E3 2015 Coverage: Microsoft Press Conference

It’s always exciting to see two titans go at it.  Fraser v. Ali, Hulk v. Ironman, Mario v. Donkey Kong — we all love to see them go head to head — and we want to see who comes out ahead. For a lot of gamers, it’s when E3 hosts the press conferences of Microsoft and Sony.

This year at the 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo, we all got treated to some awesome news from both sides.  Let’s take a look at what Microsoft delivered at their presser.

Microsoft jumped right into it with the Halo 5: Guardians announcement. They showed gameplay footage of the new Spartan suits and what the story would be.  It’s old versus new; Mk. II Spartan suits taking on Mk. IV Spartan suits. There wasn’t too much about the story, but Nathan Fillion’s voice is in the preview, as well as Keith David’s return as Arbiter.  It was exactly what you expected from a Halo game, though the level designs did have a Destiny look to them.

There was a small trailer for a game called ReCore. Game designer Keiji Inafune let us into a world of robots and exploration. Remember the robot animals, it becomes a reoccurring thing in later press conferences.

Let’s take a moment to ready ourselves for the news we all know, Xbox announced that backwards compatibility will now happen.  You will be able to play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One. It’s as simple as put the disc in and download the game. You will also be able to play with your friends on Xbox 360 with backward compatible games.

Ya know, no big deal.

It was a huge announcement that put Microsoft ahead of Sony at this year’s E3. However, it wouldn’t be their biggest one. Sliding in behind the backwards compatibility news, Microsoft announced a new Xbox controller. The Elite was introduced, it is a next gen controller for a next-gen system. With interchangeable toggle sticks, paddle guards, and a new D-pad (that resembles the Steam controller,) it looks like a controller that hardcore gamers can get their hands into.

The press conference then broke down what they are going to be doing with individual games. Fallout 4 was presented, but what they said there was also mentioned in the Bethesda press conference. Check out Alex’s coverage of it to see what they are bringing to consoles in November. The one detail to mention is, any mods that are developed for the PC version of Fallout will be made available to the Xbox One, and be free of charge. That is awesome.

The triple AAA titles were brought out, Forza 6 was demonstrated, we got a peek at The Division as well as Rainbow 6: Siege from Ubisoft.  It’s nice to see the big titles get presented like show ponies, but the interesting stuff happened when they started talking about indie games.

First they showed off a series of trailers that debuted exclusive indie titles for the Xbox One. Tacoma looked great, a lunar base survival game that uses sign language for the combination locks. Beyond Eyes was also debuted, and it was beautiful. It was games like these that will benefit from Microsoft’s indie game announcement.

Microsoft debuted a new program to work with indie games in development, Xbox Game Preview. This new feature will let you download and play selected indie games. If you like it, you can keep it and pay for it.  If not, you can send feedback back to the developer to help them improve on the game. This is fantastic, because it means we’ll see more games like Castle Crashers, Super Time Force, and Cuphead. The chance to expand the indie game market, and make it stronger is an amazing move by Microsoft.

Microsoft announced their partnership with Valve and with the Occulus. It will be possible to play any Xbox One game through the Occulus, but it comes with a twist. You have to run it through Windows 10, which means you need to hook it up to a PC to do. It’s not the best of starts, but it is a start down the road to VR.  The biggest news was yet to be announced.

Just watch the video, and be ready if you haven’t seen it yet.

It was mind blowing to see. We are now one step closer to holo deck technology. The Hololens is science fiction becoming reality. It’s still new, but it will change a lot of things. First off, the thing that wasn’t mentioned was the price. As of right now, the Hololens was quoted as: “costing significantly more than a console.” If your average next gen console runs around $400 USD, it’s not hard to see that it will be a hefty price tag. Cyberpunk is just around the corner, we have Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality waiting to launch into our living rooms.

Microsoft closed out it’s presser with a final announcement, Gears of War Ultimate Edition. Awww that’s a real nice, wait -what are you doing? What did you forget? Oh, it’s a demo of Gears of War 4.

Well, isn’t that a nice surprise.

With that, they closed out the press conference.  They made a clear plug to an announcement at GameCon in August, this where we’ll see games like Crackdown get announced.

Some thoughts on the press conference:

• While the games were awesome to see, I still think the mixed reality tech stole the show.  The Occulus and Hololens look like they’re going to change a lot of gaming.
• Unofficially, it looks like the kinect is dead.  It was a neat idea, but I don’t think anyone thought of a good idea to use it with.  I like how I can Star Trek voice command my tv, but do you need a kinect for that?
• The sneak peek at the Battlefront trailer was great.  It made watching the EA presser that much more exciting.
• The crowd was into it.  There were a few awkward pauses, but the new games and ideas they presented got a huge pop.
• I love what Xbox is doing with indie game developers.  I think it’s amazing.  How many more amazing indie games are we going to see succeed because of that. It brings a smile to my face to see the playing field get tilted in favour of the little dev companies this time.
• Backwards compatibility, it’s like finding an oasis in the desert.  A lot of friends were on the verge of tossing their 360, because they couldn’t play games on the Xbox one.  It also explains why Microsoft announced the Tera Byte hard disk on the new consoles.
• The new controller looks great. I’m interested to see how people customize it. If the price isn’t too high, I’ll invest in one myself. Something has to improve my Battlefield and Evolve game play, it certainly isn’t going to me.
• I’ll say it again, the Hololens. I want to wear it, I want to play with it, even if it’s just Minecraft. For me this was one of the things I’ll remember from this E3. Sorry Battlefront, the hologram AR blew my mind.
• Beyond Eyes, I think, goes beyond gaming an into art. The water colours looked beautiful, and I’m interested to see how it develops.
• Forza 6 surprised me, I’m not a big racing game type of guy, but this did leave a mark on me.  I’ll check it out for sure, though Need for Speed may usurper any dollars that go to it.
• There we some games that looked so-so to me on that list, but their big titles they announced balanced it out.
• What’s with all the robot animals at E3 this year?
• If I were to give it a letter grade, I’d give Microsoft an A.  They pulled out what we delivered, gave us some great surprises, and left room for a lot of potential.

Did you watch the Microsoft E3 press conference?  Did you watch any of the other pressers?  Do you agree with what we said?  Let us know what you think in the comments below.