s memory bandwidth
4K/VR Gaming
BC and forward compatible
2017
All 3 consoles are compatible, all games work across all consoles. No one will be left behind.
https://youtu.be/Q-JO61zNhhI
And that’s the end of Microsoft’s show. Packed with plenty of exclusives and new hardware. A shame a lot of the conference leaked prior, but still some nice surprises.
Over to Ubisoft and Sony later on.
– Murr
