There's no doubt about it, the recent UE5 demo for PS5 was a stroke of genius in terms of selling the graphical power of Sony's next gen machine.

The ball in MS's court now; they need to show Xbox Series X can produce results just as impressive. The recent gameplay event didn't quite cut it in this regard; nothing shown there looked even close to the UE5 showcase.

The run up to a generation is where a lot of narrative surrounding consoles is established; we saw this with the current generation where Xbox One's status as the less desirable machine was cemented before it even hit shelves, and no amount of backtracking ever quite repaired the damage.

Right now, Sony is establishing the narrative, as they have in previous generations, that Playstation is the top dog in graphics, the place to be for the best looking games. MS can either sit back and let them dictate the narrative, or they can challenge it.

"In-engine" cinematic stuff isn't going to do the trick; gamers have wised up to the fact that these can be faked. The reason the UE5 demo worked so well was that it was presented as gameplay. Whatever the best looking game MS have up their sleeve at the moment, they should put together a gameplay showcase for it. Show what their new system can do and why people who care about visuals shouldn't just get a PS5 instead.

I am sure they are cooking up something to show off during their first party games event. Wouldn't be surprised if they show off a different engine as well like the Cry Engine.

dont worry M$ is here to stay

Forza is a easy pick for graphical showcase I’m not worried.

It still is frustrating that Sony took credit for that demo...they don’t use UE. The Coalition with Gears 5, Ninja Theory for Hellblade, upcoming games like Inexiles AAA game, Hellblade 2, Obsidians AAA projects. These are games that showcased and will showcase UE in its glory.

Far as I’m concerned the UE5 demo advertised what Series X can do with developers that actually use it (XGS). Perhaps at an even higher frame rate with better lighting. To anyone who may look to report, this isn’t baiting. Sony got the win I just feel it was a dirty move.

Worst part for them is that they can't really show UE5 (not even because of possible agreement from Sony and Epic) but because it would just be a "we can do it to" (and they already done that on tweeter and no result), and they need to show even prettier games than Sony if not their power advantage will look needless for most customers and if they are more expensive that will only hurt more.

That is because Sony thought it would be unfair to show their exclusives before hand because they would look even better than UE5 demo and would put MS in a bad light =p

all they care about is frames per second.

Battletoads at 300 frames pr secound confirmed :)
That 'll show off the power of the XSX!

I'm sorry but this response is hilarious.

OP: MS will have hellblade 2 to show hopefully but based on their cross gen commitment I'm concerned for them that it maybe the only true next gen showcase in July.

Even with the more powerful hardware, PS5 may win the graphics war in the mind of consumers.

Meh, M$ doesn't need to push graphics that hard. Imo they should focus on performance. Those insane levels of graphical fidelity mainly benefit narrative driven games anyway.

I suppose hellblade 2 and whatever the initiative are working on will be their big graphical showcases, but ultimately most games already look more than "good enough." Most games however don't *play* good enough.