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E3 2016 Editorials Features

Microsoft’s E3 Conference Did Not Impress – and that’s a problem

Written by Austin Griffith

Microsoft just wrapped up their 2016 E3 press conference – what they said would be their biggest event since the launch of the Xbox 360 – and I am sorely unimpressed. What we saw at Microsoft’s conference was cool, sure. Forza Horizons 3 looks beautiful, Gears of War 4 is going to be great, Marcus looks terrifyingly hellish, and all those indie games sure look swell.

But our biggest announcements of the day included two new Xbox’s – neither of which we really have anything to get excited over.

The Xbox One S, or the Slim as we should call it, looks sexy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll definitely be grabbing one on release simply because I’ve filled up my Day One’s 500GB hard drive. Realize though that convincing an Xbox fanboy to buy their newest console isn’t saying much.

So we’ve got a slim Xbox One. We all saw that coming. Every console gets a slim version these days, so we really shouldn’t be blown out of the water that the Xbox One, one of the largest consoles we’ve had in years, is trimming off some fat.

But the Xbox One S isn’t what Microsoft was really here to tell us about. After the rerun of Battlefield 1’s trailer and the really long looks at everything from the non-western gaming world, Phil Spencer took the stage to tease us for a few minutes before unveiling what we’ve all been waiting for: The Xbox One’s Project Scorpio. Featuring six teraflops of processing power, 8 cores, and the power to fuel both 4K and VR gaming, it looks sick. This is definitely something I can get behind.

project scorpio

project scorpio

Coming Holiday 2017.

Oh.

So, we’ve got the capability to run 4K, the ability to jump in to VR gaming, and all this amazing power… and we can’t use it until the end of next year. Well after every single currently announced virtual reality headset – including the PlayStation VR – have been released. Microsoft has put people like me in yet another tough spot: do we jump ship and pick up a cheap PS4 to get PlayStation VR this October? Do we ditch consoles all together and build a PC capable of playing the Oculus or the Vive? Or do we just wait over a year and a half to hopefully get our hands on some sort of Virtual Reality with the Xbox.

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of those choice look a whole lot better than waiting. As an entitled gamer, I don’t like to wait, especially not for something as mind-blowing as virtual reality.

It’s going to be a tough couple of months as we see all the possibilities of VR and are left sitting here with nothing to compare on our consoles.

About the author

Austin Griffith

Austin Griffith owns LevelSave.com

2 Comments

  • Hey…. everyone has an opinion…… even stupid ones. Let me see….. After people have complained and whined about how the Xbox 1 looks the newer smaller sleeker design should have many people up happy. I have a 4k TV the idea of 4k video right now out the box temps me to trade in my OG Xbox One….. The Scorpio is an extremely powerful console, this should put to rest all the bashing MS receives from the media for its pixel counts and maybe now we can focus on games….. As for games Gears 4 is a must and it looked awesome, Sea Of Thieves looked cool as h3ll, We Happy Few gives me that original Bioshock feel (and I loved that). Forza h3… just another installation to the most refined racing series in gaming, They showed Scalebound which looked awesome, Recore which looked awesome, and even Battlefield 1 looked pretty good. If you are impressed by what MS delivered you shouldn’t be commenting on video games.

    • LOL what about those xbone excluisves??? oh right! tgere are no full exclusives left! lol now they are called “console exclusives” LOL

      And how many new games were announced?…one? and how many new IP’s? none?

      LOL ps4 killed the xbone and now M$ was forced to make a new console! just, they wont call it like it is so xbots like you dont get mad and buy a NEW console just 4 years after the last one. So wiiu is more like the xbone than we originaly thought!

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