Right from the beginning it's clear Microsoft is looking to make up for its mistake this generation. Immediately from even just the pre show Microsoft started revealing new games that are only for Xbox one, and pretty much in the first five minutes doubled the amount of exclusives found one Xbox 360. However, whether or not they'll be able to keep up the steady stream of exclusives throughout the entire generation is yet to be known.
Aside from just revealing new exclusive games, Microsoft showed what these new games are made of, and why it's worth buying the Xbone to play them. They showed gameplay of the new installment in the long running racing series Forza Motorsport, Forza 5. AIs in these games have evolved beyond being just a computer. Rather than driving in the systematic way we've come to expect with AIs, they drove in a less systematic, more human way, which make for a much more realistic and challenging game.
In the many trailers shown throughout the conference they showed just how realistic games are becoming. At one point in the Quantum Break trailer (A new Microsoft exclusive game) I was shocked that I was looking at a digital person, and not a real human, which shows how dedicated developers are to making the next generation as close to real life as possible.
However, developers are pushing the boundaries in every way, not just in graphics. In games like Project Spark, developers are building on games such as Little Big Planet that let you build your own experience, however, unlike in older generations where you had to use pre made tools that could limit your creativity, in this generation you have complete control over your creations with much more in depth and immersive tools available to you. Also in the same field, there are many new great developments in the open world genre. In new open world games you can interact with everything. Random objects can be picked up and used as improv weapons, and narrow or hard to reach routes that you never thought possible to use in this generation are now easily accessible escape routes, as shown in games like Dead Rising 3.
The conference also showed non gaming features, such as the ability to instantly live stream and record your gameplay to share with your audience online. Basically, everyone in the world will now have a gaming channel. great.
While there were many positives to the conference, it also had many downfalls too. Such as a ton of technical difficulties like no audio, just a terrible pretending to be excited crowd's cheers, in the Crimson Dragon trailer and the gameplay trailer for Battlefield 4 just not starting... like... ever (probably because they were running on Windows 8), scripted and awkwardly delivered jokes that garnered little to no laughs from the audience, and the omission of details like how the Xbone will handle used games and the topic of the Xbone not being able to work unless logging in to Xbox Live every 24 hours, details the gamers need, unlike the constant mentioning and plugging of SmartGlass. And then the worst of it all, an incredible launch price of $500! That means buying just 2 games along with your system will cost at the lowest $640. Is a system full of the exact same first person shooter over and over, live TV only available only at launch and in just one county, and basically not being able to be played in rural areas of the country as you have to stay logged in to play, worth $500? I'll let you answer that one.
Well, that's it for the Microsoft press conference! Tell me what you thought of it in the comments below, and I'll see you soon for EA, Ubisoft, and Sony conferences.
-Colby
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