E3 2017 - Microsoft Predictions

At this year’s E3, Microsoft is grabbing the bull by the horns and have taken the opportunity to go a little bit earlier than the rest of the show. Here’s some predictions of what we might see come 10pm BST on the 11th of June:

A recap of the last year of Xbox

There’s been a lot of changes on Xbox One, both on the dashboard and under the hood in the last year, so I reckon we might get a brief intro segment that will detail some of those changes.

Scorpio

This should be a given, in that we’ll definitely hear about the new Scorpio throughout the presentation, most likely how games like Forza and Halo will benefit from the increased fidelity. However, since we’re coming up to its release this holiday season the surprises here will be seeing the final form of the console and that we might finally get word on pricing so we can start saving our hard earned cash for it.

VR/Mixed reality support

With Microsoft’s latest Build conference, the company released a set of motion based controllers. Coupled with their announcement of affordable VR headsets at an event late last year, it seems like a natural extension of what’s already out there in terms of information to add this to Xbox line of devices.

Games, games, and more games

There’s already been ample word from Xbox head Phil Spencer, that the core of this year’s E3 is going to be games, and we’re likely to see that in the form of Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, Forza Motorsport 7, and State of Decay 2 amongst others. It’s also already been confirmed that Halo will be there, but not in Halo 6 form...

More third party support

Whilst the roster of Microsoft’s first-party games is pretty strong as-is, I expect we’ll see a diverse line-up on stage between first and third party titles, in a showing that will bolster the platform as the place to play for gamers.

A look at UWP apps on Xbox One

There’s a lot of dislike for the Windows Store and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) from gamers, but it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t added value to the Xbox One. It’s anyone’s guess at this point, but there may be something about how UWP apps will work for gamers in the long run.

Original Xbox Backward Compatibility

Now this would be a surprise. Given we’ve got the previous gen backwards compatible already, it’d be interesting to see the Xbox team drop this one onto gamers. Phil Spencer has alluded that it’d be great to see, just technically difficult. But then, they said that about the current implementation we have.

A push on the Xbox Game Pass

We already know it’s a thing, but expect there to be a small segment about Xbox Game Pass and its benefits, along with some of the titles you’ll be able to play on the plan at launch. Maybe even an announcement of an introductory offer to onboard some players.

Arenas and Clubs updates?

It’s a maybe, but information has been relatively thin on the ground for Arenas (having only recently launched for a Killer Instinct tournament) and Clubs in terms of how they’re going to move forward with them. Word on the street is that Clubs are about to become more accessible in the hands of game devs.

What we won’t be seeing...

It’s unlikely we’ll hear anything about Kinect, as its reservations on the platform become increasingly limited to voice commands on the dash and some apps. A shame, given what the tech is capable of, but without a high adoption rate in third party titles, it’s a hard-sell at the best of times.