A few weeks ago, I felt that Microsoft's 2023 Xbox Games Showcase had to hit a home run. By that statement, I meant that the division in general, and Microsoft's Xbox head Phil Spencer in particular, really had to show some great upcoming games, and also indicate that they know they need to do better when it came to releasing quality titles.
Now that the Xbox Games Showcase is history, I feel like Microsoft and Spencer hit a solid double. There were some great-looking upcoming games, but there were others that didn't impress me as much.
On the good side, Microsoft has some great-looking fantasy RPGs that are in the works. Playground Games' reboot of Fable is not only looking good but it looks like it will have a great sense of humor. Obsidian's Avowed is a bit more serious fantasy game, but it also looks promising as well.
Of course, the new Forza Motorsport is looking terrific and should be a huge hit for racing sim fans. The same could be said for flight sim gamers for the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Adding more flying professions and different types of aircraft are a positive sign.
The new trailer for Ninja Theory's Senua's Saga: Hellblade II looked very cool, but it was basically a cinematic rather than showing what the gameplay will be like. Hopefully, we will get more info on that aspect of this spectacular looking title soon.
Of course, Microsoft put a lot of its eggs into its Starfield basket during its Sunday presentation. I did come away impressed with the scope of this sci-fi game and I'm definitely looking forward to playing it in a few months. However, considering the poor reception that Bethesda Software's last game, Redfall, got after its release, and also considering the huge amount of bugs in Bethesda Game Studios' last title, Fallout 76, had at launch, I really hope Microsoft is putting in enough QA time to make sure Starfield's launch is smooth.
On the not-so-good side, I didn't come away all that impressed with InXile's Clockwork Revolution, Compulsion Games's South of Midnight, and Stoic Games Towerbourne. They all seem like niche titles to me. They might well with a limited audience but I don't see them selling in the millions of copies. They look like they come from another publisher rather than from Microsoft.
Speaking of Microsoft and its Xbox Games Studios publishing line, a lot of games that were announced in the past simply didn't get a mention. State of Decay 3, Contraband, Everwild, Perfect Dark, and The Outer Worlds 2 were all announced at least a couple of years ago but didn't get a mention at all on Sunday.
Ara: History Untold, a grand strategy game from developer Oxide Games, was announced during the 2022 Xbox Games Showcase as a 2023 release from Xbox Game Studios, but it got no mention at all on Sunday. We have emailed Microsoft to get an update on that title in particular.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the event was that Xbox head Phil Spencer didn't want to address the elephant in the room. No, not the issues with UK regulators on Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard. That's pretty much out of his control. Rather, he didn't try to make an effort to convince Xbox fans that the division would do a better job in releasing quality games.
In a recent interview with Kinda Funny, Spencer admitted that the release of Redfall did not live up to the company's expectations. In part, he said that "...there is nothing more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community, to just watch the community lose confidence and be disappointed, I'm disappointed. We'll revisit our process."
I was really hoping that Spencer would address that failure up front on Sunday, including announcing some specific changes that the Xbox team would make to help ensure that future releases of first-party games would not suffer the same fate as Redfall. Yet, he didn't mention that at all. All he did was to promise that more Xbox consoles would be available to buy and that a new 1TB black Xbox Series S would go on sale in September.
The fact that Spencer would not address recent issues is a problem for me. It makes me feel that he didn't learn his lessons yet and that the company is going to release new games like Starfield before they are ready for prime time. Hopefully, I'm reading too much into this, but being transparent about problems is the first step in any recovery from a problem. Spencer made a partial step with that interview a few weeks ago, but seemed to walk it back on Sunday. Starfield will definitely be an important release to Xbox and Spencer, and lets hope it goes well for all concerned.
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