What to expect from the E3 Microsoft conference
This year, their E3 conference will be held on the Sunday before the E3 show begins. In the past, their E3 press conference has been held on the Monday.
This date change was announced by Major Nelson on Twitter and confirmed to be on Sunday 11th at 2pm.
During last year’s E3, Bethesda was the only company that hosted a press conference on the Sunday. Eurogamer reports however that publishers have used Sunday to showcase games to the press.
In previous years, Microsoft has held their press conference on the Monday of E3 week and it’s uncertain if the company will return to their usual conference time next year. The press conference is usually followed by EA, Ubisoft, Square Enix and Sony. EA has already confirmed that they will not be attending E3, instead the company is hosting it’s own event called “EA Play”. Square Enix also missed their press conference for E3 2016 and it’s uncertain if the company will attend this year.
In January, the Xbox boss Phil Spencer teased their E3 lineup and has been hinting at what players could expect to see. He stated on Twitter that the platform will not be “Halo FPS/ Gears led” and that “new experiences with different IP” will be coming instead. His message about this ended by commenting that it “will be a fun year” for the Xbox platform.
When asked about the E3 lineup last month, Spencer told a fan that he likes the lineup but didn’t confirm if any new games would be announced this year. A number of upcoming Xbox games will most likely be featured at E3 this year.
Games
Anticipated games such as Sea of Thieves, Crackdown 3 and State of Decay 2 are all confirmed for release later this year. While E3 will not be led by a FPS Halo game, it’s possible that Halo Wars 2 will take a large portion of the event.
Xbox has been collecting an increasing amount of indie titles so Microsoft will most likely dedicate a large portion of their show to upcoming games from indie developers. The company may also show off some recently released indie titles which are due for release on Xbox One before the E3 conference. This would include games such as Don’t Starve, This is the Police and Yooka-Laylee.
Xbox Scorpio
Microsoft is also expected to release the Xbox Scorpio later this year for the Holiday period. It’s thought that Microsoft will be revealing their new console later this year at E3 but this hasn’t been confirmed yet.
The upcoming console is said to be the most powerful console ever created and will run all Xbox One games including the Xbox 360 games which are playable through backwards compatibility. Very few details about this console are currently available and with the release time quickly approaching, the Xbox team will need to reveal it soon.
It’s currently uncertain what else Microsoft may be bringing to E3 and Phil Spencer will keep releasing teaser statements on Twitter about what gamers can expect to see. The Xbox Scorpio will most likely take the center role in the show and Microsoft will most likely have several new games to reveal during their press conference.
Sources
1. Twitter post
2. Eurogamer
3. Phil Spencer Twitter post 1
4. Phil Spencer Twitter post 2
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