E3 2017 — The forgotten future of the Xbox One X

Andrew Conway
Jul 20, 2017 · 11 min read

Held each June in Los Angeles, California, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, more commonly referred to as E3, is the Gaming world’s biggest event of the year. This year’s showcase, the biggest of its comparatively short history, has just come to a close.

Game developers, manufacturers, public relations bigwigs, titans of big tech, journalists from all over the world and for the first time this year, fans, descended upon the Los Angeles Convention Centre to share in and celebrate gaming culture while also looking towards the best that the gaming industry can muster for the coming year.

Many announcements were made. The industry’s traditional big players, the console manufacturers (Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony) plus a selection of the world’s biggest publishing studios (Bethesda, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft), all had their own lavishly produced press conferences chocked full of announcements of new titles coupled with news of the latest iterations of reliable old favourites (the Call of Duty’s, Fifa’s, BattleFront’s, Skyrim’s and Uncharted’s of this world).

For the thousands in attendance and millions more streaming the conference on Twitch and YouTube, this is their World Cup, Olympics and Oscars rolled into one annual shindig. Applause, hollers and screams of adulation accompany seemingly benign announcements of downloadable content or old game remakes.

Now, with the event over for another year and dust beginning to settle, analysis free from that frenzied fandom can take place. The observing eyes of the industry’s commentators and influencers have begun in earnest to pick apart the weeklong event to cast their judgement on the Gaming industry’s performance in the marquee event of 2017.

So far, the consensus has been fairly positive. This year had been a good event for all involved. No press conference majorly misfired, there were few jeers and many in attendance were at the very least left impressed by the offerings the public will get to experience in the coming months and years.

In contrast to previous E3 iterations, everything went well. Old stalwart Nintendo continued their resurgence, announcing new partnerships with third party developers to bring more to their new “hybrid” handheld console, the Switch, while also getting to show off their perennial mascot, Mario, in a whole new adventure.

Perceived wisdom is that Nintendo won this year’s E3 — a short, sharp press conference littered with crowd pleasing moments was the way to go, a breath of fresh air to contrast the bombast and spectacle of the other major showcases.

That said, Nintendo were followed closely behind by their age old rivals Sony. Their PlayStation conference was a solid affair, highlighting their exclusive offerings, though it was lacking any major surprises or wow moments. The exhibits produced from the attending publishing studios also impressed but similarly lingered on without dazzling moments of shock or awe.

Strangely enough, it was the manufacturer who had the most to show, the biggest wow moments and the most exciting offering that was left the forgotten party member as the curtain closed on another year of E3.

Microsoft, the Redmond tech giant behind the Xbox, are no strangers to E3 conferences — having played a part in major presentations for nearly 20 years, they know their stuff. Yet this year’s performance fell mostly flat.

Perhaps it was the timing of their conference that’s to blame. It did take place early on Sunday morning, before the other major manufacturer showcases, meaning that their show was quickly buried and drowned out in the tidal wave of news coming from rivals each subsequent day of E3.

Despite finally answering critics who complained that previous Xbox showcases failed to focus on their core gaming product, 42 new games were given stage time during the press conference this year, the big talking point going into the Xbox conference was their new hardware, a new console, previously referred to as Project Scorpio.

Twelve months ago, Project Scorpio was teased in a sizzle real featuring many of the luminaries of the gaming world — creators of beloved stories and franchises, CEOs of publishers and indie developers alike sung the praises of the console with the power to truly render the full extent of their imaginations on screen. Six teraflops of graphical processing power, a measure few without an interest in computer architecture knew about prior, was the boast.

Twelve months on, that boast has become a punchline. Despite that strong start, Xbox’ messaging has often been flawed and they have failed to adequately explain what the console is, what six teraflops mean for games, for the user experience. Instead, Xbox, in their marketing and PR material for the past year, focused on the Xbox’ technical advantage over its rivals, pushing jargon rather than what it meant for the players.

The reality of what it actually means was uncovered at E3 last week. Project Scorpio is the Xbox One X — an entirely new console. It is considerably more powerful than the current offerings from Sony or Nintendo, the fabled 6 teraflops way ahead of other console offerings while its additional 4 GBs of RAM, the traditional definer of console generation leaps, offers great potential in improving every facet of gameplay.

But what does all that really mean for the players? Well the Xbox One X is built on the same architecture as the current generation Xbox One (and PS4 for that matter), so all current games and peripherals (controllers and the like) will work with it. The additional RAM could enable developers to grossly increase their ability to craft interesting games and experiences. Improved and increased on screen animations are possible while the number of characters allowed on screen and detail in games can be dramatically changed. All the while, the additional processing power could render gameplay at an extremely sharp 4k resolution as well as power virtual reality headsets.

However, with all of that said, Xbox have also guaranteed that new games will work on the full gamut of Xbox One’s currently in the wild, thought to be near 30 million. These 30 million consoles do not have 6 teraflops of GPU power, cannot power virtual reality and do not have the additional 4GBs of RAM.

This decision could have killed the advantages offered by Xbox One X to developers before it is even out. Many developers will choose not to fully utilise the system for fear of cutting themselves off from that 30 million unit install base. If they do, they will be stranding their games on a hugely powerful machine, but one with limited outreach, potentially even forcing themselves to make the same game twice for the same system.

As such, there was a muted public response to a new console release. This reaction to the the most powerful console ever envisaged, which has nominal support from all the development studios, shows a significant sea change in the perception of technology in the gaming industry.

Perhaps, in 2017, games have finally reached their technical plateau. A point where users care little about improved graphics or improved image fidelity but instead want games entirely for their content — their story, their gameplay, their hook.

The same thing could be said to have happened to cinema in the 1950s. 35 mm celluloid film shown at roughly 30 frames per second became the standard. 1940s colour and image cropping were embraced while the clear improvements brought from 3-D technology, 70 mm anamorphic Panavision and more immersive colouring techniques were seen as unnecessary at best and soon faded into the background. It took some 50 years for this to change with the advent of digital cinema.

In that time, this perception of standards enabled film creators to focus on the medium itself, excused from working on technical breakthroughs to fully concentrate on the artistic ones. From auteurs in the French new wave, the bohemians in the new Hollywood scene of Coppola and Scorsese to the blockbuster acumen of Lucas and Spielberg, cinema as an artistic form was changed forever.

Given this reaction to the Xbox One X, could the same course be set for Gaming?Held each June in Los Angeles, California, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, more commonly referred to as E3, is the Gaming world’s biggest event of the year. This year’s showcase, the biggest of its comparatively short history, has just come to a close.

Game developers, manufacturers, public relations bigwigs, titans of big tech, journalists from all over the world and for the first time this year, fans, descended upon the Los Angeles Convention Centre to share in and celebrate gaming culture while also looking towards the best that the gaming industry can muster for the coming year.

Many announcements were made. The industry’s traditional big players, the console manufacturers (Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony) plus a selection of the world’s biggest publishing studios (Bethesda, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft), all had their own lavishly produced press conferences chocked full of announcements of new titles coupled with news of the latest iterations of reliable old favourites (the Call of Duty’s, Fifa’s, BattleFront’s, Skyrim’s and Uncharted’s of this world).

For the thousands in attendance and millions more streaming the conference on Twitch and YouTube, this is their World Cup, Olympics and Oscars rolled into one annual shindig. Applause, hollers and screams of adulation accompany seemingly benign announcements of downloadable content or old game remakes.

Now, with the event over for another year and dust beginning to settle, analysis free from that frenzied fandom can take place. The observing eyes of the industry’s commentators and influencers have begun in earnest to pick apart the weeklong event to cast their judgement on the Gaming industry’s performance in the marquee event of 2017.

So far, the consensus has been fairly positive. This year had been a good event for all involved. No press conference majorly misfired, there were few jeers and many in attendance were at the very least left impressed by the offerings the public will get to experience in the coming months and years.

In contrast to previous E3 iterations, everything went well. Old stalwart Nintendo continued their resurgence, announcing new partnerships with third party developers to bring more to their new “hybrid” handheld console, the Switch, while also getting to show off their perennial mascot, Mario, in a whole new adventure.

Perceived wisdom is that Nintendo won this year’s E3 — a short, sharp press conference littered with crowd pleasing moments was the way to go, a breath of fresh air to contrast the bombast and spectacle of the other major showcases.

That said, Nintendo were followed closely behind by their age old rivals Sony. Their PlayStation conference was a solid affair, highlighting their exclusive offerings, though it was lacking any major surprises or wow moments. The exhibits produced from the attending publishing studios also impressed but similarly lingered on without dazzling moments of shock or awe.

Strangely enough, it was the manufacturer who had the most to show, the biggest wow moments and the most exciting offering that was left the forgotten party member as the curtain closed on another year of E3.

Microsoft, the Redmond tech giant behind the Xbox, are no strangers to E3 conferences — having played a part in major presentations for nearly 20 years, they know their stuff. Yet this year’s performance fell mostly flat.

Perhaps it was the timing of their conference that’s to blame. It did take place early on Sunday morning, before the other major manufacturer showcases, meaning that their show was quickly buried and drowned out in the tidal wave of news coming from rivals each subsequent day of E3.

Despite finally answering critics who complained that previous Xbox showcases failed to focus on their core gaming product, 42 new games were given stage time during the press conference this year, the big talking point going into the Xbox conference was their new hardware, a new console, previously referred to as Project Scorpio.

Twelve months ago, Project Scorpio was teased in a sizzle real featuring many of the luminaries of the gaming world — creators of beloved stories and franchises, CEOs of publishers and indie developers alike sung the praises of the console with the power to truly render the full extent of their imaginations on screen. Six teraflops of graphical processing power, a measure few without an interest in computer architecture knew about prior, was the boast.

Twelve months on, that boast has become a punchline. Despite that strong start, Xbox’ messaging has often been flawed and they have failed to adequately explain what the console is, what six teraflops mean for games, for the user experience. Instead, Xbox, in their marketing and PR material for the past year, focused on the Xbox’ technical advantage over its rivals, pushing jargon rather than what it meant for the players.

The reality of what it actually means was uncovered at E3 last week. Project Scorpio is the Xbox One X — an entirely new console. It is considerably more powerful than the current offerings from Sony or Nintendo, the fabled 6 teraflops way ahead of other console offerings while its additional 4 GBs of RAM, the traditional definer of console generation leaps, offers great potential in improving every facet of gameplay.

But what does all that really mean for the players? Well the Xbox One X is built on the same architecture as the current generation Xbox One (and PS4 for that matter), so all current games and peripherals (controllers and the like) will work with it. The additional RAM could enable developers to grossly increase their ability to craft interesting games and experiences. Improved and increased on screen animations are possible while the number of characters allowed on screen and detail in games can be dramatically changed. All the while, the additional processing power could render gameplay at an extremely sharp 4k resolution as well as power virtual reality headsets.

However, with all of that said, Xbox have also guaranteed that new games will work on the full gamut of Xbox One’s currently in the wild, thought to be near 30 million. These 30 million consoles do not have 6 teraflops of GPU power, cannot power virtual reality and do not have the additional 4GBs of RAM.

This decision could have killed the advantages offered by Xbox One X to developers before it is even out. Many developers will choose not to fully utilise the system for fear of cutting themselves off from that 30 million unit install base. If they do, they will be stranding their games on a hugely powerful machine, but one with limited outreach, potentially even forcing themselves to make the same game twice for the same system.

As such, there was a muted public response to a new console release. This reaction to the the most powerful console ever envisaged, which has nominal support from all the development studios, shows a significant sea change in the perception of technology in the gaming industry.

Perhaps, in 2017, games have finally reached their technical plateau. A point where users care little about improved graphics or improved image fidelity but instead want games entirely for their content — their story, their gameplay, their hook.

The same thing could be said to have happened to cinema in the 1950s. 35 mm celluloid film shown at roughly 30 frames per second became the standard. 1940s colour and image cropping were embraced while the clear improvements brought from 3-D technology, 70 mm anamorphic Panavision and more immersive colouring techniques were seen as unnecessary at best and soon faded into the background. It took some 50 years for this to change with the advent of digital cinema.

In that time, this perception of standards enabled film creators to focus on the medium itself, excused from working on technical breakthroughs to fully concentrate on the artistic ones. From auteurs in the French new wave, the bohemians in the new Hollywood scene of Coppola and Scorsese to the blockbuster acumen of Lucas and Spielberg, cinema as an artistic form was changed forever.

Given this reaction to the Xbox One X, could the same course be set for Gaming?

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