Coming off a rather disappointing reveal, Microsoft left a plethora of unanswered questions in the mind’s of fans and critics alike. In the lead up to E3, Microsoft promised to answer some of these questions in their press conference in addition to showing off their new exclusive games and I.Ps. Did they answer these questions fully and please fans? I will leave that up to you.
The Xbox One conference kicked off with the unveiling of the much-anticipated Metal Gear Solid V and the world’s first look at its game-play and design. The notably lengthy exhibit of the game set the tone for the remainder of the conference. Following Metal Gear V were several new I.Ps including the vastly followed Quantum Break, Ryse and Titanfall; in addition the “revolutionary” Forza Five, reboot of Killer Instinct and exclusive material in Battlefield 4 were also shown. This names only a fraction of the list of games that were shown onstage (see http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/xbox-one-games?xr=shellnav for more). But the perpetually recurring theme behind the new games was the innovation of the cloud in both online and single player game play. In the online live exhibition of Battlefield 4, when the players were stuck in a skyscraper that was being attacked from tanks below–which would soon fall– one of the commanding players called in an artillery strike on the tanks by requesting help from a friend who was on smart glass; the friend directed the missile via his smart glass right onto the tanks below in what can only be called an epic moment. Whilst this may not necessarily be One exclusive, it shows the emphasis on cloud connectivity and the creativity of it. One cloud feature however that is purely exclusive to Xbox One is the “drivatar”. The “drivatar” mimics and learns from the players’ driving styles and allows their “drivatars” to play for them offline but yet online against friends without the console even being on (confusing I know). This new feature will apparently revolutionize game-play by always giving the human player an equally matched opponent.
The new “drivatar” system on Forza five was especially significant not as a result of unveiling new cloud innovation but because it drew back attention to the problem of whether the Xbox required constant internet connection. Forza Five displayed that the One does indeed need internet connection in order to even play single-player games. Microsoft stated that a player must sign into Live at least once every twenty-four hours otherwise they will be effectively locked out of playing any game. The reason why players must be internet connected was also confirmed: every hard copy of a game (i.e. a disc) will only be used one time. The disc will install on to the hardrive and be linked to your Xbox live account thus eradicating the need for a disc thereon after. As used games and other problems related to the cloud were not really addressed in the actual conference, I will save those issues for another article.
Lastly, the other major reveals of the conference were the price, release date, updated Xbox 360 and alternative to Microsoft points.The presenters showed off the newly updated 360 at the beginning claiming that it is “sleeker, smaller and as quiet as ever” and still will have hundreds of new games coming before the One’s launch in November; one of their examples being GTA V. For the One, Microsoft points have been ditched for the alternative of local currency; the idea in mind is that players can understand what the real life costs of the products actually are.
To sum up Microsoft’s conference yesterday I leave you with the price tag for USA One’s: $500. For more information on the Xbox One and/or E3 games keep watching NJTechReviews; I assure you that there will be plenty of articles to satisfy your E3 needs! Happy gaming!
