Top X Xbox E3 2017 Announcements

Xbox’s much-anticipated E3 briefing was worth the 90 minutes I spent watching it live. For those at the event, all video was presented on a 4k screen. Sadly I couldn’t enjoy the full power of the experience on my non-4k screen but I’m sure it was pretty sweet. Here is a curated list of my Top 10 takeaways:

1. Xbox One X will be the most powerful console ever made with a 6 Teraflop GPU clocked at 1.172Ghz, 12GB of GDDR5 memory, and 326GB/s of memory bandwidth. $499 will be the starting price point.
2. From launch, the Xbox One X will not only be backward compatible with all Xbox One games but all of those games will play with enhanced visual fidelity, faster load times, and have an enhanced visual experience even on non-4k displays thanks to Supersampling.
3. The new Scorpio Engine uses the most powerful processor ever used in a console. So powerful, Xbox One X will have the first liquid-cooled vapor chamber to be used in a console.
4. Xbox One X will deliver all the above in the smallest Xbox console to date.
5. At launch, there will be 42 new games, playable on all Xbox systems and 22 of them are exclusive to Xbox only.
6. Xbox is clearly embracing the female gamer, at least in their marketing. The opening hype video to start of the Xbox E3 featured a young female gamer and during the Forza segment, the two pro racing drivers that came on stage to demo the game were women. I like it, but I did notice a distinct lack of female heads of development companies on tap.
7. The exception to number 6 was brand director of Mojang, Lydia Winters. Lydia came onstage to announce the new Super Duper Graphics Pack for Minecraft releasing this fall which brings Minecraft to 4k. And even more exciting, Xbox Live will be used to allow Minecraft players from all platforms to play together on common servers. The 4k update is free, too.
8. ID@Xbox has released over 500 games on the Xbox/Windows 10 platforms.
9. There will be some games that cater to those of us that like pretty, artsy games. Ashen and Ori and the Will of the Wisps were shown and they both fit the bill, the latter with an amazing original score by Gareth Coker. What I can’t explain to you is how excited my son got when we saw the new Ori on the screen. We pegged that artwork within the first 10 seconds.
10. Backward compatibility is being expanded to original Xbox games. Crimson Skies, a fan favorite, will be one of the first. And these games will also benefit from the enhanced features on Xbox One X that make them faster and crisper.

Bonus: Expanded gameplay of Anthem from Electronic Arts. You can see it and more by watching the replay on the Xbox E3 page.

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