I enjoyed what I saw. Still getting a PS4 this year (yes, I like Infamous that much) but I can wait another year for the X1.

@colourful_hippie:

Be surprised. Microsoft is publishing and owns rights.

You reek of it.

@fizzylift: Opinions on what constitutes middling exclusives is a personal thing - but the vast majority of the conference was exclusive content; Ryse, Forza 5, Halo, Spark, Dead Rising 3, Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, TitanFall, Below...

In fact, they showed just a few muliplatform games, and by comparison to previous conferences it was grossly lopsided in favor of exclusive content. If those games aren't your thing - cool, get the system that sells the games that are. As I said earlier - as someone that likes all genres and both major consoles...this was a great start.

@batmeng: You seem upset over my opinion, maybe it's you who belongs on 4chan pal.

Quantum Break, Project Spark and the Insomnia game looked interesting.

Everything else is either available elsewhere (well up for The Witcher 3 but don't need Microsoft for that) or the same old stuff with shinier visuals. At a reasonable price I would've been open to convincing, even though I think the DRM stuff is hideous.

At £430, though? I'll revisit the Xbox brand in 2 years and see if it's worth it after a price drop. In the meantime, I'm Sony's for the taking if they're smart. And I say that as a 360 diehard this gen who really disliked the PS3.

@fameoner: *cough* Alan Wake *cough*

Don't care about it not going to PS4, but I can see this going to PC. The tv show thing or whatever that is going along side it is the only thing that makes me think it will stay exclusive for a while.

I enjoyed EA more then Microsoft.

Microsoft appears to be confused about who their target for the Xbone is. They focused on television and sports in the reveal to appeal to non-gamers. However at a $499 price point they seem to be selling to just hard core gamers.

I will say though that this press conference was way better than their first. I was much more interested in what they were showing.

I guess but i don't think everyone was of the mind that show a bunch of games equals win. The way it was set up MS have only the games to sell people and many are like a few games were cool other were alright or on other systems. That does not sound like a $500 buying attitude to me.

Ryse looked pretty terrible (not graphically), the rest of the exclusives looked good or alright, but nothing mindblowing so far

The vast majority of the conference was also a complete avoidance regarding the system's policies on dealing with content rights and customer freedoms. Which is a major reason people keep remaining suspicious and reluctant to climb in the "I'm sold!" chopper. Saying "people complain when they don't show games. Then they complain when they do." doesn't really represent the true feelings of those towards Microsoft's current stance on the gamings and such.

The only question is, how much do you care that they don't seem to be worried about going too far to control your gaming experience. A couple of new games won't distract from that.

the shit show that would create would be legendary

They did what they needed to do, which was show mostly games, ignore all the hard questions, and little else except the price. The price is on the high side but not totally to be unexpected. In fact if they took out all the crappy DRM rules, I'd pay $500 without blinking.

I do wish some of the unknown could have been more exciting, they honestly did "wow" me with anything. It was typical stuff that didn't break any new ground or make me think something 'new' was being demonstrated.

I'm happy that Remedy isn't putting all their eggs in one basket and going "okay, here's all the game's mechanics and how they work". Leaves something for curiosity and intrigue. There are A LOT of things they could do with the time manipulation theme, and it looks like the story could pack a real punch if it's handled properly.

I expected $500 dollars, but sometimes I forget how expensive the Euro is.. I guess I should feel more sorry for our European friends? Can't you build a good gaming PC for under a thousand? $500 seems reasonable to me... Wait... unless you still have to pay for XBOX live to play online.. ugh..

@simkas said:

Well except that I'm in Canada...where it will likely carry the same sticker price as in the US. But maybe you didn't know that the world is more than Europe and USA.

@batmeng: I can respect that - but you can't honestly believe that the majority of people are wholly concerned with that --- because if so, then Sony would be facing the same type of ire since they've released next to no information about their policies moving forward with Online Costs/Services, Used Games, Connectivity Requirements and on and on.

If the criticism is that Microsoft hasn't clarified those things properly for people (even though they have with used games and online connection requirements and console costs) - then it's doubly so that Sony should be held to the fire for discussing none of them to date.

People compain about 660 USD? Lol, I just bought a graphics card (770) for about that price.

As I predicted, no Xbone game is going to convince me to have the little to no self respect needed to purchase one...

@thetenthdoctor: The example of playing Wii games on a PC isn't about a direct hardware correlation. The reason is takes so much overhead is simply an issue of emulation. That's what puts such a strain on the PC. You're running something that isn't native, through a software layer, without the assistance of hardware acceleration. So everything runs purely off of your CPU.

Well, no offense, good for you that you can buy a graphics card for that much. $600 is a lot of money for a lot of people for a device such as this.

Just the facts:

$399USD - Xbox 360 Launch price in 2005

$475USD - Equivalent price in 2013 allowing for 19.1% cumulative inflation

Unemployment rate in the US in 2005 roughly 6% (compared to current estimates of 7.5% today)

$499 = monthly rent payment for a no frills apartment outside of most major city centers.

$499 = 1 month's groceries for a small family

$499 = entry model iPad

$499 = 8 full price current gen games

$499 = 48 hours at minimum wage job in San Francisco

$499 = 5 months worth of iPhone unlimited data plan.

$499 = 100 Pepperoni P'zones from Pizza Hut

$499 = the announced price of the PS4 in a few hours

My thoughts: $500 in it's own right as a monetary value (and equivalent value in P'zones) is a lot. Relative to the value of a high-end gaming platform of today and based on the value of components alone it's more than fair. Relative to it's value long term over the course of 6 to 8 years it seems arbitrary to contest the price would make any more sense $50 or even $100 cheaper.

@pj: Yeah - I'm someone that does read all the blogs - and I still thought it was great. Was interested in all those games, even Spark. I'm excited going forward.

I note they matched the old iPad pricing region for region; likely it's not by accident.

Sony and Microsoft aren't treading through the same levels here as of right now. Microsoft does deserve more criticism, not just because they have muddled the waters regarding what they have presented, but also, and mainly, because of the actual content of their strategies. Regarding drm, regarding ownership freedoms. Regarding the intrusiveness of their system - and THEN not even clearing that up.

Those sounded like terrible features, and a lot of people are upset about it. Is the majority wholly concerned with that? Which one? The people who spend the time on the internet and follow these kind of things? Yes. I would say that the majority of those are worried about that. Maybe not the majority of all those who will eventually buy an Xbox. But I'd say that none of those people spent their time waiting for those press conferences to begin, anyway.

And since Sony hasn't given ANY information regarding their stance on those issues, yet. Yes, we'll have to withhold scrutiny until all the evidence has been presented. Though I'm expecting a smiliar path for their choices. But we don't know.

In terms of quality? That may be more up for debate.

Does anyone else feel like Alex is overly mean to everything he review's/reports on.

Anyway he is right about the $500 price point that is painful.

This was Microsoft's best press conference ever, by far. Still, that price point just reeks of cramming a Kinect into every box, and is a total ripoff for anyone outside of the US, where half of the features aren't available.

I think they made their strategy on DRM, rights and customer freedom more or less clear with that press release Giant Bomb spent about 30 minutes going over. I completely understand if that isn't the answer people are looking for (it's not the answer I wanted either) but they've been more upfront at this point about it than Sony has. The tools are there for publishers to restrict the shit out of your content should they decide to. Whether or not they implement it will be determined by how well the games sell. If BF4 sells as well/better on XBOne w/ those restrictions as BF3 did on 360 without them, get ready for a bleak future. If it doesn't, they can back peddle pretty quickly and remove it from future games, maybe even patch it out of older ones.

Basically at this point XBOne could be as draconian as gamers are willing to suffer, but based on previous gamer rage over things like Origin and (this is wayyy back, but still...) even Steam, only to completely fold and buy the games they want on those platforms anyway, I have zero faith this generation of consoles will be any different than previous gamer "boycotts".

@almightyboob: that would be deliciously evil, and amazing.

What does the title even mean?

This conference was exactly what people were asking for.

I have an Xbox and a 360, so it is pretty astonishing that Microsoft has turned me off so much. The games look okay, but the technology is just a computer at the same price as other computers, but somehow with way more DRM.

The more I learn about the Xbox One, the more I lean toward just doing a PC/WiiU combo for the next generation unless Sony surprises me by protecting the consumer instead of the publishers.

MGSV looked neat, but it's not platform exclusive. I really want Forza, but I can't justify throwing $500 down on the console alone to get it. Didn't care for Ryse, Dead Rising 3, Killer Instinct, Titanfall or Sunset Overdrive. It seemed like most of the games I did actually care about weren't console exclusive, so hopefully Sony has some exclusives games that I want. While I certainly wasn't underwhelmed by the press conference, I'm still not very excited for this platform.

As for price, $500 seems totally fair to me. Considering how quickly people are to drop that kind of money on an iPad or phone that will be out of date in a year's time, spending $500 on something that's going to last me 7 years or so is pretty fair; $500 over 7 years is $71 a year, which only costs $4 more a year than a single new game here. It just seems to me like peoples expectations on pricing are almost always way out of whack compared to the technology and longevity when compared with most other common technology.

Damn but it seems that after watching Xbox E3 that every game was built in Europe or by Europeans. Hardly an American or Japanese among them.

Good press conferences from EA, Microsoft and Ubi, hopefully Sony can keep up the trend and it'll be the first ever year where they all nailed it.

At this point, Microsoft could have announced Elder Scrolls VI, Fallout 4, Final Fantasy VII Remake and the next Zelda game were XboxOne exclusives and people would still have a problem with it. I'm not saying they are wrong, but after that initial reveal and the DRM stuff, some people refuse to be appeased at this point. It'll be interesting once we have a full view of the lineups, prices, online strategies, and DRM strategies of both consoles where the collective opinion will fall. Personally, I'm trying to keep an open mind about all options this generation (PS4/XBOne/PC).

Fear. MS allowing publishers to set their own used price is an incentive for them to focus on making X1 games. Sony will have to follow....unless the PS4 is already designed to do the same. The "it will play used games" announcement doesn't tell us much.

You think the PS4 won't be the same price? That's cute. Expecting the One(ugh) and the PS4 not to cost something around what an iPad does is stupid. As electronic entertainment goes, the price is standard fair. Buying a iPad or a good smartphone cost the same or more. Don't see the point of complaining about a $499 price on a device that you will use for years to come. No one is complaining about buying a new iPad for more every other year. Also, Microsoft (and maybe Sony) will have some sort of subscription deal that makes it cheaper to buy within a year of launch, even faster if they don't sell all that much.

Mishmash could also be seen as diversity. I think it was a pretty good, varied list of games. Sure, I'm not interested in all of them, but that is to be expected. We'll see what Sony has to show during their press conference. But I'm not sure I want a new console to be honest, getting a new PC is looking more and more like the right option for me. Weird times, could not see myself saying that a couple of years ago.

Especially after that leak saying that the DRM is probably worse than we already know about- he was already right about some of the games that would show up (world of tanks), and if that turns out to be true... Before I was going into it thinking that the DRM is basically like Steams but a little harsher, but if it's worse then there's no reason for me to want it.

Sony has to have a similar system in place. Remember, it's not Microsoft that wanted this in the first place(though they are hardly complaining), it's the publishers that want this. Ether Sony has it, they don't and Titanfall is what happens(Big publishers won't fully support the system). And is the online check really that big of a deal? I have a 100mbit/s connection and everyone i know also has a broadband connection. I have never experienced the network going down for longer then a couple of hours and that was years a go(granted it could have been down when I've been at work). And if something happens and I can't connect to the internet or the Live service, I positive I can handle not playing games for a few days. In fact, I last played a game 4 days ago. It's not a big deal, people just like to have shit to complain about.

Roguelike?

Eugh, I highly fucking doubt that. All commercial "roguelikes" have either not been (FTL, Spelunky, the Binding of Isaac) or have been garbage (Dungeons of Dredmor, The Pit).

But who knows, maybe they aren't just cashing in on an indie buzzword and blithely ignoring three decades-plus of genre history like everyone else who uses the term in a high-profile context.

*Runs off to play another Samurai in Junethack*

I want to get a clearer picture of what the PS 4 is up tp. I just do not know if this is going to a 3 machine household anymores, and Sony despite their problems has room to impress me. I'm still not sure why the X-Box 1, though I am less hostile to the price than some. At a certain point, progress and sophistication cost money

@ei8htbit said:

I think Sony could potentially come out at $450 just to be able to say they are cheaper, but in the long run, $50 is merely a "symbolic victory". Anybody that can afford $450 for an entertainment platform can afford $500. I agree though, this idea that $500 can buy a months worth of groceries and whatnot is specious. iPhones, iPads, game consoles, $1000+ gaming PCs are not coming from anyone's food or rent budget. It's DISPOSABLE INCOME. Sorry, but people that hard up for cash don't give a fuck if the new Xbox is $200 or $500 just like I don't care if the new Ferrari is $250,000 or $500,000 because I can't afford either.

As for the power-to-cost ratio of the PS4 and/or XBOne consoles vs. PCs, since when is this news? It's been like this since about the PS2 era. Maybe people are just catching on now, I don't know. I've been a PC gamer almost as long as I've been a gamer period, and if you have the knowhow to build a PC yourself, it's easily the best bang for your buck. But a lot of people (I guess) don't have that knowledge or just want something that "just works" or want this console exclusive or that one.

the $500 price point could be very important or totally meaningless depending on how much the PS4 is

@optikal:

True- but my point remains. Build a PC with similar specs to the Xenos GPU and 512mb of ram and try to play Tomb Raider. The 360 runs that game equivalent to PC's medium settings @720p30, yet the comparable PC probably couldn't manage 10fps @640x480.

All the talk of building a comparable PC often ignores the differences in architecture, VRAM access and tuning for a closed ecosystem.

Rather just grab a GeForce GTX 680 and 8 GB more of RAM for around the same price TYVM.

What did people expect the 360 is still 400$ with kinect, so of course the XBONE would be 500$ or more, thats just economics.

$500 ain't the crime. It's that $50+ of that is for the Kinect Trojan Horse Edition.

The way I see it, I paid more for my Ipad mini 64gb and will have my XBONE for longer and use it a lot more so I am pre-ordering tomorrow.