Agreed, sans PS4. I'll stick with my regular Xbox One and Switch. I see no reason worth buying the Xbonx.

Project Scorpio = Xbox One X | Nov 7th. | $499

I was rooting for you, Microsoft--I was looking for a reason to get back on the Xbox platform, but you're just not giving me one.

What were you expecting/hoping for if not this? What would have gotten you to not "hard pass"?

Project Scorpio = Xbox One X | Nov 7th. | $499

Hard pass. Without good exclusive games, why would I need an Xbox when I already have a Playstation?

Show me something as good as Horizon: Zero Dawn, and then we can talk, MS. I love and miss playing Forza, and I'm sure I'll feel a little regret when Halo 6 launches next fall, but it's just not enough anymore.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I couldn't give two shits about 4K, so that does absolutely nothing for me. My money seems better spent on a Switch and Zelda, and I'll still have over $100 left over.

I was rooting for you, Microsoft--I was looking for a reason to get back on the Xbox platform, but you're just not giving me one.

If you don't need 4K, then the S should let you get a nice xbox one for $249. Also, MS did announce 22 exclusives though I didn't pay any attention to which ones were exclusive and it would entirely depend on what kinds of games you like I suppose.

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Consoles are a balance in pricing components.

4K is very hard in terms of graphics hardware. You have 4x as many pixels to render as 1080p. Meanwhile CPUs are being neglected. As Bungie has said, hitting 60fps for Des2ny isn't happening because of the CPU. Not the GPU. When we can't even reliably hit 1060p60 across the board, it makes no sense to jump to 4K.

We need more powerful CPUs in consoles, with a focus on 1080p. There is not a whole lot of difference here, and believe me I like to see things the best they can be. Do HDR but render at 1080p with better effects and shaders and whatnot. You will get so much more benefit, but the CPUs are holding people back.

I expect the experience to be like going from regular movie theatres to IMAX. You won't know the difference until you're there.

Not even close.

For one, regular cinema is still largely 2K. Imax is either projected film stock, or 8K minimum.

Second, the IMax screen is about 100 feet tall. A regular movie screen varies, but is not taller than about 20 feet at best. An IMax screen literally consumes your entire fucking cone of vision.

Your 4K TV is roughly the same size as a 1080p TV. The reason that regular cinema is still largely 2K, is that even on the big screen, 4K provides a rather small quality increase. If you sit very close it makes a difference. So on your TV, not so much.

I saw Interstellar on Imax film stock, and it looked so real I felt like I could reach out and touch it. 4K gaming won't be like that. Maybe if you have 4K projector or something.

I don't think 4K gaming is worth it yet, when resources can be spent elsewhere.

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[*]Original Xbox Games to be backward compatible

I will wait and see about details. Is it all games, or a particular selection like the 360's BC was? If I can play RalliSport Challenge 2 again, consider me sold.

I wonder if the XBox One hardware is powerful enough to just straight up emulate any original XBox game, rather than going through the "recompile" dance they do with 360 games? If so they should be able to just run any original game without a problem, otherwise we'll have a situation similar to the 360 backwards compatibility where they have to manually re-create the games so they can run on the new hardware.

xXboxXx, X.B.O.X = X Box One X, Xboxxx. Blah blah blah.

DAMN IT! You beat me to it. :/

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So we're still almost two years away from Anthem. Looks neat, but I worry they are making the same mistakes with RNG that Destiny is making. I'll reserve judgement though since Bioware does have more experience with RPGs. They may handle the RNG better.

Looked like a really cool game. The one thing that completely destroyed it for me was two lines that blew my immersion out of the water.

After seeing an unexplored cavern
1. "We should do that later with Kim"
"Yeah, he could use the XP" (not abbreviating, direct quote)

When the ranger picks up loot and it is being opened
2. "ahhh come on, be something good! ahh yes, Jarra's Wrath!"

Both cases gave me a "WTF" moment of wondering if it was the characters talking or the players. After the trailer all I could think of was that these characters were pulling a deadpool and knew they were in a game. It completely destroyed the rest of the potential story line and atmosphere of the game.

Obviously it's gorgeous, but that was such an obviously smoke and mirrors demo that I can't be exited. They didn't do anything besides walk around a gorgeous environment. It tells us nothing sbout what the game is. We can extrapolate from what we saw, but Destiny taught me not to do that already.

Get back to me at E3 2019 after this misses its 2018 launch.

It seems nobody has learned from Halo. Not even Bungie.

Going through my notes, I was struck at how several people described the combat in Halo. They liked to think of the encounters as about controlling space, where you jockey for position, pushing the enemy back until they are defeated. Sometimes you get pushed back yourself and are in trouble. Most encounters had kind of a three stage feel to them, with three levels of space control. So, you'd start the encounter, break through and advance, then do so one more time to win. Anyone who has played the beach on Silent Cartographer knows exactly what this means. I can point to this philosophy all the way through Reach when it comes to encounter design.

Even when not in three parts, it still shows up and large parts of the games are designed around this idea. There were efforts to create this dynamically using AI in Destiny, but that was abandoned.

I feel like Destiny lost this feeling completely. You are either holding your ground, or you are just killing enemies and moving on. There is rarely an ebb and flow to the battle like Halo had. The AI doesn't really retreat and advance the same way.

Seeing the little bit of combat here, it seems more of the same Destiny style combat. The type of combat that is loose with roaming groups of enemies. There is what appears to be a sweet ass world, but it's not utilized the way it could be.

Maybe I can't determine that yet, but that's what it seems like. With that suit, I was hoping the combat would have that Platinum touch and depth.

New rule...Games displayed at E3 must come out before next E3. How many years was the Division at E3 before it came out? Like...8? And it suuuuuucked.

Hey, remember Scalebound?

And how many years are they going to tease us with Cuphead. Septemeber? Pfft, I'll believe it when I see it. Fun fact, the visuals of that game aren't artistic...it was actually started in the 1930's.

Weren't we supposed to get a Game Preview of DayZ 2 years ago? (speaking of which weren't we supposed to get DayZ on PC like 5 years ago?)

Most of the games that were in the MS briefing, I responded..."what the hell was that?" *cough hipster paper rock n roll astronaut cough*

Some of the most fun gameplay happened in that quick "Games with Gold" montage (cmon...you know they will be.)

Hey look at that new Porsche...it looks exactly like every Porsche. How appropriate for Forza.

And good grief...a guy got ripped in half! WTF SoD2!? Unnecessary!

What was that game where the dude shot a bear monster off a cliff? I fell asleep 27 minutes into him gently meandering about and woke up to that! Sheesh!

Not even a Halo mention? I've lost interest anyway...but...cmon MS! Whaddayadoin?

Anthem: Looks gorgeous. Looking forward to the invisible barriers not letting me go to there.

-----

My final takeaway - XOX looks pretty but there isn't much worth playing on it (exclusive wise)

The prototype name was better than the final product!

To be fair, that's pretty much universally true for game consoles. Durango, Xenon, Neo, Revolution, etc.

I personally don't see why people are so worked up about it. The name is fine. It's a little confusing for general audiences, but I don't think that's an issue since they aren't really the market for this thing.

I'm definitely not trying to sound like an expert here, because I'm not...but my day life is in marketing, and what you are annoyed by is a rampant trend right now. And what I mean by that is, stale boring stuff across the board. It's probably more of a macro problem that is a reflection of our society but marketers these days are scared to death to push the envelope and be creative because it might "offend" 0.002% of the population.

Therefore you get stuck with names like:

Playstation 1, 2, 3, 4
Xbox, 360, One, One S, One X
Galaxy s5, s6, s7
iPhone 6, 6S, 7, SE*

OR WORSE, any product in the world with "i" in front of it because, hell, it worked for Apple.

But when it comes to, brand recognition, and user retention, it makes sense to create a lineage, it shows what is most current or "better" - especially helpful for tech. I think you're right though, about the xbox...it's confusing. (starting with the naming of the original One)

*Apple really threw me for a loop with the iPhone SE (which I ended up getting - guts of the 7 in the body of a 6)

Don't really know why I typed all this, but there you go.

Let's see what Nintendo has to offer us tomorrow!

If the trend continues, it'll be the Nintendo Switch hctiwS (except, you know, upsidedown and whatnot).

Xbox One "X"?

Are you fucking kidding me?

How did the meeting for that name play out?

*Just a bunch of 40, 50 year old stuffed suits sitting around a conference table, all with thoughtful looks on their faces, silent for minutes...*

"...how about....X?"

"Oooh, X is good!"

"It's always been a favorite letter of ours."

"Brilliant, Peterson! You deserve a promotion! Guess we can call that an early lunch!"

*All the executives pull out small glass panels and briefcases full of cocaine*

There is NO creative thought process left in the world, NONE. Are you telling me that for four years(it has been four years, right? I'm trying to find the first PS announcement, but I don't seem to see it) of development and engineering, and worldwide input, the best fucking thing you can come up with is ADDING AN X?!

XBox One X

X
Box
One
X

"How long have you been planning this pun?"
"Ever since you let me name the XBox One."

Stole this from reddit