Halo 4 looks better. And I mean MUCH better. I'll see how things look later on, though. But M$ failed to get the hype they probably wanted . But at the same time, aside from Halo 1 and Halo 4, the series never was the best looking. Just fun and engaging.

Honestly, a small part of me is trying to be optimistic. hopeful. A lot of the games shown here look like they have potential. It's the lack of gameplay in the trailers mixed with Microsoft's history of fucking things up that make me worried. I don't expect them to just turn around their fortunes all of a sudden because they got a few cool ideas under their belt and THESE trailers, in particular, are not enough to make me change my opinion on them as a company.

In a vacuum, these trailers are fine. None of them aside from Halo were outright BAD, but none of them were good enough to make me forget the last decade or so of the Xbox Division's failures, and that's what they needed to do. They did not. if anything it just made me realize...holy hell Microsoft hasn't learned from their mistakes, they're doing the same gameplay-free trailers that tell us nothing, which tells me that either the games are bad or they have no faith in them. If they had faith in the games, they'd show us more gameplay.

IT's a shame, but it does make this holiday a much easier purchasing decision for me. I already have a Switch and PS4, so PS5 it is!

The story doesn't end there. The gameplay footage shown was running on a high end PC, not Series X.. I mean. Yeah.

As a Nintendo loyalist and a PlayStation early adopter, back in the PSX era, I valued this presentation as a 10. I actually loved the games shown and the fact that they are all included in GamePass was a major selling point for me.
I've decided I'll be buying a Series X and at mid generation a PS5, to buy its exclusives cheaper with the money I've saved with GamePass.

Might have something to do with rumor that the final dev kits coming so late. Or just 343, being 343. Its disheartening to hear though, this game clearly needs more time. Maybe if they showed a normal trailer with representations on what to expect and added a caption it might have been okay.. but at this point they really need to show the game on Series X.

Actually, we haven't seen much if anything running on Series X in real time from Microsoft Studios. Which is baffling since Series X is out in a few months. It doesn't really feel like a new console launch for them tbh.

Yeah there's Covid, but honestly, its been in development for 5 years. Its not really an excuse other than crunch and/or development issues. I'm sure it will be a solid game at the end. Its just a shame as a flagship title MS should have pushed 343 for being well, that (in terms of graphics fidelity). They did really well with Halo 4 and 5. Saying that, there's still time to polish the game and ray-tracing has yet to be shown.

Here is the thing I was asking myself the other day. Had Phil not come out and blew his own trumpet with, we got nothing to worry about after seeing sonys conference, this would have been a better showing. Had he not responded to their own previous showcase and said we got gameplay covered, I would have rated it better.

Sometimes the Sony approach is good. Don't set expectations stupidly high cuz if you do, you will end up hanging yourself. Phil set his own bar and then failed to get over it.

It seems like Phil wants everything. He wants to win the console war, SSD war, TF war, Gamepass war, most studios war, xcloud war, everything. As a result he has to make it sound like everything is amazing and catered for when it isn't.

Just concentrate on what you must and deliver. If xbox is going to be about gamepass and sales and hardware dont matter so much, don't make a sing and dance about it. There is nothing wrong with that until you flip flop. No gens he says, but then at least 6 games were next gen only.

The showcase was sabotaged by Phil. He essentially done a Peter Molyneux by promising the world.

Pros: Halo open world, Avowed being a exclusive Skyrim, Forza looked drop dead gorgeous, Fable finally revealed

Cons: No Hellblade trailer, Project Mara, The Initiative, too many moneyhats not enough 1st party.

I don’t have a requirement to see gameplay for every game so in that regard it’s a 8. They got FPS, racing, and especially Wrpgs on lock.

Okay, but why are you playing dumb? You know Halo Infinite is a Xbox One game, where it was likely the lead.

The gameplay footage we saw looked like an 8th gen game with extra polish, its also aiming for 4K/60 fps, unlike numerous other next gen games. Perhaps the final product will look better but I don't think it looked bad at all. People keep saying Cyberpunk looks amazing but I feel that looks like 8th gen graphics as well.

Early next gen games tend to look like the last with extra polish, we're seeing that on both Series X and PS5. MS did or has show impressive footage of next gen content, but that's further out.

Personally, I've been skeptical if they can even get Halo Infinite out on time without it being a mess. The Halo Infinite gameplay they showed looked promising. If you're suggesting its also old, good. Then perhaps the final product should be fine for launch. If it the best Halo game from 343, that's still a step in the right direction.

I believe Phil said they were showing games from 9 of their 15 studios yesterday. So they still have plenty left that they can show in future showcases. And even some of the studios they showcased a game from, have multiple teams. Yeah we saw Playground with Fable but we also know they’re making Horizon. And aren’t they a three team studio now? Double Fine has a new IP in the works but I guess it’s too early with them hammering away at Psychonauts 2. 

Either way it’s a long way from where we were this gen where they wouldn’t even have 9 studios to show off. And yeah, the games coming should be great. Fable, Obsidian Skyrim, SoD3, Halo looked fantastic, Psychonauts, Everwild, it all looked great. 

And what an incredible showcase for GamePass.