It’s a damn shame that I gave my XBOX One away because Microsoft Press Conference blew my mind, this year. I mean, to be honest, their Press Conference has always been hit-or-miss with me, But, this time, a hit for sure. More like a home run. So many things to talk about.
Right away, the audience was gripped with a trailer of Halo Infinite, the latest installment of the Halo installment. Speaking of audience, let me go on record by pointing out the obvious: their energy was much more positive than EA. And, the energy grew with each game that was announced for their 2018-19 lineup that only expanded their Gamer’s Pass library (which they made sure that they would provide an update for) but their overall library as a whole. Let me tell you, CDs are going to be a thing of the past if the gaming industry has their way. Especially since they’re adding a cloud gaming initiative “designed to deliver “console quality steaming” to any device.
Another wonderful thing that Phil Spencer announced was the acquirement of five studios, one of which that was recently created:
- The Initiative (newly created)
- Undead Labs (State of Decay & State of Decay 2)
- Playground Games (Forza series)
- Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword & Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice)
- Compulsion Games (We Happy Few)
Then, they keep the ball rolling by announcing FIFTY GAMES!!! That’s right…FIFTY!!! Now, I’m not going to list them of all because not only them appealed to me BUT I will list the ones that I’m really be waiting in anticipation for:
- Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- The Adventures of Captain Spirit
- Kingdom Hearts 3 (Yeah…that really caught me off guard, too!)
- Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition (Finally, get to beat the game)
- NieR Automata
- The Wind Road
- Dead Cells
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Devil May Cry 5
- Tunic (So cute!!)
- Jump Force (Not a huge anime guy but I like them)
- Battletoads (I know, right?!)
- Cyberpunk 2077
Among the other announced was Gears 5 along with Gear Pop!, a mobile game with a Funko partnership, and Gears Tactics, a tactical version of the game for PCs. You can imagine the screams that emitted from the crowds. Along with that, Just Cause 4 and Battlefield was shown and received massive positivity from the audience.
Finally, a prequel to the Fallout series was shown being called Fallout 76. They explained that it will take place in West Virginia and will be FOUR times the size of Fallout 4. Yeah, FOUR!!! Bethesda sure does love their sandbox game, I tell ya. Haha! Oh! They’re also moving Fallout 4 to the Gamer’s Pass library so that’s even bigger news.
And, to cap it all off…ANOTHER XBOX is in development. Jesus…I need to take a breather after that conference. Now, since they announced more games I’m not interested in, I can’t give it an A (don’t judge me). But now I need to acquire another XBOX pretty soon I’m going to give this press conference a much deserved 84 out of 100.
