The Xbox press conference started off the first official morning of E3. Here are the highlights.
There was an immediate mild dig at Sony regarding exclusives launching this year. Not that it wasn’t unwarranted, but it was an odd way to begin the show.
There was an extended look at the gameplay for Halo 5 Guardians. I feel a lot of setpiece moments coming in this entry. The subsequent trailer only reinforces this feeling.
World premiere of Recore from Keiji Inafune and the creators of Metrioid Prime.
Phil Spencer took the stage and announced that the Xbox One will have backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games by this holiday season.
Xbox One Elite controller announced and given its own trailer.
Todd Howard took to the stage to announce that mods created on PC for Fallout 4 will be available for free on the Xbox One.
Peter Moore from EA came out to tout EA Access. He also announced Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2.
Aaand…they lowered an actual car onto the stage from the ceiling.
They said something about Forza, but I was still too stunned by the appearance of a car from the ceiling to get the details.
World premiere of Dark Souls III trailer. It releases in spring of 2016.
World premiere trailer of Tom Clancy’s The Division.
Ubisoft’s Laurent Detoc announced an exclusive beta for The Division this December on Xbox One.
When Rainbow Six Siege releases this October, it will include Rainbow Six Vegas and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for free on Xbox One.
Gigantic announced as a Windows and Xbox One exclusive. It is beautifully colorful.
The obligatory indie montage looked far more than promising.
ID@Xbox took an extended look at Tacoma, Ashen, Beyond Eyes, and Cuphead.
Xbox Game Preview will allow you to play something like an extended demo of certain indie games.
Brian Horton from Crystal Dynamics debuted a new Rise of the Tomb Raider extended gameplay segment. A release date of November 10, 2015 was announced.
Rare Replay collection available August 4th, 2015.
Craig Duncan from Rare announced Sea of Thieves. Is this an MMO? Either way, it looks quite interesting.
Windows and Xbox One exclusive Fable Legends shown.
Discussion about VR.
New version of Minecraft built exclusively for HoloLens. This tech looks pretty incredible.
Rod Fergusson announced the remastered Gears of War Ultimate Edition, and gameplay was shown from Gears 4. A holiday 2016 release was shown. Also, there were way too many teeth and tentacles in those creatures. Gross.
I had no expectations going into the Microsoft press conference, and I came out feeling glad about my Xbox One for the first time. They nailed it.
Categories: games
Rebekah Lang 
MS nailed it I think.
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i agree.
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It was an interesting show for sure. I’ve never owned an XBox so a lot of this wasn’t for me, aside from my enjoyment of seeing what’s going on in the industry as a whole.
Sea of Thieves looked nice but nothing breaks the immersion I’m looking for in a fantasy setting more than adding a ton of random people to the experience, I hope it works out for Rare.
That HoloLens demo was incredibly impressive, though I don’t think I’d enjoy playing minecraft that way. The potential for HoloLens with any number of top-view strategy games is mind-reeling!
I gotta say Recore looked really cool.
And the backwards compatibility strategy is really smart. Coupling that with including previous-gen series entries alongside new titles is a great alternative to console-exclusive map packs and DLC. There’s a lot of differing opinions about backwards compatibility and how much it’s actually used, but it’s clear that the consumers really want it across the board (c’mon Sony). While I have no problem hanging on to older consoles, with all the travel I do I can’t justify lugging multiple machines with me all the time and backwards compatibility would definitely be welcome for that.
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not surprisingly, i agree with you on much of this. though i readily admit i said, “PIRATE GAME!!!” out loud when rare showed it. :)
i am more excited about the backwards compatibility than i thought i’d be. what a cool feature.
and if sony implemented the same feature, i’d mess myself. i still have both hooked up to the tv, but it would be wonderful to streamline a bit.
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