The Official XBOX Thread

Congrats to @ozone for winning this year's Xbox banner contest!

briarpack's DOS prompt banner and nillock's 360 blades banner were tied for a close 2nd place.

The Official XBOX Thread

E3 is the place for announcing never before seen games. It's exciting, fast-paced stuff and we're all enthusiastic to start talking about all the new toys. But, please keep in-depth discussions about specific games in their respective forums. For more information about how to help us keep things organized, go check out the GB vs E3 Official Player's Guide!

In an attempt to keep the E3 shenanigans organized, the mods institute these official discussion threads for each conference so that everybody has a go-to place to discuss them before, during, and after the show.

Despite the chaos of E3, keep in mind that the general site rules still apply. So, don't be a dick. If you need a refresher on to conduct yourself like an upstanding citizen of the Giant Bomb community, check out the FAQ.

Keep Discussions On Topic

This thread is exclusively for the general discussion of the Microsoft Xbox press Discussion involving the other company's conferences should be taken to their respective threads (once they're posted).

Specific Announcements

To help you get where you need to go to talk about anything announced or shown during this press conference, we have created a list of them right here:

• Gears 5
• Gears Pop!
• Gears Tactics
• Halo Infinite
• ???

Where Can I Watch?

Sunday, June 9 @ 1:00 PM PDT (Your Local Time)

• Giant Bomb Chat
• Xbox.com
• Xbox One

Well deserved win @ozone, nicely done!

@delrueofdetroit: Thanks! It was the very first idea I had, I’m so glad other people enjoyed it too. Congrats to everyone who submitted to the contest! Can’t wait to see what Game Pass stuff they show off today.

Another great win @ozone !!

I felt like I was waiting the entire time for some big announcement that never came. The Scarlett video told us basically nothing we don't already know, and Halo (which is what I was excited for most) got a CG trailer which also told us nothing.

Some great moments with Keanu and the Terminator holding a lancer, but overall pretty disappointed.

So I will admit I fell asleep for a bit, so I missed a few things. Was this thing really that bad? The only fun thing was the surprise Keanu Reeves. There was really no cool gameplay or anything exciting.

Man, I could have been sleeping for work tonight. The conference was okay but not as exciting as I was hoping for, which honestly tends to be the case for most years. I was hoping for more games that'd pique my interest and just more on next-gen. Also, I want another Perfect Dark. The conference just kind of felt like it normally does and considering we're on the verge of next-gen, and it was really Microsoft's time to shine since they're the only ones there, it didn't do a whole lot. Too many CG trailers, or just trailers. Keanu Reeves coming out for Cyberpunk was cool though. I was hoping for an array of back compat/enhanced titles to be announced at once, and the obligatory 'and... you can play it right now.'

Woah, do they have Saiyan suits in Sea of Thieves?

I wonder what the sdd space will look like on the scarlett, and if the games run off an external drive will they still take advantage of the increased load times? Also did they say if it was gonna be backwards compatible? Seems like that should be standard at this point right? Also no info on the streaming seemed like a bad idea with stadia coming soon

Cyber punk, outer worlds and pyschonaughts 2 look cool, i was more interested in the hardware since i won't play 99% of the new games anyway lol.

I thought it was a pretty good conference, but the first half was better than the 2nd half.

@oursin_360: They said something about 4 generations of consoles implying BC. Would be weird if it wasn't given how much they've been pushing it the last couple years

I think a lot of us were looking to Microsoft to potentially show us what the next generation will look like in this press conference, and they basically said they're not ready yet. Which is fair enough, I guess.

Though it feels like a huge missed opportunity on their part.

Well, the new Xbox does seem to be what I wished the last (i.e. current) gen would be. Remember at the time thinking "what's the point of new hardware if it's not powerful enough to emulate the previous generations yet?". To have full backwards compatibility with all previous Xboxes out of the gate is great. Also happy that we're getting some new lighting rendering this gen, because the way light has been looking has bothered me a lot in these last two generations.

This press conference felt like a big inhale in preparation for a true blowout next year (or whenever Microsoft does their big Scarlett showcase if E3 is dead). But I got an Outer Worlds release date and learned I won't have to pay $60 for it thanks to Game Pass, so I'm happy.

Yeah, it was always going to be BC. That's a big part of the Xbox brand now. They can't backslide.

They might have mentioned it at the press conference, but this tweet seems to suggest that controllers and other Xbox One accessories will be compatible with Scarlett. It's a minor thing in the grand scheme, but I hope this pans out because it sucks having to re-buy a new set of controllers every generation, and especially so now that they're selling Elites for close to 200 quid.

I literally started thinking omg ms and sony are really partnering when they started listing all the PS5 bullet points during the Scarlet part.

I was hoping that Halo and Gears would reinvent themselves for their upcoming releases. It was a hugely disappointing show in that respect.

It was fine. The biggest moment was Cyberpunk of course. The From game would be huge if it weren't leaked, but it's still crazy. Their indie showcase was great.

Otherwise, it's a resounding meh. A whole lot of fluff about the new console without anything specific (and a weird fixation on loading times), Halo's still Halo (but it's kind of a reboot now?) Gears is still Gears. I like a lot of what Microsoft is doing, but they aren't giving me compelling reasons to buy an xbox. And maybe that's not their goal, I do want to build a PC and then some of their offering will be enticing, but still, the parts of the conference that mattered were the third party things.

That Star Wars game also continues to look unimpressive. Forest Whitaker dropping into frame was hilarious.

Congratulations Microsoft on purchasing Double Fine. That was the best part of the show, it really made me smile. I can't wait to see what y'all do with them.

A Dougle Fine game, set in the Halo Universe, would be amazing for example.. ?

After the Cyberpunk/Keanu thing there wasn't all that much to write home about.

Forza Lego could be fun and cool.

I was kind of taken aback when they did the Gears thing. They showed off three wrestlers, explained they're going to be playing and making new Escape mode maps - but then showed an entirely CG trailer for the mode? Instead of showing any gameplay of it? That game is out in September and you don't show any gameplay?

The Scarlett video is just the Xbox One X video, again, but this time two months after Sony brought Wired to see the PS5 and basically said all the same stuff.

The xCloud stuff just sounds like an after thought. I'd really expected more, more of a push on why their service is going to be better than other upcoming streaming services.

This conference was almost the total opposite of the Sony one from last year - which was 4 games, each getting heavy gameplay segments. This one was like 60 games, but about 3 of them outside of the ID@XBOX sizzle reel showed what looked like actual gameplay.

Game Pass gets more and more stacked. It has become such good value.

@frustratedlnc said:

Kinda my takeaway as well. The Gears presentation was so disjointed, that it foremost confused me.

Just hope Halo isn't just a follow up of Halo 4 which was kinda underwhelming to me,

The conference was about what I expected, given that we are about a year away from a new console release. Cool to see Gears, Halo, and a release date for Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk was hilarious and great and real dumb, but easily my "specific game related" highlight. Halo is my favorite everything, essentially, but that trailer felt like some kind of tech demo or... something, and did absolutely nothing for me, which makes me a bit sad. If it was a reveal trailer, it would've been great.

Forza Horizon 4: Legos was silly and I need to get back into that.

All I remember from the Gears segment was the Terminator which was amusing. The Star Wars game reminds me of Force Unleashed, which I loved, so I'm hoping it's good. That Elden Ring trailer was cool.

The Game Pass / Ultimate thing was awesome and I've already made that switch. Probably my favorite non-specific game related highlight.

I just want them to show me some actual Halo-ing.

I found it odd that six months out from release, they showed nothing of Gears 5's gameplay. They played this open goal way too safe but at least they have the service in place to cover anybody who doesn't want to adopt an Xbox One 18 months away from new consoles.

I think it was a fairly tame showing, but its the one before the big E3 so that's somewhat expected. Bunch of fun games coming to Game Pass that I'll give a shot.

Also getting my two years of XBL Gold converted to Ultimate for $1 is a total win.

Can anyone tell me, if I sign up for Xbox Game Pass for Windows, can I play that Forza Lego DLC when it's out or would I have to buy that separate?

I thought Microsoft's showing was just okay. I came out of it not super excited for much this year or in early 2020, however getting confirmation of a new console for Holiday 2020 launching with Halo Infinite was great.

I think Microsoft has the most potential/exciting future in a post-Don Mattrick world. With Phil Spencer running the show 100% now, I'm way more excited about the future of Xbox than I was a few years ago. Everything they've mentioned has sounded promising, Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Backwards Compatibility have been amazing features for me personally.

@jesus_phish: Sorry if my response is late, but Game Pass only includes the base game. You can buy the DLC, or the Ultimate upgrade, so if you cancel Game Pass, you’ll still own the DLC, but not the core game.