I get what you're saying, but I don't think the disappointment came from just the quality of the titles. Some looked pretty decent to me actually. The disappointment came from not showing any games that look like they couldn't possibly run on current gen consoles too. It makes sense as MS has been pretty clear about their cross-gen approach and flat out told us that Series X isn't going to have any exclusives for the first 1 or 2 years. Which makes me believe that there aren't going to be any Series X exclusives in July either.  

And I’m sure in your usual optimistic way, you expect all the games in their July “conference” to look as “disappointing” as some found them to be during the Inside Xbox “conference”. I’m not sure why I’m supposed to care about what others thought or why it is relevant to the discussion. 

There were next gen only games in the “conference”. Per usual you are getting your facts wrong.

People were mostly disappointed in the lack of gameplay. Once I realized these were focused on smaller 3rd party developers, I stopped expecting games to being pushing the envelope of graphical fidelity, especially the ones that are cross-gen. I have no idea if they will only show cross-gen games or not in July, but I'm not going to assume they are or not. What I will tell you, we will see some really good games at this event. Games being cross-gen doesn't matter to me, especially within the 1st year. We have barely seen any games at all, so I think most people are jumping to conclusions about what to expect from Series X. The unreal Engine 5 demo was great example of what to expect, but not for a second do I believe it was only possible on the ps5. 

StarCitizen.

How many exclusives really push a Playstation or Xbox every year?

It's the exception of game releases not the overall norm.

StarCitizen.

The PC aren't the consoles.

Why do PC gamers buy the latest and greatest? Simple really.  Consoles tend to go with around medium-quality settings comparative to the PC, we can sink all that extra processing into chasing those higher visuals on the PC, which is why the PC has the best graphics.

For example many console games leverage Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion where-as on PC games will typically run with Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion, it's more expensive, it's higher quality. - Console gamers probably won't tell the difference as they aren't sitting just a foot away from a display, but on a PC panel, you can certainly tell the difference.

The PC just has better quality visual settings which are more demanding on hardware, consoles are all about a game of sacrifices, the extra performance saved by opting for SSAO means a developer might be able to invest a little extra processing into improving the lighting of a scene... The PC can just have it all.

Not only that... 4k is all well and good, but you do realize the PC can have resolutions higher than 8k?

None of this is free on hardware.

People seem to put a awful lot of stock in a 20 minute Inside Xbox video full of spillover content that would make the July event too cluttered and long.

The whole point of this topic is that Series X has the power and can play that card whenever MS sees fit. But for now it’s their strategy to showcase they are the #1 destination for choice, low barrier entry to great games, and preserving/enhancing the past to carry into the future. That is a message exclusive to the Xbox brand and it’s in their interest to appeal to those that even remotely care about this stuff. 

In July alone I know Forza 8 will be a graphical showcase that will blow us away. Turn 10 makes high quality games in 2 years, what they can do in 3 I can’t wait. Ray tracing, and all that next gen goodness that it’s lesser ports will only be a shadow of its greatness. Same goes for Halo. I’ll be too interested in how it plays and how fun it looks. The idea that I would be disappointed if it looks anything less then photo realism is silly to say the least.

Nm the AAA reveals of The Initiative, Playgrounds AAA RPG, Hellblade 2 gameplay (fingers crossed), and hopefully Obsidians AAA game gets an announcement. People worry too much or aren’t paying attention to what’s cooking. 

Can they?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcUv-TzVWUc

joking

I was running 5760x1080 and then 7680x1440 during the Xbox 360 era, which was higher than 4k on 4x Radeon 6950's unlocked into 6970's... When console games struggled to be 1280x720... And yet we still had console gamers praising -insert game here- as the second coming of Jesus in the graphics department.

Today I could replace those panels for 11520x2160 which a few Turing cards might turn up decent results. That is insane pixel counting.

Obviously ditched all that and went with a single 2560x1440 panel and simply upgraded less often, my bank account thanks me for it.

Star Citizen is the only exception on pc, and even that wasn't full designed around SSD as you can play it with a HDD as well.

I know multi platform games will always have higher graphics settings on pc. However, the core game is typically still designed around base consoles. Things like SSD and Ray Tracing have been around for a long, long time but there's a reason why developers aren’t yet building games that truly take advantage of them.

That's my problem with the strategy behind Series X. It has amazing hardware but they're taking a very pc-like approach, where core games will be designed for much weaker hardware and all those precious Tflops are "wasted" on things like 4k and higher graphics settings. Things that, like you said, most people won't notice when your sitting quite a distance away from the tv. Console games shouldn't be about scalability, developers should be allowed to push the limits of the hardware to get the best results out of it. 

I mean you could take a Xone game like Gears 5, crank the settings up to ultra/4k and it would be impossible to hit 60fps on a RTX2070 Super already.

But here's the thing, would you consider Gears 5 in ultra settings a true next gen game? Because that seems to be MS's definition of what next gen gaming is about. Sony is doing it the old fashioned way and are all about raising fidelity first and looking at fps/resolution later. The reason why that UE5 demo looked so impressive isn't because it's impossible to run it on anything but a ps5. It's because it was the first time ever that we got to see what a RTX2080 and a NVME SSD could potentially do, besides running current gen games in 4k, inefficient graphics settings and faster loading times. What some people don't seem to grasp it that if it was running in 4k/ 60fps with ray tracing enabled, it probably wouldn't have looked the way it did.

That's why I think we'll be seeing a lot of 1st party games at MS's July event running in 4k/60fps on Series X, while Sony will be showing games running in 30fps/1440p. MAybe some peope care more about 4k than others but we've already seen how the masses are going to react to both strategies and which platform is going to have the bigger next gen wow factor.

If you will be disappointed totally depends on your exceptions of what next gen games should be about. If you're expecting Xone games like Halo Infinite, Forza 8 to be amazing and running on ultra settings, 60fps and some ray tracing effects on Series X, you probably won't be disappointed. However, if you're hoping to see games that are unlike any current gen games running on a high-end pc, you probably will be.  

And no, there weren't any next gen only games at the Series X first look event. There were a couple of games that were pc and series X, but that doesn't mean you're going to need a SSD and RTX2080 to run them. Hell, this is what Scorn looks like running on a pc in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpk4p5AriPs or Bright Memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWgOHjAyiyk

It's the same thing with Godfall on ps5, which also isn't going to get people super excited for next gen games as the pc requirements will probably be a lot lower than what's in these next gen consoles.

Yes that seems to be logical indeed,most just play the games they still want to play on the old console before buying the new gen.