June is fast approaching and that means E3 is just around the corner. A lot of major AAA publishers are gearing up to demonstrate top tier titles at the event, while major platform manufacturers like Microsoft will be utilizing the stage to give gamers an idea of what the future of the Xbox brand will look like.
Over on Major Nelson's blog Microsoft revealed what gamers can expect from the company when it comes to the Xbox brand being on display at this year's E3 event in Los Angeles, California.
According to the blog, this year's upcoming event will be Microsoft's "biggest showing ever." How is "big" quantified? Well, we don't know. What we do know is that the E3 presentation will take place on June 10th, 2018 at 1PM Pacific Standard Time at the Microsoft Theater across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Additionally, there will be a Xbox Fanfest event that will allow Microsoft to showcase more games and demonstrations that won't fit at the LA Convention Center. Inside the LACC Microsoft will have an all new Mixer booth, dedicated to the live-streaming and broadcasting service.
Given that Microsoft is touting the event being "big," it leaves gamers questioning if the company will focus on introducing all new games or will there be new hardware announcements? Now, I know some of you are thinking that Microsoft just introduced the Xbox One X to the market last year so there wouldn't be any new hardware announcements to make, but Microsoft also introduced Mixed Reality headsets to the market last year and the Xbox One X obviously has the horsepower to run VR games. But the question is: will Microsoft make that announcement at this year's E3? If it happened it would be huge for the Xbox and finally put it into the market to compete against the PlayStation VR.
There's also the possibility of new hardware peripherals and accessories, such as new controllers, maybe a new racing wheel or an adapter for existing VR headsets.
If VR does become a big presentation point for Microsoft, there's automatically going to be a lot of new VR games announced during the press conference. If Microsoft forfeits the VR aspect, there's still the possibility of new first-party titles being announced.
Earlier this year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer mentioned that E3 was going to be a big focus for Microsoft this year, and it's possible that the company will finally put a focus on software instead of quality of life features. The biggest drawback to the Xbox brand so far is a lack of exclusives. So, maybe we'll see a lot more of them during the E3 press briefing?
One of the ways both Nintendo and Sony have been able to lure a lot of gamers is with a variety of first-party titles, especially single-player games like God of War, Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. So, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft attempts to adopt the strategy of its competitors or if it will focus mainly on multiplayer games like Sea of Thieves.
Hopefully, we'll also get to see more of Crackdown 3, and I'm pretty sure we'll get a firsthand look at the upcoming Halo title.
