Microsoft Presentation Afterthoughts

"It's all about the games."
                  -Phil Spencer

I'm hard-pressed to remember another E3 press conference that was so densely packed with games.  Microsoft's conference was back-to-back game announcements, exclusives and indies all over.  Better yet, these were focused for core gamers, no sports games, no dancing games, just one racing game.  Starting out strong with Metal Gear Solid 5, Microsoft jumped to current 360 owners, rewarding gold members with free games up to the release on the One.  Next came lots of great shows of the One's processing prowess with Ryse and Forza.  Better yet was the revival of Rare's classic arcade fighter, Killer Instinct.  Plenty of new stuff was shown as well like Sunset Overdrive, Project Spark, and a better look at Quantum Break.  Classic franchises also got some screentime, like Dead Rising 3 and Witcher 3.  Finally, hell of a send-of with Respawn's Titanfall with a stellar gameplay showing.

Was it all good news though? Not quite, a few bits of info kept the Xbox One from being redeemed.  First off, $499 on launch in November, higher than I and a lot of gamers feel willing to pay.

Second was the redesign on the 360.  4 gig models for $199 (useless), a 250 gig model for $299, and a 4 gig with Kinect for $299 (once again, useless).  Essentially

Finally, no clarification at all from the terrible press drop last friday.

In the end, Microsoft has sort of clamored back onto the saddle, but it still seems like Sony could knock this out the park, we'll see tonight.