Microsoft promised us that they would have nothing but games at their press conference today and they delivered on that promise in spades. The problem Microsoft had with their press conference today was that they were operating the dark cloud of the DRM system they announced late last week as well as the news that the system has to report back to the mothership in Redmond every 24 hours.
Here's our wrap up of the event
Talking Points
- More titles in development now than ever before
- Still supporting the Xbox 360
- Helped 200 indie developers launch 400 games
- Lots of new Smartglass stuff coming and new features for games
- Microsoft is working with Indies to get their games on the system in their own way
- 60fps is kind of important
New Things
Brand new Xbox 360 which mimics the look of the Xbox One
World of Tanks is coming to the Xbox 360
Xbox Live Gold members will get two free games up until the launch of the Xbox One starting with
Halo 3 and
Assassins Creed 2
New Xbox One games/ Exclusives:
- Ryse
- Killer Instinct
- Sunset Overdrive - new stylish shooter from Insomniac Games
- Forza 5
- Minecraft
- Quantum Break
- D4 - A new episodic murder mystery series with a cool anime look
- Project Spark - a new game creation game that allows you to easily create new games and share them with friends
- Crimson Dragon - a spiritual successor to Dragoon Orta
- Dead Rising 3
- Halo
- Titanfall - new game from Respawn
The Xbox One will be out in November for $499
What they didn't say
- No clarification on any of the outstanding questions around DRM and used games
- Microsoft did not announce any price cuts for the Xbox 360, could and should happen once we get closer to the launch date of the Xbox One
- No new Kinect or family titles. Kinect was used a few times during the conference but not for long and not as a primary focus of the presentation
Summary
Microsoft actually showed a lot of great things at their press conference today but the press conference was marred by some unscripted gaming banter that could be construed as a rape comment and by the $499 price tag. While some of the games looked impressive I'm not sure Microsoft did enough to get gamers past the huge mental block created by their DRM and used game policies. That said, they absolutely delivered the goods in terms of new games and the sequels we expected to see.
