They have announced 5 out of their 6 ESO expansions in January, so it does match with historical precedent for them. Guess Bethesda decided this Developer_Direct, which is even the same week of January that High Isle and Blackwood were announced, is the perfect time to announce ESO's 7th expansion.

Definitely too soon to be Project Kestrel being announced, it only began development in 2019 with a smaller team at their Maryland Studio, with the new San Diego studio for the Project Kestrel team not opening until 2020. If it's an MMO or MMO lite type game we are looking at a 5 year plus development cycle for a new IP, which would put release in 2024 at the soonest, with 2025 being more likely.

Just hope we get some more game pass announcements.

Agreed. They need to end on maybe a 1.5-2 minute Starfield trailer with the release date at the end, hopefully April 12, which also lists a date for a gameplay deep dive stream which will be in February or Early March. 

I would have just gone with X0 but maybe since that already exists it sets false expectations as to what it would be like, this sounds like a digital only showcase in a style of Nintendo Direct while X0 was a in person showcase to talk about updates and announce a few new titles, sometimes on the larger side.

So that's probably why they didn't go with it. I honestly wouldn't have cared if they copied Nintendo and just called it Xbox Direct, Lol.

The good thing about Jez "leaking" no starfield is that xbox will see the backlash early and hopefully make an edit if they didn't already have it included. I mean they got over 2 weeks still (if the rumored date is real)

I guess the gamepass games will be announced this week, must have been what Aaron Greenberg was teasing. I can't see them waiting all the way till January 25th to announce the January Gamepass games at this Developer_Direct. We only have 3 known Gamepass games releasing before then, Persona 3 and 4 on the 19th and MH Rise on the 20th. Would be pretty shit for Xbox to make us wait all the way till January 25th for the main January Gamepass drop, after there was no 2nd Gamepass drop in December.

Interesting...So it would seem that Zenimax is abandoning their streams maybe in favour of this.

Wonder if Sea of Thieves would do the same, a little consolidation of marketing.

Whether Starfield is there or not.

• I'm still looking forward to it, if a little disappointed.
• I'm really looking forward to Starfield getting its own Developer Direct - Todd Howard can bang on about his games for ages, so this will probably be a thorough deep dive, I can't wait to listen to Todd for ~30 minutes, Lol.
• Thank Fucking Christ that Xbox is finally copying the Direct format, no more waiting until E3 for everything, more events spread out across the year is brilliant news.
• Developer Directs focused on specific titles is great news as well, Starfield is the first but what else will have one?

I have a few nits to pick with these Jez rumors about the new format for sure:

-The name isn't great. The whole point of the new format and new name is to disassociate with those awful Inside Xbox shows they tried last time to compete with Nintendo Direct. Those inside Xbox shows were mostly developers talking with far too few game reveals or gameplay demos. This name however, Developer_Direct, harkens to mind those Inside Xbox shows where the developers talked you to death.

-No Starfield? Come on Xbox, you know better than this, the fans will rage if it's not there. No mention of Goldeneye remaster as well, when it too is said to be a 1st half release. I can forgive no Ghostwire Tokyo Xbox reveal, as the letter of the contract they had with Sony likely prevents the Xbox version from being revealed before the full year of exclusivity is up, just as it did with Deathloop, but Starfield and Goldeneye should be there for sure in some capacity.

-No mention of 3rd party reveals, this reads like it is 1st/2nd party only. Nintendo Directs and Sony State of Play events have 3rd party games being shown and revealed in addition to 1st and 2nd party games. Xbox should at least be able to get some gameplay trailers or demos for games they have marketing/day one Gamepass rights for that are releasing in Q1 or Q2, games such as Atomic Heart, Wo Long, and Flintlock. They really need to convince 3rd parties to reveal brand new games on these too, but that may take time, the 3rd party pubs will want to see strong view counts for these shows before they will commit to revealing games on them, so I can forgive them for no 3rd party reveals on this first ever Developer_Direct, but they at least need some 3rd party trailers or gameplay demos for already announced games.

You know if none of this leaked and Xbox just randomly announced one day "we're having a showcase with these titles! We'll have a Starfield showcase later!" then I doubt people would be mad but now there's a bit of annoyance at a possibility that Starfield isn't there after weeks of hearing about this rumoured event which everyone assumed featured Starfield, Xbox is probably pissed off at Jez, again, Lol.