We Talk Over Microsoft's Gamescom 2015 Press Conference

FYI that first shot after Halo guy shooting, the one where an Elite is holding up a Spartan, is from the Halo Wars trailer.

"Fighters Megamix 2!"

Glad I went back to watch this lol

ALL UNITS!!!

I don't get the warm drinks thing. You usually get shit ice cold in Southern Germany, especially in the summer. Maybe it's a Cologne thing?

Tribes didn't work for making CTF into an esport. Halo should stick to more DM or control point type modes for their esporks push, flags do not mix with a slow console shooter.

Igarashi with the hat and whip on stage is the best.

AAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL UNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSSS

You're concept of what a schnitzel is is bizarre. Wienerschitzel the hot dog chain is in no way related to schnitzel.

I feel they will be very confused and disappointed if and when they do take a trip anywhere over here and find that it's nothing like this strange version of reality they have constructed in their minds. And that each country is different!

In a perfect world they would get a crazy budget to do some kind of summer roadtrip visiting interesting dev studios in say the UK, France, Netherlands and the Nordic countries. And go to football games. And the location of Contradiction. Can you imagine the videos Drew, Vinny and Jason would make? That won't ever happen of course!

Ok so they changed the main character in quantum break?

Or multiple characters?

Well, things happened there. Crackdown 3 being called Crackdown 3 is a sensible move.

Anyone notice the music playing before the conference starts is like a remix of the XP set-up music? Sick jam.

Not bad, Microsoft... Not bad.

My country is topical!

I feel like this was a better showing than e3 for them, personally though Crackdown's showing was a big letdown.

They could have used this as a chance to talk about things that are important to super competitive Halo players but also effect regular players like balance. They could have talked about the tools that were going to be available. Instead they wasted a significant chunk of press conference time on a badly conceived, canned esports segment that conveyed very little info. I'm not saying the esports guys shouldn't get any time, but for gods sake don't make the entire Halo 5 segment just about that.

Almost all of those games involves guns. That fact makes me start to get fucking tired of video games.

Man, all this multiplayer e-sports stuff sure is something I don't get.

There is so much wrong here.

GiantBomb staff laughing at Europe and football, it never ever gets old.

It would at least have made some sense if they coupled that with an "Halo 5 for Windows 10!" announcement, which i actually expected because they showed it off after the "Everything from now on will be on Xbone and Win10!" but that's still Xbone exclusive...

If you want to sell me a new Windows version at least make it a meaningful change, like bringing back Halo to PC. Minecraft for Windows 10 and gimped Xbone wireless controller support for Win7 won't sell any Windows 10 copies, it will only make people despise Microsoft even more for their shitty corporate ways.

It's gotten cringe-worthy how MS tries to appeal to a userbase they obviously have no clue about, even tho it's been their userbase for over 2 decades..

That whole segment had been completely misplaced, as next to nobody in Europe cares about Halo as an "E-Sport". CS:GO, LoL, SC2, even FIFA all of those are popular, but Halo? That game ain't even considered a real FPS as there's no PC version :P

Man, still using the same sounds and animations from Dark Souls 1 in the third game seems lazy as fuuuuuck.

Sea of Thieves was always coming to PC.

BANE?

Hearing Chris Charla say "family bomb shelter simulator" made my evening. Video games y'all.

Crackdown 3!

Xbone? Oh... Guess I won't be playing that ;_;

God that halo demonstration was one of the worst things i've ever seen. I cringed so hard my face hurts.

Watch Us Watch the Sony Gamescom Press Conference

Brad @ 22:15

Wow, that Halo esports thing sucked. Everyone who they would want as their target audience to watch competitive Halo is way into CS:GO and doesn't give a fuck about this.

@eribuster: For sure, usually when esports shows up in a conference it's handled really poorly. I just have noticed some push back though here and there to esports in general from video game people and it's always struck me as super weird. I do think that's gonna go away as the audience for that stuff keeps growing and devs/publishers are gonna keep trying to find a way to fit that in to grab that audience. Hopefully they do a better job of presenting that stuff in the future.

Agreed. Although as someone who has been into competitive Halo for 7 years it still felt awkward but it was cool to see those people featured in a press conference. I think the main reason they felt they had to do this was because the entire scene imploded when Reach was released since it was so terrible for high level play. Halo 4 came out and that failed for competitive play too. Pretty much at this point like half of the really dedicated fans that were into the competitive scene have completely given up on Halo and haven't been paying attention to H5. Because of this the only way to tell those people "hey we are really supporting this esports thing now" is to put it directly into promos like this and at press conferences.

You know Jeff does not believe in loyalty when he mixes Nike kicks with Adidas short socks.

I think that Jeff made wayyyyyy too big of a deal over the whole Halo 5 esports segment. Sure it was kind of lame that they were commenting over a pre-recorded game, but it was still an opportunity to see the game in action and see some high-level play between two great teams. I don't particularly care for esports or ever watch any of it online but that segment was far from being as terrible as Jeff made it out to be.

nah, Platinum just needs to make him MORE of a dudebro. They said he's from Earth so let me set the scene: Brother Drew "The Brew" from Alpha Sigma Nu is transported to an alternate dimension just after he drank a few forties and was totally about to hook up with this hot chick. Now he's stuck on a world full of goddam LARPing nerds with a fuckin' dragon and needs to find some way to get back to his prized polo t-shirt collection.

Looking good lately @jeff! Keep up the weight loss man!

That one also caught my attention. I just wish it didn't have wise crackin' nouveau Dante dude bro protagonist.

Also, wtf how come Lara Croft doesn't wear shorts anymore. I'm boycotting this shit.

My son (8) plays Halo Wars all the time. He is going to FREAK OUT.

ALL UNITS

Creative Assembly + Halo = Joy

I still get the impression they are trying their damndest to turn the ship around, and they're getting there little by little. Quantum Break looks pretty and while it felt a little too pedestrian compared to Remedy's usual fare I have hope they'll bring it home in the end.

#getbenjuddawhip

Biggest announcement? Blast Corps 2

I really dont care about Microsofts franchises anymore. Halo and Gears im just done with, they were great for years but im not into them at all anymore. Burnt out maybe, or just moved onto different things. This weird esports angle they are taking with halo 5 is a real turn off. Show me the good stuff to make me change my mind, not terrible esports. I was interested to see Scalebound but that was extremely disappointing for me too.... dubstep, lame character and the dragon did everything for you. meh. Iv been willing to let Microsoft convince me to buy a xboxone to go next to my ps4, they are trying but its just not doing it for me.

Yeah, I have enough trust in that developer to think it's gonna turn out great. But I agree, it needs to nail the time stuff.

Quantum Break looks like it will be either really cool or really lame, depending on how the time manipulation mechanic is implemented. I feel like there's no real in between.

Also lmao @Jeff's reaction to the Halo esports.

"Who's that?"

"Don't worry about him, he's just there forever."

I wouldn't regret being Max Payne ever.

Also, (1) many places have free refills and (2) many other places will give you a can of soda with a cup of ice to pour it in yourself.

Microsoft did a good job. Not enough for me to get an Xbox One, though Quantum Break is very tempting. Still, any Xbox One owner who is worried about their console's future will probably be happy. And free last-gen games is a nice touch.