I'm a bit late to the party (i got back from a trip yesterday and was too worn out to watch conferences lol), but here's my general run down now I've seen the VOD:
Overall i'd give it a 6. If this was just a general "here's some cool stuff" summary conference, i'd think it was pretty good. As an Xbox conference intended to get me excited in the brand, i thought it fell short.
Pros:
- I'm glad the gameplay focused approach is becoming more common. MS dabble with it last year, but they really hammered it down this time. The end result was a much better paced conference.
- Ori 2 looks phenomenal, will be a Day 1 purchase for me if my backlog permits it.
- This is the first time Sea of Thieves has looked interesting to me. There were still a lot of parts that made me feel like i was watching a early access steam game, but other portions (the ship battle in particular) looked great.
- The XB1X's size. I was hugely impressed with Sony when they made the PS4 smaller than the X1 despite it being a good bit stronger, and now MS have flipped the tables with the Pro and X. MS's engineers have done a great job.
Neutral:
- Most of the initial XB1X segment was fairly dull. We already knew the internal specs, and the guy presenting it was pretty awkward. I understand they needed it to set the tone for the rest of the conference though, so i'm not actively complaining.
- A huge portion of the conference was given over to indies. There's nothing inherently wrong with that (hence i'm listing it under neutral), and some of them looks great (The Last Night in particular was my favourite looking newly revealed one), but it did little to get me excited for Xbox or W10. The best most offered on that front was timed exclusivity, which with my current backlog is a none-issue for anything i don't really want.
- Crackdown 3 still doesn't interest me. I'm looking forward to reading about the tech behind its online portion, but my interest in actually playing it is fairly limited. It could end up being a great game, but it's not for me.
Cons:
- The XB1X costing $499. It's still great value, but not to the degree i was expecting (I've been expected $449 since it was initially announced). You're going to be paying for every bit of that extra power over the Pro, which i think will work against it.
- I can't remember the last time a conference was this predictable. The biggest "reveal" was a game that's announcement was assumed over a year in advanced.
- A lack of focus on their own games. Outside of the SoT demo, it felt like we spent as long watching Metro as we did all of MS's stuff combined. I could almost forget i was watching an Xbox conference.
- The Forza 7 "car reveal". I reckon that was only their because it was stipulated in their deal with Porsche :p
If they'd had even 1 vaguely unexpected big reveal (even something eventually guaranteed like Halo 6), i'd bump the conference up to a 7 or 7.5. Without anything like that though, i couldn't help but feel like the show was a bit unnecessary.
