I just had to say something about that event because microsoft has been driving me crazy with how bad they have been marketing these things.

Last e3 they had the chance to do something without sony there and they showed the cinematic for the "escape" mode from gears 5!!! Cinematic! Not even gameplay! When they should have been showing gameplay from the campaign, which was great!

Now we have their first marketing event for the new xbox, for next gen and they still haven't learned their lesson! They keep showing underwhelming cinematics or gameplay from AA game studios(no offense to these studios). But it just doesn't sell next gen and it doesn't sell this new console.

They even said there would be new assassins creed gameplay and they didn't deliver that! Like the gears 5 thing all over again! They need to get it together for their first party stuff. But I don't think they will. They will just show some cinematics from each of their games that won't be that interesting.

Just wanted to vent a little. Makes it hard to get excited about next gen when I saw this event.

Edit: Now, I came into this presentation with much too high expectations. Looking back at the games now, that they showed, it looks like they are running around 60fps(I think the stream was around 30fps) with ray tracing(maybe) and higher levels of detail(I like how "the ascent" looks. Could be a cool game at launch.

Overall, I was kind of disappointed but I still like some of what I saw and it looks like the footage from assassins creed was in engine gameplay, just not behind the back. And I'm pretty impressed by that.

Maybe they're scared to create hype if the launch is going to be pretty soft.

@shindig: yeah, maybe. The covid 19 situation is probably making things pretty tough for launch. I just have to remember the situation we are all in and it's really rough probably to launch these consoles this winter.

I just wanted to be hyped for next gen haha.

What's crazy is that was actually all gameplay. Xbox was just showing off their the new "No HUD" and "Dynamic Cameras" next gen tech. Finally, video games will look like they do in trailers.

@brian_: I hope that the assassins creed trailer was all in engine gameplay. Would have liked to see some third person combat or just free roaming haha. I'm sure it will be a good game. Just hard to know how it will play based on what was shown.

Both this and the Sony stream from March suffered from the same problem. What PR says and what people hear aren't always the same thing.

Sony said "GDC talk", people heard "PS5 reveal!"; Microsoft said "Inside Xbox for 3rd parties", people heard "Series X reveal!, gameplay gameplay gameplay!". (They shouldn't have said AC:V gameplay when that is what they had to show, to be fair.)

However, a console reveal stream has certain expectations: splashy announcements of the big new IPs to come, socks blown off from graphics, an appetite whetted for the next 5 years of games and sequels.

Neither stream delivered on that, neither company said they would feature that. But it doesn't matter what they said, what matters is what people heard.

@kingloo: yeah, I think I should have kept my expectations I check a bit. Just a bit frustrating. I know that cd project red, Warner brothers and ea etc... will all have their own reveals. It's just too bad that xbox just decided this was the first thing they were going to go with. Just underwhelming.

I expected a bit more, but some of those games looked really solid.

Games now generally look pretty good, so I've grown accustomed to Twitch streams feeling underwhelming. If you want to show off next gen features it feels like you really gotta dig into the gameplay.

Still budgeting to buy both consoles this year, even if at launch it's only 3 or 4 games that grab me.

@csl316: Thinking about it, I'm kinda getting used to it. Like they didn't show any of the open world elements of gears 5 until it was on store shelves. Maybe it's just hard to get a good build of the games ready to show at these events.

I thought it was super-underwhelming. I guess maybe there needs to be a strategy shift with the launch in terms of launching a console in the current environment, but that did very little to show me why I should be excited about their console. I would have hoped that they would have shown at least one big name exclusive, but most of the presentation was a bunch of third party stuff that you can get anywhere.

And what was shown wasn't exactly giving me the fizz. A lot of it either looked derivative (Ascent - look, it's Cyberpunk + Orcs!), or was so obscure I don't know what the game actually is (Scorn). Then there was the AC:V bit, which not only promised gameplay they didn't actually show, but looks even farther away from the kind of game I want than I was expecting.

So yeah, sort of a nothing presentation. Very little that made me move out of the "wait and see what PS5 has" camp.

Things I've learned:

• I can't really tell between this gen and next. If you said this was holiday Xbox one I would believe you.
• Hair tech in games still seems underwhelming. Guess everyone will have Nu-metal haircuts still.
• The animation in bloodlines looked... poor. Those dance moves looked real bad.
• The benchmark of "look at those cars" seems like it won't work anymore

@therealturk yes, i think i'm largely in agreement with you.

until systems are in boxes and games are on shelves (digital or otherwise) i'm not too concerned about what is pre-rendered or contrived vs. live hands-on-controller gameplay.

i will say i found all of the IP on display pretty disconcerting. it all was either tonally darker than i was prepared for, or really derivative- and i'm not one to shy away from intense stuff (i thought the hellblade 2 reveal was friggin great, and i'm super stoked for TLoU2 despite it being super downer).

the whole thing feels like it was more successful at saying "whoah bro, don't get CUT on all this (early dev) EDGE we've got!" rather than "whoah bro, look how sweet next gen will be on xbox!"

Seemed pretty dull to me. Can't say I'm interested in a lot of the games they showed. And the one I wanted to see, Assassin's Creed, hardly qualified as the gameplay that it was announced to be. They're probably saving the big guns for their summer announcements, but oof.

I dunno man, when did all the games get so dark and gory? I mean I don't mind some spooks here and there, but I'd liked to have seen at least a couple of colorful happy things.

Also, because I don't really like Assassin's Creed, it felt weird for someone to tell me that it commands "respect."

I've pretty much decided that I won't be getting a Series X. I only buy consoles for exclusives since I play mainly on PC, and Microsoft first party titles come out on PC anyway. Because of that, I wasn't really hyped going into it, so to me it was just a jankier E3 conference.

@kingloo: I mean they literally tweeted out on the official xbox account that there would be gameplay shown...

What is more impressive and also makes me wonder, are how smooth these "gameplay" videos look. There's so much going on now with visual effects and animations, yet the video never chugs or stutters throughout, at least to my eye. Maybe the next Digital Foundry video will analyse frames from some of these clips to see what's really going on.

What's already raising concerns for me though is that none of these games were running off the actual hardware or showing real gameplay. They're still just ideas or trailers. So, until we see an actual game with the HUD and UI, it's still not gameplay in my mind.

It's impressive, but it's not convincing me. If they can get games to look that good and run that smoothly, that's pretty damn cool. Is it worth whatever price tag the Series X and the PS5 are going to be? Not sure many people can justify the price for that. I'm thinking Microsoft and Sony need to extend the life of the current consoles by a year and developers need to bite the bullet for now in graphical innovations.

I was hoping to see gameplay that would make me excited or interested in what the next-gen consoles could do and it didn't really deliver on that. The selection was strange but I guess maybe when we get to the first party lineup they will show games with bigger scope. It's something that the best looking game of the bunch was an indie thing that debuted on Steam a while ago. I'm interested in Vampire but that is the sort of game that requires a 20 minute gameplay playthrough that shows off all the abilities and options in a neat vertical slice.

As someone said in the chat, maybe since this isn't a gigantic stage like E3 developers were just not going to bother with killing themselves making an enticing but throwaway vertical slice for a web stream.

Also Ben is WRONG as always, Bulletstorm 2 is something absolutely worth getting excited about. But how can a man that ate his first hamburger at age of 22 be right about anything really..

Haha, same. I had a wonderful 7 hours with Assassin's Creed in my buddy's basement back when HD and big screens were a relatively new phenomenon, but every AC I've tried since (II, Black Flag, Freedom Cry) all just feel horrible to me. The only respect I really have for that franchise is how it's managed to sustain itself on such a mediocre foundation.

Happy so many millions of people are satisfied with it, though, as well as how many wetwork studios it keeps in business around the world!

@nodima: Same, it's not really for me but people seem to like it a lot. So that's cool. I had some good times with it over the years but hit open-world fatigue pretty early in this generation.

Its not even June yet, most developers are not ready to show anything even without the Covid-19 problems.

Sony hasn't reveal anything yet we don't even know how upgrading to next gen will work on PS5, like the Series X smart delivery.

Any new game revealed at inside Xbox risks being tied to Series X via brand association no major pub would do this without being paid. Its no coincidence most of the titles show today have some sort of exclusivity.

The one caveat I have or question mark is pretty much all the previous games from the developers shown either don't run or look super impressive even on the 1X, so I have a hard time believing any of these trailers.

You'll be happy to know now there is a split where some people are loving this new AC that started with Origins and others like myself (and the esteemed Vinny Caravella) prefer the way the older games played. I would go as far as to say that they sort of ruined AC and made it into yet another open world slog with random loot, but sadly a lot of people like this new direction.

I'm working from home and could have been far more productive during the 30 minute stream of current-gen looking trailers. I would also like to say that I'm surprised that another "Jeff" in the game industry was confused and overly defensive about people being frustrated with Ubisoft and/or Microsoft for not showing regular gameplay footage of the new Assassin's Creed game. The other trailer said gameplay reveal and what we got today wasn't that. I'm pretty sure that's misleading and underdelivering on what was advertised. It's not the end of the world, but people have the right to be disappointed that such content didn't air this morning.

@humanity: I have less than zero interest in an Assassin's Creed where the hidden blade isn't always a one hit kill. Adding RPG stats to my stealth/assassin game really ruined it for me. Its a shame too because back when I was playing AC2 and there was a rumour about one being set in Egypt I couldn't have been more excited. I didn't even play Origins.

But, I've made my peace with the fact that series isn't for me anymore, and that's fine. People really enjoy the new one.

I wanna just chime in and say your probably not gonna see anything mind-blowingly next-gen from Microsoft any time soon. They stated rather publically that their first-party games are all going to run on the current Xbox consoles, meaning none of them will be able to fully leverage the new tech inside the console and you'll see almost all third party publishers do the same cause it means they can make more money developing for the higher install base platform. Microsoft knows this, its why when they showed off the Xbox series x specs they only demoed older titles to show what the operating system can do. But you're not gonna see any games that have zero loading screens or impressive improvements in things like game ai until developers can fully focus on the new platforms. Your best bet at this point to see a mind-blowing next-gen game is from sony as they have said there will be PlayStation 5 only titles, meaning they can actually make used of the hardware advantages.

Like don't get me wrong, there are games that will look way better on Xbox series x but better looking isn't really gonna sell next-gen for most people and if all those games are coming to a console they already own then why would you buy the new one for upwards of 500 USD unless you're a crazy fan of xbox.

Huge props to Xbox for making the transition from current to next-gen as smooth as possible, with your games carrying over and getting "Optimized for Series X" for no extra cost, but that's not gonna sell that hardware for a loooong time to come. Most people will look at Madden 21 and see that they could play it on an Xbox One or buy a Series X for god knows how much it'll cost but it'll have more detailed individual blades of grass and they won't give a damn and buy/stick to the Xbone instead.

I share the sentiment that this event would've been better if they showed off the actual next-gen benefits instead. Like, show the load times for these games or something. Have AC:Valhalla in their suspend mode while another game is running and do the quick resume to show how fast you can get back to doing viking stuff.

The biggest thing holding me back from playing more of Odyssey is that the initial load time is so long and every time I die, I actually feel punished because I have to load for so long to get back to playing.

But alas, there was no gameplay shown for almost any of the games and none of the trailers showcased really any benefit of next-gen.

Some pretty neat games though. Looking forward to playing some of them on PC when they come out I guess.

We have no way of really knowing atm "Optimized for Series X" is solely upto developers whatevers that even means, Madden already has a cost hell it might not even be backwards compatible at all, it could be a separate sku hence the upgrade deadline.

We already know for instance Cyberpunk won't be optimized for the Series X launch, I wouldn't even be surprised if a few third party games have no improvements at all.

I appreciated the non-stop pace of the WORLD PREMIERES, but some of them were such vague teasers that I can't get excited for them. None of the games really grabbed me. I will say that I was disappointed with the Valhalla trailer. They said it was gameplay, and then showed us stuff that was very clearly not gameplay. I don't understand how they can call that a "gameplay trailer" and not expect to be called out on it.

Nowadays, Quick Looks and streams have a much bigger impact on my purchasing decisions than slick trailers. If I was in charge of marketing these games, I would show longform gameplay first and foremost. But I guess Microsoft has a different definition of what "gameplay" is.

"So I need to buy a new console because...?"

@facelessvixen: Yeah, none of those games looked like they couldn't have been for current-gen consoles. The most exciting and "next-gen" thing I saw or heard there was Dirt 5 running at 120fps (although not in 4K).

1. Whats with Sony and Microsoft not seeming to understand when they put out new console discussion people in a general sounding way more people are going to have high expectations? It has all seemed like a mistake from both parties so far.

That being said, I thought it was fine. I saw the backlash and expected it to be a lot worse. But also that was twitter and there actually is a crazy Sony fanboy/console wars mentality on twitter. It's more normie types talking like console wars forums from when I was a teen as grown adults. Pretty funny.

2. Not showing enough. This generation, if it will feel like enough of a step forward, is going to have to stand out in ways that take longer to show than a quick snippet. It'll be scale and load times and things like that. People are going to underwhelmed otherwise.

On next gen AC: Valhalla might allow for some larger scale combat that is dynamic and looks real but unless you put out some actual gameplay people won't see (I'm expecting thats the direction of the game more, not going to be a parkour focused game I don't think).

So, point being don't show if you aren't showing much.

3. It certainly feels like this gen will be very light on real games early and mostly next gen upgrades, which also won't show off the games and possibilities so well to start. It's been the case before though.

@bollard: I actually love RPGs myself but don't even like it so much with the direction it actually goes in. I did enjoy Odyssey for a while but it's no AC 2.

The issue is its they're making it that Ubisoft generic loot based MMO/Diablo feeling RPG over something that feels like the Witcher (even though that was the marketing talk about the inspiration for recent games). They are focusing on all the most shallow (to me) RPG elements. They could instead push story/choice/companions/customization/character builds like the Witcher does but the game does not. If you aren't focusing on choice you aren't like the Witcher 3.

Just for a small example, they don't force any build choice in these RPGs. You can get every ability so its a matter of whatever you feel like using first and then at any given moment once you have them. Instead of picking a playstyle and increasing your power at it or perhaps even focusing it more or adding a few new tricks, the path of upgrade in that RPG is simply to have the ability to do everything by the end. Its a big change.

Seems maybe like just player friendly but in the end removing all build choice is shallow and actually destroys a lot of RPG feel. You don't get the cool stories about how you did things differently than others, the cool feeling of realizing how open and diverse a possibility space is, or the challenge of having to adapt that good RPGs give you. That's the same thing ethos behind all of Diablo III that I personally really hate the full effect of it on an RPG.

To me what I liked most in Odyssey was the visuals and the group enemy AI and behaviors, which was a poor mans version of MGSV, which is still a good compliment from me.

Long and short, as someone who loves RPGs and wanted more games to have RPG elements, seeing developers just slap the Diablo loot system and MMO scaling on their game and call it an RPG sucks.

@bollard: I have very similar feelings on the matter - especially about the hidden blade. Also I have to admit that I've always carried a chip on my shoulder regarding Origins because on my launch PS4 it performed really poorly in heated combat and it actually was the tipping point where I decided to get an XB1X to avoid having to play poorly optimized games for the base units. Funny enough, still didn't help cause plenty of games still have performance issues even on XB1X, but overall I'm actually happy to have experienced the other side of the fence during the second half of this console generation.

Showing the benefit of next gen in a three minute trailer is very difficult or even next to impossible. AC Valhalla is a cross gen game, how enhanced will it actually be?

It'll probably just have better resolution, LODs, better draw distance and quicker loading.

Most first reveals are bullshot anyway shown on high end PC with eveything turned up to the max showing the difference would be like pixel counting in a DF video not exactly great viewing in a three minute trailer.

Being an open world cross gen game apart from the inital load every other load screen would be hidden by transition animations and be exaclty the same on next gen, again not great viewing.

Every game for MS will be cross gen most of the loads screen will still be there exaclty the same hidden by slow walking and elevator rides, what better graphics they have will likely get butchered by Youtube/Twitch compression and better frame-rate won't show a better looking game.

Ubisoft is not going to sell Series X for MS they won't downplay the current gen version to sell next gen version.

@thepanzini: Well I agree the trailer length was a problem. It would require a more open, long form trailer like say the narratred Rockstar ones to do.

And as far as your cross gen concerns, trust me, I agree. In the past the gen upgrade versions were minimal in added benefit and I'm not sure to expect anything different here. Like I say, I see possible benefits in say bigger maps and more AI NPCs on the field and I don't know how that stuff could scale.

I'm happy with the power level the specs out there seem to be hitting but yeah without a focus on it nothing is going to feel much different for a while.

Was alright. What I expected. Been around console launches long enough and its the usual. Skorn was probably my pick. Color me intrigued. I'm open to some wall phalluses and vagina foreheads.

This is more of the same as current gen. When it comes to resolutions and frame rates-- all them fidelities, you can't convey it over the internet. Current hardware looks way better in person on a nice TV than some low bitrate online video. And new hardware doesn't directly translate to new gameplay experiences. The games are just going to be even more pretty and hopefully perform betterer. Loading speeds and seamlessly streaming in assets will potentially alter some game design. All fine with me. PS4 and Xbox One aren't different from PS3 or X360 in terms of game evolution either, and look how well all that has sold. The PS4 has been great for me.

I can of course understand people are disappointed they said "gameplay" and didn't really deliver on that. This is why you need to operate on a high level of cynicism in life. It technically was video of gameplay. It was not video of someone playing the game.

Around the time that David Cage looking title came up, I turned to my fiancee and asked her was it just me or are they really pushing a whole lot more dark/horrific looking games than usual?

I wonder if they "over produced" the "underproduced look".

Think about it, a the average big YouTuber brings together video, animations, low-thirds text, and camera switches. So, I think Microsoft totally could have produced something, but they wanted to look like a "Zoom Meeting". And, simply put, the look of the production value & feel bombed and was underwhelming.

So, my feeling is, they made a choice - that 'choice' when combined with little of the in-game gameplay promised was a huge disappointment.

Let's look at the positive:

- Dirt, Assassin’s Creed, and Yakuza look great.

- They put something out

- Even the gross H. R. Giger stuff was at least 'interesting'. I'll never play it; but, they put it out there.

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I think they BIGGEST problem both Sony and Microsoft will have along with all the big publishers is: You can't see the high res graphics and convey the lovely sound design of games on a "compressed" video feed. These system are really about trying to convey the tech with games that are not ready to show you how that tech will really be used. How do you convey fast loading? How do you convey 7.1 Dolby? How do you convey HDR 1440p @ 60fps or above? To show off these games you really need to do videos that works like a Digital Foundry "break-down" vide where you stop the action zoom and and say, "See all the wild flowers have individual petals!"

Some people bagged Sony for giving a GDC conference online to the public, but I think that si what you HAVE TO DO. It won't be evident in trailers what different or exiting; because the high tech interesting things are all ABOVE the resolution & audio quality of most video streaming. It has to be explained -- it HAS to be explained.

Meh.

I think it finally gives Sony a chance to win back some of the narrative. Eagerly awaiting Knack 3: Knack Meets Knick, so hopefully they capitalize on it.

There really wasn't anything in it that looked "next gen", the best looking game was Yakuza, which is already "out", Dirt 5 looked shiny but why was there no terrain deformation? We were doing that 2 generations ago, i don't need it but i couldn't point to anything in there that couldn't run today.
Then there was Assassin's Creed, i love Assassin's Creed, but they mis-advertised the trailers going in, continued to do it during, and then put out press releases continuing to do so, just... ugh.

Listen, i know times are hard during these hard times, but you can't tease something amazing that isn't there before hand, then act like a stage presenter on a webcam in your weirdly clean magnolia gaming office yelling how amazing everything is, when it isn't, set expectations, if this was a low key presentation with some measured and human presenting the worst thing people could say is that it delivered what they expected, maybe there would even be some people surprised by the weird games shown.

It says something that the only moment of excitement for me in the entire press conference, despite liking Assassin's Creed, Vampire the Masquerade, Bright Memory, and the aesthetics of HR Geiger and the Ascent...was Yakuza 7, and then only because I thought they would FINALLY give us a goddamn US Release date...

It was about what I expected from an Inside Xbox thing except I was pretty annoyed about the AC:V "gameplay" that super was not gameplay. The July event sounds like a proper barnburner based on the scuttlebutt I've been hearing and Sony's probably got a good event coming in the near future so I'm not too put off.

Xbox doesn’t control what Ubisoft edits and sends in to Xbox. It’s all about eh verbiage tbh. Looking at the promo image, it reads as First look at Xbox Series X gameplay. These companies I would expect to have their own event anyway, I would expect. EA is for sure, and I would expect Ubisoft to follow suit. This is literally just a bunch of trailer edited into a 30 minute video. Xbox did their job. It’s a first look, at gameplay.

Frankly I loved what I saw, and it was great watching during work hours, glancing over every once in a while. For a May event so early in the year before launch, it made me have a very nice smile.

Out of all that, Scarlet Nexus I’m probably looking forward to the most.

This was literally the problem, this wasn't just another show it was our first look at next gen gameplay. MS were selling next gen being next gen and a reason to buy in, showing games from smaller devs looking no better than AAA current gen isn't selling the new generation.

In 2013 Sony ended their reveal with Killzone Shadowfall gameplay not possible on PS3/360.

The Medium has enviroment/world switching made possible thanks to SSD's a real good reason for next gen, the dev even said on twitter they could have shown alot more but MS capped them to a 2min trailer, Dirt 5 is also going to be 4k/120fps on Series X yet the trailer only advertised 4k/60. The show was lacking its big moment and failed to provide context as to why any of these games are next gen.

And the last problem was bullshot none of these games were actually running on Series X. Bright Memory Infinite on SX was advertised as 4k/60 with raytracing, PC's with better specs struggle to run this game at 4k/60 never mind raytracing its never gonna happen. Running cuurent gen games at 4k/60 is gonna be a challange, I have a hard time believing smaller devs will do it with raytracing.

ehhh.... besides the scale of the visuals that game was a wrote ass game. didn't impress anyone.

Point being console releases are often pretty lackluster.

@thepanzini: Even though that’s all like a thing, Xbox’s only job is simply spit out what the 3rd party devs edit in their studio. Trying to prove why these videogames exist is not their problem. Again, Microsoft simply needs to line up the you the in a neat little timeline in Media Composer, and they’re good. Their stage was simply their desks. Having to defend a 3rd party’s footage, is simply not their job.

It’s a early year May event, and their job is simply to entertain. Given that we’re gonna be on virus mode for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if PlayStation does something similar. Nvidia could have a show, they might as well. They also might simply edit out a timeline of unfinished products, of projects that are scattered across the world like bones tied together with string.