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Sony may have abandoned PlayStation Experience for the time being, but its arch-rival Microsoft has fully embraced directly interfacing with its fans. In London, the company is conducting its revived and revitalized "X" exposition, this year titled X019. And -- much like PlayStation Experiences of yore -- its most intriguing feature is its E3-like press conference, one produced with hardcore Xbox fans in mind. With said conference now in the rear-view mirror, we thought we'd analyze all that was announced, revealed, and discussed, because it's endlessly interesting (and instructive!) to assess what's happening elsewhere in our industry. And it's especially vital when the competition is clearly doing a whole lot right.

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Alex Bolton

The idea of rolling the gamepass library right into XCloud completely kills Google's stadia. Stadia's library is weak at launch and looks like it will be for a while after, but XCloud will launch immediately with a huge library of games. Microsoft is in a really really nice position here.

MayorGarbageMan

The 25% of Google stadia games are tomb raider games, not assassins creed. (:

Anonymous

Like you two, I was immediately interested in West of Dead when I saw it during the showcase yesterday. Downloaded the beta last night and fired it up, and then... I found out it was a rougelike. Breaks my heart, it had so much potential.

Anonymous

Is the audio sped up?

Cannonball_Jones

Yakuza 0 is a prequel but I’d say it’s a mainline game, though it could be argued. Kiwami 1 and 2 are remakes of the original 2 games.

Anonymous

They are remasters of the original games built using the yakuza 6 engine. Colin is wrong about this

Anthony J Sanchez

Xcloud just destroyed Stadia. I've tried it out and it works pretty well! Plus it sounds like it's going to be part of your game pass subscription which would be another win!

Anonymous

Yakuza Kiwami 1 & 2 are not spin offs (technically), they are remakes of the first 2 games on PS2. 0 is a prequel to the first game. With 3, 4, 5 they are just uprezing the OG PS3 games on PS4 right now, so there’s a chance they could come to Xbone as well.

JD

Kiwami 1 is a remake of Yakuza 1 in the engine with added story cutscenes and QoL improvements and combat changes etc. Kiwami 2 is a remake of Yakuza 2 in the Dragon Engine (Yakuza 6 and Judgment) with an added brand new mini-campaign for the second protagonist (Majima). Yakuza 0 is a prequel to Yakuza 1 and the entire series.

Andrew

Came here to see if anyone pointed out Colin's mistake about the Yakuza games. Wasn't disappointed... LOL shit happens...

Anonymous

Nothing Xbox showed appealed to me.

FitzIsCoy

Man I want an xbox now....

Judah Bailey

I enjoyed the fact that Chris mentioned games like Modern Warfare that look so good and detailed that the gameplay suffers slightly as a result. I've been feeling this issue a lot this generation but my friends always thought I was crazy.

Anonymous

Hey Colin, just wanted to tell you that Flight Simulator does let you crash the plane into the ground. The game basically lets you do whatever you want.

LastStandMedia

Interesting. Is everything super detailed all the way down to the ground? Like, the houses or whatever?

Alex Bolton

Colin, so Xclouds preview program already works with the dualshock4, been using it like this for a few weeks, and it works great! Button prompts aren't changed on screen but once I remembered where each of the buttons were then it was smooth sailing.

Matthew Cooper

I totally agree about episodic games. Life is Strange is one of my favorite games, but I still haven't played LiS 2. The first episode came out over a year ago and the last episode still isn't out yet, ridiculous... Waiting so long between episodes would just be frustrating and take away from the experience.

Anonymous

Is this episode supposed to be free?

Andrew McGregor

Hey loved the show, I do most of my gaming on Xbox, but still love my PS4 pro. However I just wanted to highlight a couple of things. First the new dotnod game is not going to be episodic, and I think the reason MS is pushing Wasteland 3, is that they can turn wasteland into a fallout. InXile has been ramping up in team members, so I could see MS going FPS for wasteland 4 that would be Xbox/pc exclusive. Love your PS 4 content but being a gamer of both consoles it was good to hear your Xbox thoughts.

Anonymous

Really good point on almost all PS4 games are post apocalyptic games. I really want a Spy game set During the Cold War by Naughty Dog and Pacific Rim type of Mech vs Kaiju game by Kojima.

JusticeSoulTuna

I'm currently playing Rage 2 thanks to Game Pass, a game I wanted to try all year. I played the entire of Gears 5 thanks to it. And soon, I'll be able to play FFX remastered, a game which I'd wanted to play since it was on PS3. I can't believe Game Pass right now. That plus XBL Games with Gold have given me every game I ever wanted to play.

Harley Carlson

XO19 was pretty amazing. Probably better than most of the Microsoft E3 shows. I'm not knocking Sony at all, and will get a PS5 for sure, but they have a lot of ground to cover with online and streaming initiatives and services with insane value like Game Pass. Imagine a world where Don Mattrick is still in charge of XBOX. Phil Spencer for President.

Anonymous

Gamepass is great. It let me realize how little I enjoy lost Xbox games and has already saved me $120 just from not buying gears 5 or outerworlds.

Anonymous

I wonder if gamepass is sustainable. It feels like a transition period to get is used to streaming games once that part of the service rolls out. And then bam we don't own anything anymore. Just lease it until they decide to remove it

Anonymous

Is there a spot to send corrections? I just wanted to inform Colin I'm pretty sure yakuza kiwami 1 and 2 are not "spin-offs" but retelling of the story of yakuza 1 and 2 but with modern yakuza gameplay so technically xbox is getting the beginning of the story rather spin offs

B00ch

i really liked your takes on the show, especially yours (colin) since you're not really in that ecosystem. most of games media i follow didn't really like it, or said they wish it was more like a Nintendo direct. so it was refreshing to see you be so positive on it, and you don't even own an xbox. you really did your research for it, some in games media don't which made me think of your journalism episode. i still like a lot of them but sometimes so negative

Craig Mcguire

I swear people have a huge blind spot when it comes to Xbox, which I suppose isn't suprising, the same happened with Nintendo after the Wii U. Nice see you acknowledge they are doing a lot right Colin. Gamepass solely got me back gaming on Xbox in a big way outside of simply booting it up for Halo. Its an amazing service, one I think you would really enjoy Colin. The curation and discoveribility is its best aspect and there's another layer to achievement meta with reward points which are given for trying new games and getting specific achievements, which can then be used for purchases on the online store.

Craig Gunter

This is what I came to see if anybody mentioned. I'm a diehard Yakuza fan and I'm thrilled that a new audience is gonna get an opportunity to check these games out.

Craig Gunter

I'm with you......I play my XBox more than my PS4 these days because of Gamepass. Its such a great value and has allowed me to try out some games I would not have discovered otherwise. I know in the next gen I'll get both systems again at some point but I think I'll take the plunge on the XBox first because of Gamepass.

LastStandMedia

Yes, but we weren't saying the functionality is weird. We're saying it's weird they said it to their audience.

LastStandMedia

The Outer Worlds being on there is huge. I wonder how much Microsoft had to pay Private Division for the honor?

LastStandMedia

I'm typically pretty positive on what Xbox has been doing for the last five years or so. It's like turning a battleship. Takes time!