Microsoft Press Conference Recap

Tom Clancy's The Division still looks amazing. I just wish they would stop using those campy voice-overs during the gameplay demos.

Super Ultra Dead Rising 3' Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha

All the yes.

So the only two halo games I care about aren't coming then? Well that makes it easy to avoid that collection.

Utterly boring until that last bit...New Crackdown? I loved the original. Haven't played 2 yet, and I know Microsoft is supposed to have massively rushed it/it's a mess. But still, if it's the same developer and they were given time this time...

It's so weird though....at this point Suckerpunch has done THREE Infamous games since the last real Crackdown. I still think Crackdown had some great ideas though that other open world games haven't done, particularly the fact that it's really open world, not "trigger a mission, then do this".

I was leaning XBO until I saw this and it almost turned me off the whole gaming thing. Felt like 5 years dated with way too many guns. Sony's conference was much more forward thinking and they seem to be intent on offering great value with little bit here and there, plus the White PS4 was awesome!

@murderbunny: at this point i think ms /sony know that exclusives are expensive and take time( at least 3 years to get a good AAA) so xbox one/ps4 will have 90% the same AAA games so the difference is about smaller games and betas and maybe timed dlc.

I'm happy because everyone can get to these games on the platform they have spent 400$/500$ or more

After seeing all the conferences, today made me happier than ever that I bought an Xbox One first. Aside from The Order, everything else AAA at Sony was meh. All the indies are timed exclusives and will find their way over eventually, and most of the big games at the MS show look legit awesome. I'm not the target demo for Little Big Planet or Project Spark, but Spark looks like it kicks the shit outa LBP.

What? Dark souls? Metro games? Witcher games? Not ringing a bell?

An exclusive from Platinum Games just sold me on the system. Just like Wonderful 101 sold me on the Wii U.

Dammit, games industry has found my weakness.

no one cared about The Wonderful 101 even though it deserved to be called GOTY by everyone so I'm not sure why Hideki Kamiya on stage announcing an exlucisve Xbone game got everyone excited.......I thought people didn't want good games? Let's all admit it now if that game has any legit challenge at all people will hate it.

It was kinda boring with no real big surprises

Nothing shocking but a really solid press conference. Enough games to keep me happy with my choice of owning an Xbox One.

Thanks for the quick summaries of Microsoft's and EA's conferences as soon as they were finished @rorie, got a picture of what both conferences offered while I was at work. Sounds like Microsoft's was good and EA's was meh.

Now to catch the end part of Ubisoft and fully join in on Sony.

This is the year 2014 and publishers are still showing off pre-rendered trailers? If you ain't got gameplay to show then I don't want to see it.

Like others have said, nothing here has made me go "omg I need to go get an Xbox One". I still have a feeling Sunset Overdrive will end up on PC, Crackdown is the only exclusive shown that I'd want to play but given the glut of open world games out there it's not that imperative that I play it right away.

The hype over the Halo: Master Chief Collection has me scratching my head because so much of it hinges on how multiplayer ends up; this collection has a lot of nostalgia to live up to and if it doesn't deliver well there's going to be a lot of very angry Halo fans bashing the remasters. Claiming H2:A will have multiplayer "exactly as it shipped" is a pretty big statement to live up to... (I bet it doesn't include clan support.)

I'm kinda afraid that Sony's presentation will be equally as "meh". So far, very little has motivated me to care about any of the next gen consoles yet, at least not enough to motivate me to invest in more than my current PC.

If ODST was in the Halo bundle I might be inclined to get an XBONE eventually but I see that isn't happening. As a side note Bungie should make a new game with the ODST style.... In ten years or whenever the Destiny stuff is done.

I thought the conference was alright. Nothing mind blowing, but Microsoft showcased some cool new game announcements at this show.

1. I'm probably one of the 2-3 people on giantbomb who thought seeing H2-3 (maybe other games) pros like Neighbor was pretty neat. Still not going to convince me to buy an Xbox 1

2. Everything else looked kinda neat, but didn't really do anything for me.

The Halo stuff seems pretty damn impressive.

60 bucks for all that Halo is sweet. Sunset overdrive looks sort of refreshing especially after that Call of Duty trailer. I was pretty happy all in all, nothing huge, but a lot of games good looking games.

That Sunset Overdrive trailer and gameplay looked pretty great. I'm relieved I'll have something cool to play this year.

Orin, crackdown and Phantom Dust looked awesome. Glad I went with the Xone

So I guess in a year we will see another Halo collection with ODST, Reach, Halo Wars and ... whatever that touch-interface-game-without-touch-controls was ...

It was a good conference. Definitely better when compared to last year.

There are finally looking to be enough exclusives coming to the system (bleh in general, but that's life) that in another year or so I may want to pick it up.

Really excited for more Tomb Raider, even if they do keep the ridiculous name.

My thoughts on the press conference:

1) I'm happy for the focus on games, but the almost complete lack of any talk concerning the system itself, the Kinect, and Microsoft's 'gameplan' for the future seemed odd. It could just be that they're trying to gain back as much good faith as possible by using all of their time for games, but it also makes me wonder if they're just not really sure yet of what they plan to do since they've been extremely reactionary when it comes to the Xbox One and they haven't stuck to much of anything.

2) Speaking of games, there were a lot of interesting-looking games shown here, but there wasn't really anything which made me want to go out and buy an Xbox One (though I haven't rushed out for a PS4 yet either). Ori and Scalebound both looked like they had a lot of potential, but we saw very little gameplay for the former and no gameplay at all for the latter. Getting certain games 'first' also just isn't a very exciting thing for me compared to exclusives.

3) Even if they aren't exclusives and we only saw a few seconds of each of them, my favorite part of the conference may very well have been the indie games since quite a few of them looked great (Cuphead in particular I hadn't heard about before and the aesthetics alone just about have me sold, hopefully the gameplay holds up).

This final note has also had the unintentional effect of making my levels of excitement for that largely-spontaneous IndiE3 thing going on today and throughout the week rise from 'cautiously optimistic that it won't be a complete trainwreck' to 'actually really excited to see what people will be showing off at it'.

It was a well-paced conference with a few nice surprises. Forza Horizon looks nice as expected, it seems they are doing right by the Halo collection, and the third-party games all demoed nicely. Of course, I'll be playing those games on other platforms where I get a superior experience for the same price.

One big problem with the conference though:

Every significant MS-exclusive reveal was a CG trailer. History has shown us that an extreme overreliance on CG trailers is not a good sign. Just look back at the early PS3 E3 conferences for proof of that. Not only are these games several years off (likely 2016 if not 2017), they won't look at all like that.

I would be much more interested in Crackdown and Platinum's new game if I had any clue at all of what those games are. But when ALL that you have to show is a fake trailer, that due to it's nature, has zero information of the game it is representing except for the fact that said game is supposedly in development somewhere, it's pointless to get excited about the end product.

Good for people that already bought into XBOX but not much for people that have PC and Playstation to make the switch or buy into XBOX.

I am unreasonably excited for a new Phantom Dust.

@iburningstar: Sadly, that was the name that was shown. I REALLY hope that isn't the actual title because...damn, that's a bad name.

Wait, was Rise of the Tomb Raider the actual name for the game? I missed the show so I can't tell if this is a snarky joke or something that actually happened. If this is real then bwahahahaha. Impressively terrible title.

Giant pile of meh. Sticking with PC and PS4.

A new swery game, AND a new Platinum game? Microsoft won my wallet.

@rorie

• Dead Rising 3 DLC is out now?
• Master Chief collection only has Master Chief games, no ODST no Reach
• Phantom Dust is an HD remake

I hope Dance Central spotlight turns out well. That would tempt my fat self to get an xbone.

• Forza Horizons 2 will feature the Nurbergring.

Haha, I think you've mixed things up a bit here. Forza 5 got a free DLC pack today for the Nürburgring, and then they spoke about Forza Horizon 2 separately.

Show was alright, mostly known quantities with relatively little in the way of new announcements that tickled my fancy. I found it a bit odd that the Gears logo popped up during the montage at the end without there being any mention of the franchise during the show.

Quality show. No stinkers, no wasted time. Impressive demos and solid visuals.

A tea bagging joke in the Halo segment, great work, guys...

Just like with the Wii U it is going to take a Platinum game to get me to buy a new console.

Those bastards teased me with more Hyper Light Drifter. I WANT THAT

Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha is out now according to the trailer at the press conference.

It was okay... Hey, you like halo? We got All the halo...

nothing that would persuade me to get a Xbox one it felt a lot like MS played it safe no OMG moments for me pretty predictable to be honest no new IP's and all CGI trailers , oh well lets see what Sony brings later today.

@rorie I think the Nurburgring is coming to Forza 5, not Horizon 2.

Solid conference, nothing making me jealous of having a PS4 instead or making me run to my local Walmart to get a XBO but it was a solid showing. Anything that I was impressed with will be available to me on PS4 or PC so that was the disappointing part if anything.

Thank you based @rorie

Anyway, the game that really piqued my interest during the conference is this: