E3 will kick off tomorrow (Saturday, June 10, 2017) at 10pm in South Africa with the EA conference and Microsoft and Bethesda Softworks headlining Sunday’s schedule.
There have been plenty of rumours of games that could surprise us and predictions have been filtering through. We have the rundown of some of the biggest rumours and top predictions:
Project Scorpio pricing: The biggest rumour to date is whether the Scorpio will be marketed as a “premium” console or not. According to Microsoft, they aim at selling the Scorpio more than Xbox One S which could result in a dead sale for the Scorpio upon its release, much like the PS4 Pro.
Hat-trick gaming showcase: It’s a given that Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2 and Crackdown 3 will be a part of Xbox’s showcase on Sunday, along with possible updates for Minecraft. Also, part of Xbox’s showcase is the now confirmed Forza Motorsport 7. It’s also possible that a feature showcasing exclusive titles for the Scorpio could make an appearance at E3 this year.
Alongside Forza Motorsport 7, existing Xbox games like Gears of War 4, Halo Wars 2, Minecraft, Killer Instinct and Forza Horizon 3 all being bumped up to 4K for the Project Scorpio presentation. Xbox will most likely enlist third parties to be part of their showcase including Resident Evil 7, Rise of the Tomb Raider, FIFA 17, Madden 17, Call of Duty WWII, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Star Wars Battlefront 2.
Mixer, UWP and VR at E3: It may seem like not many games will be part of Xbox’s showcase, but it may appear that Xbox head Phil Spencer could be looking at other features from Microsft. With Mixer competing with Twitch, Microsoft making improvements to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), we could potentially be hinting at AR and VR making its presence at E3.
Windows Mixed Reality will be powering the VR for Scorpio, as Xbox will probably enlist third-party vendors like HP and Acer. As much as Spencer will want to emphasis on the Project Scorpio, VR could also play a big part of their Sunday showcase.
Will history repeat its success for Xbox, much like the Xbox 360 backward compatibility for the Xbox One was?
Final thoughts
It may look like Sony could be edging out Microsoft in terms of consumer visibility and the sales numbers don’t lie.
While there may be a lack of exclusive titles, despite surging success with Halo, Forza and the Minecraft series, Sony has exclusive rights to Destiny, Call of Duty and Star Wars Battlefront, it seems that third-party deals aren’t where they aiming at. Microsoft could suffer from this as Sony aims to cripple sales once Project Scorpio launches during the holiday season.
But don’t rule the Scorpio out of the running.
The system, purely focusing on 4K technology, could potentially bring more features that could stun their competition, they also aimed the Scorpio at being the best console to experience multi-platform exclusives. While the backward compatibility has proven major success for the Xbox One as there is a potential for Xbox to announce similar or new features for the Scorpio much like they did for the Xbox One.
Microsoft and Xbox will have the showcase on Sunday, June 11, 2017 at 10pm South African time on Xbox’s Mixer channel and on the YouTube Live at E3 channel on YouTube.
