It is hard to really get a sense of how people will view the Microsoft E3 press conference this year. Xbox head Phil Spencer told us in advance that it would be nothing but games and it was that for sure. Still the selection of titles shown might have left some scratching their heads. One thing is for sure and that is Microsoft has a significant number of exclusives coming and if you like them you will want an Xbox One if you are only now deciding which console to buy.
For our money the most significant announcement was release of the Halo Master Chief Collection which will give you Halo 1, 2, 3, and 4 with the first and the second one remastered in HD for the Xbox One. It has everything unlocked and you can play it any way that you want to rack up that 4,000 achievement point using its all-in-one universal interface. It will run at 1080p 60fps on dedicated servers and include all of the content, maps, DLC, etc, from Halo 1, 2, 3, and 4. It also gets you access to the Halo 5 multiplayer beta. It arrives November 11th, and there is no word yet on exactly how much it will cost, but it is rumored be $99 at release.
As for new things, Microsoft came out swinging with a Crackdown reboot for 2015, Phantom Dust reboot, Scalebound from Platinum Games, and Ori & the Blind Forest from Moon Studios. Crackdown, Phantom dust, Scalebound, and Ori & the Blind Forest are all Xbox One exclusive. Tom Clancy’s The division will come with extra content for Xbox One when it ships in 2015. Once again all of the COD: Advanced Warfare DLC content will come first to Xbox One. The new Playdead title called Inside will be coming first to Xbox One. Rise of Tomb Raider was shown and looked good, but no release date was announced, we think it is a 2015 title however.
Forza Horizon 2 looked fantastic and very large, it will arrive on September 30th of this year. Sunset Overdrive is coming exclusively for Xbox One on October 28th and honestly it was the title that we could not stop talking about. News that it supported eight-player multi-player on dedicated servers was just icing on the cake. It looked amazing and so far, it our surprise hit of the show.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is coming October 7th, 2014 and Microsoft announced that the DLC content for the game would be coming to Xbox One first. Fable Legends is coming with a multiplayer beta release this holiday season. We were also treated to a look at Assassin’s Creed: Ulity which looked quite good and the ever amazing Evolve from Turtle Rock which think is going to be the sleeper hit of this year once it gets released. Speaking of Evolve the Xbox One owners will enjoy an exclusive beta as well as timed content releases ahead of other versions of the game.
The only real mention of Kinect came in the form of the news that a new Dance Central Spotlight is coming for the Xbox One from Harmonix in September. Fantasia is also still in development and will also be released later this year. Other than Dance Central Spotlight, there was no real mention of any other Kinect titles.
Microsoft appears to be ready to shake off the slow start that they got off to. I am not sure that everyone is going to think that they hit it out of the park with this E3 presser that is for sure. Still I think they delivered well on the message that the Xbox One is about games and they showed a good number of games. While you might question some of the games that they showed and complain about the lack of Gears of War news for Xbox One, it still was a successful showing, but well they have the enough titles for this holiday season and the answer appears to be, “Yes”, they will have a good selection of titles for the holiday season and they need them if they are going to move consoles.
