Microsoft E3 Predictions

Xbox. On.

You can feel it, can’t you? Opportunity. If there were ever a year that Microsoft could change the climate of the console landscape, its this year at E3. A deplorable conference in 2013 still taints the general perception of Xbox One – that’s the power of E3. Microsoft has been running damage control on overdrive ever since. In fact, it has become quite good at it. Phil Spencer is now head of Xbox and is so skilled, he makes the damage control look like a a five-year plan.

Xbox One runs three operating systems simultaneously running off of slightly less powerful hardware when compared to PS4. This has left Microsoft in a touchy space when it comes to third-party titles where direct frame-by-frame comparisons can be made. This is especially disconcerting when apparently the entire internet has evolved, seemingly overnight, and now has the ability to count horizontal lines of resolution and how many frames are rendered every second. Okay, that might have been a little cheeky. But perception is everything and right now, gamers do not perceive the Xbox One to be a graphical powerhouse.

Phil Spencer can’t like what gamers are saying about Xbox One. I predict he will take a note out of Don Draper’s playbook and change the conversation at E3 2015.

And now for something we hope you’ll really like

We’re in for a few wow moments from Microsoft. Let’s have a look.

Partnership with BioWare will bring Mass Effect back to Xbox and PC, exclusively.

Just get used to seeing this.

Once upon a time, Mass Effect was an Xbox 360 exclusive. BioWare benefited greatly by focusing on one platform to develop its sci-fi opus and quickly garnered critical praise as both an accessible entry point for newcomers to Role Playing Games and a fully-realized universe for veterans to explore. It was released nearly eight years ago so it might be difficult to remember but Mass Effect was one of the first killer apps for the Xbox 360.

We’ll see some of the usual suspects from Microsoft at this year’s E3 but the real wow moments will be a slew of exclusive titles from third-party developers. Developing under the umbrella of Windows 10 will provide game creators the assurance their potential customer base is more broad than just the Xbox One market and we’ll see this as part of a theme during Spencer’s time on stage.

Why don’t we take this prediction to the next level? After the shock and awe of the exclusivity agreement, BioWare and Microsoft will jointly announce the Mass Effect Triology: The Director’s Cut and a Limited Edition Mass Effect Triology: The Director’s Cut Xbox One bundle. It will come with a 1TB hard drive, Kinect, and will cost $449. It will be available for pre-order “today” and it will sell out across the galaxy.

Finally, I have to sneak one more in here. Last year, BioWare announced the team in Montreal was working on the next Mass Effect game but the team in Edmonton was working on a new IP! We will also see the reveal at the Microsoft press conference this year! I love E3!!!!

The Rise of the Windows Exclusive

There has been plenty of talk about what makes a third-party exclusive okay in some instances and egregious in others. When Microsoft announced (sort of) that The Rise of the Tomb Raider would be an exclusive to Xbox One over Holiday 2015, let’s just say the internet wasn’t pleased. Then again, what else is new.

We’ve yet to hear how long Lara Croft’s loyalty will remain with Xbox One and its got me thinking; what if Microsoft and Square Enix hadn’t yet worked out what Phil Spencer wanted all along: The Rise of the Tomb Raider will be exclusive to Windows 10. It will land on Xbox One first over the holidays and then later on PC.

It seems nobody loves the idea of third-party exclusives, particularly when an earlier entry in a series was open to all consoles. However, the timed aspect of exclusivity is hardly winning anyone over either. The community will come to grips with Microsoft tossing cash around like it’s Monopoly money and Xbox One will offer a diverse collection of exclusive titles starting this fall.

This vault isn’t big enough for the two of us.

The Fallout series has its roots on PC and even Fallout 3 was given special attention on Xbox 360. Back in 2008, Microsoft opened its E3 conference with a brief welcome from Don Mattrick followed quickly by the Fallout 3 reveal trailer and live demo. This year, Bethesda will host its own press conference so the reveal will already be taken care of. But just like in 2008, after a quick live demo, Bethesda will announce exclusive DLC for Xbox One and PC. Because I’m not doing a Bethesda predictions piece, I’ll say it here: Fallout 4 will be release in Fall 2015 – and the “out 4” will fade out to reveal 2015.

Red. Red. Blue. Green. ORANGE!

No stairway…denied!

Rockband 4 is coming back for a reunion tour after a lengthy hiatus. All your digital songs from the Rockband games on Xbox 360 are making an encore and can be transferred to Xbox One (the same is true from PS3 to PS4) meaning the now-gen version will truly have a compilation of greatest hits. 

In many cases, this represents a massive investment locked to an Xbox Live account and Microsoft has to be pleased to know this third-party release will unlock such a significant lure either to, for those yet to make the move from Xbox 360 to Xbox One, or back to Xbox One, for any ship jumpers.  It is truly in the best interest of Microsoft to give Rockband some love at E3 and own the perception that this game is best on Xbox – and that its best for gamers to play on Xbox.

Outside any Microsoft Studios teams, Harmonix may also be most intimately familiar with Kinect having created arguably the best reason to connect the once-required piece of tech in the form of Fantasia: Music Evolved. During the Rockband 4 presentation, Harmonix will reveal some cool Kinect-enabled features and announce a talent search, like American Idol or America’s Got Talent, through a special promotion through Twitch.

The only thing that’s odd is normally the crowd cheers endlessly after the last song to lure the band back for an encore. I seriously don’t think anyone was still screaming for this but who knows, maybe there’s till magic in the bottle and Harmonix will rub it the right way and it’ll have us moving like Jagger?

Two timing the hard drive

I’m not entirely sure just how many people are asking for this but there have been rumblings of the 500 GB hard drive being a little too small. On Xbox 360, we could get away with a much smaller hard drive because, until much later on, physical games weren’t required to be installed like they were on PlayStation 3. However, the original Xbox One DRM policies (remember when the internet overreacted to that!?) dictated the system’s architecture would be built around installing games as if they wouldn’t require the disc meaning we’re faced with enormous amounts of data loaded onto a relatively small hard drive.

Microsoft will continue to lean on its value proposition and release a 1 TB “Elite” Xbox One and price it at $399 – directly competing with the PS4 price point. Oh, and the $349 price point for the current configuration will become the permanent price.

Acne medicine and skin cream

Really quickly: we’ll get our first glimpse as to what Battletoads on Xbox One. It will be an absolutely gorgeous 2.5D side scroller that reverts back to its 8-bit roots after the third level because nobody will see anything past it anyway. We’ll get a date but it won’t be in 2015.

Captain Obvious reminds you that the Battletoads characters are Zitz, Rash, and Pimple. That’s a real thing.

Phil’s only human.

Not everything will be sunshine and rainbows from Microsoft. Here are a few disappointments to expect.

Quantum Break is still really, really far away.

If we get a date, it will be no earlier than Spring 2016.

Minecraft

Microsoft paid $2.5 billion for Minecraft. Disney paid only $1.5 billion more for Star Wars! Yes, we will see some Minecraft.

Fable Legends

Cross-plays with Windows 10. This is only exciting because it sparks the rest of us to think of what other games we want to cross-play. We’ll get a Fall date because Windows 10 won’t be immediately released on Xbox One. Nobody will be sad about the delay.

Probably Nots

These last few are rooted with at least a smidgen of reality. Not much, but then again, nobody claimed a smidgen ever amounted to anything substantial.

Golden Games

Betty White-approved

In order for this bold prediction to really work, I need to pull an Inception and go to a prediction within a prediction: Windows 10 on Xbox One will fundamentally change what games will be playable on Xbox One. Microsoft will announce the updated OS will empower the Xbox One to play Xbox 360 games using a similar process that Good Old Games employs – wrapping a shell around the game to work within the new operating system environment. Similarly to the Wii U, this will open a vast library of favorites and represent another reason to make the move from last gen to now gen. It is also a nice way to monetize backwards compatibility, so that’s a plus.

This will unify and simplify the Games with Gold program, which has generally been met with lukewarm reactions. Extremely strong titles for Xbox 360 have been released since the program was initiated, back in June 2013, including Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, and most notably prudent to my prediction, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

Last year, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was appropriated a significant portion of Microsoft’s press conference and January’s Games with Gold promotion of The Witcher 2 was a nice way to bring those who had never heard of the series up to speed. In the same light, assuming Bethesda appears at the presentation as it did in 2008, Microsoft will give the Fallout 4 hype train a kick start by announcing Fallout 3 will be free, through Games with Gold, starting in July and will be available on both Xbox One and Xbox 360.

Finally, Xbox Live Arcade favorites, Braid and Castle Crashers, will be announced as upcoming (before the end of 2015) Xbox One Games with Gold releases.

Gears of Fwour

Get it? I made the four and war into the same word. Just like God of War in my Sony E3 Predictions. Its even the same acronym!

Okay, now that we’re done with that, on with a slightly nuts Gears of War prediction. The Marcus Fenix Collection will be announced and will be offered using an a la carte style like Killer Instinct. Customers will have the option to select one, two, or all three Marcus Fenix games digitally or the entire collection as a retail purchase. It will also come with a free code for all Windows Phone users to download a Marcus Fenix ringtone “aww come on!”

And it will come with early access to the Gears of War 4 beta which starts in September. At least one eighth of this may or may not be 100% correct.

Xbox Infinity

Bill Gates and Dwayne The Rock Johnson will jointly announce the rebranding of Xbox One to Xbox Infinity. They will then give full credit to the games media for knowing it all along.

Starting today

No less than nine announcements will climax with “starting today” followed by a knowing grin and nod.

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Tons of exclusives eh? Look to my Nintendo E3 2015 predictions to see some really outrageous predictions because nobody, and I mean nobody, can truly know what those guys are up to. Better yet, tweet me @seancapri and let me know what you think will happen at this year’s conference. I might even add it to the site. Also, listen to We The Gamercast for more on our E3 predictions.