Now that E3 over and the dust has settled its time to go over each conference and delve into what we thought.

Let’s kick things off with Microsoft (yes I realize that EA Play happened the Saturday before but I won’t be covering it since its not really a conference per say.) Microsoft in the days leading up to E3 promised the biggest conference that they have done at E3. They boasted about the number of exclusives that they had on hand (14 to be exact.) Did Microsoft deliver on their promise?

To put it lightly no they didn’t. This was a year for Microsoft to truly shine considering that one of their competitors (Sony) decided to not participate this year. Sony is usually known for the big reveals and surprises so with them gone Microsoft had a clear shot at being the showstopper. Unfortunately Microsoft gave us a conference that was very similar to that of the conferences they’ve put on the last two years. What do I mean by that?… Well lets break it down.

The Project Scarlett urm… reveal?

Most people were very enthused about the rumors of possible info on the next Xbox platform currently known as Project Scarlett. With rumors talking of what the specs were and that the Scarlett platform was actually going to be split amongst two different skus many people were hoping we would be enlightened a little on what we should expect. Instead what we got what a trailer very similar to the one we received back at E3 2017 that touted the Xbox Scorpion (Xbox One X.) This trailer for Scarlett was almost exactly to the 2017 one with console engineers touting a new chipset that would blow the doors off any other console on the market. Suffice to say many (including myself) were a little upset that there was little in the area of exact specs. Basically all we know is that it will feature a new chipset from AMD that will allow resolutions up to 8K, and ray tracing. The system will also supposedly boasts frame rates of up to 120 FPS (at what resolution wasn’t specified but I’d lean into it being 4K.) The console will also have new SSD that will also help with load times. Other than that we have no more info. One of the reasons that this trailer is a let down (for me at least) is the fact that similar info was released a few months back by Mark Cerny the chief console engineer of the PS5 they released this info in an interview with Wired, nothing big or splashy. With that in mind it makes the Scarlett trailer feel even less important when the competition didn’t even bother making a trailer for similar info.

The Exclusives

Remember the 14 exclusives that was mentioned earlier? Yea well those were also a letdown as well. I wont go on about all of them just some of the bigger ones (except Halo that’s it’s own section entirely.) First off lets start with the new game from Ninja Theory, Bleeding Edge. At last year’s E3 Microsoft made the announcement that they had acquired several game studios because they had realized that they lacked what gamers had and that was exclusive software aimed at gamers. So when one of the studios that they announced they had was Ninja Theory gamers were pretty optimistic given the pedigree of Ninja Theory and the ability the studio had to craft great single player games (Enslaved, DMC, HellBlade.) So of course when members of the team came out on the stage to show off the first title of theirs to be Xbox exclusive we might have expected something along the lines of what they had done before. Instead Ninja Theory unveiled Bleeding Edge. Bleeding Edge is a 4v4 online melee game with characters that wouldn’t look out of place from the recently released Rage 2. Not saying that Bleeding Edge is a bad game but its not what we had expected at all and that is cause for disappointment.

The second exclusive showing that also ended in much disappointment was Gears of War 5. This title was announced last year at E3. Most were expecting gameplay footage of some sort. Instead what we got was a trailer (no gameplay) of a new multiplayer mode called Escape. We also got a launch date of September 10, 2019. Knowing this is a little disconcerting considering that so far we haven’t seen any footage and yes I get it this is the 5th title in the series so gameplay shouldn’t be completely different but that’s not the point.

The last big showing that I’m going to discuss is Ori and The Will of the Wisps. Now what was shown wasn’t a disappointment. The disappointment stems from the release date that was given, February 11th 2020. I don’t know about you but I feel like this title has been discussed for a decade (I know it hasn’t) a lot of people on the internet also feel the same. So for a lot of us we expected a 2019 so when Microsoft revealed that this beautiful game wasn’t coming until 2020 it was a jab at Xbox fans hearts. It also adds fuel to the fire that Microsoft hasn’t really brought it at all this year.

Halo

Say what you will about the Halo series (especially after the 5th entry) the Halo franchise will always be in many Xbox gamers hearts the crown jewel of the platform. So when Microsoft announced the existence of Halo Infinite last year at E3 many were hoping that there would be information on the title. What we got was a cinematic trailer that doesn’t really reveal anything. In fact it causes more questions to be asked than answers. 343 has come out and said that Halo Infinite was a “soft reboot” for the franchise after the 5th games campaign wasn’t well regarded well by the fan base. However during the trailer we see the back of Chief’s helmet and noticed that there is no A.I. installed. Which means that this game may be picking up at the end of Halo 5 which ends with Chief without Cortana. The end also hinted more so that it may be continuing from the end of 5 as well.

xCloud

We all knew that Microsoft was gonna also discuss their new streaming platform currently called xCloud. However at the conference (like just about everything else) there wasn’t a lot of info out there. Google right before E3 began announced a launch date, required hardware, required internet speed, and price point for their own streaming platform Google Stadia What Microsoft gave us was an unspecified launch date of October 2019, and the fact that xCloud will use your Xbox One as a dedicated server for the service so you can stream your games you already own to other devices such as tablets and cell phones. What they didn’t announce was any of the info that Google divulged such as pricing and overall requirements. This is weird and also a disappointment considering the service is expected like previously mentioned, this October.

That’s all that I’m going to discuss about Microsoft’s conference. Yes I know that wasn’t everything and it isn’t the most exciting thing that happened (I’m looking at you Keanu) but it is an overall glimpse at Microsoft first party which should be the main focus and unfortunately it wasn’t what people were excited about (again looking at you Keanu. )

Overall the grade that I give Microsoft is a C-

What did you think about Microsoft’s showing at E3? Do you agree or disagree with me? Let me know with a comment below and thank you for reading!