Xbox E3 2017 Briefing Moves A Day Earlier, Scorpio And What Else?
Microsoft announced Wednesday it is eschewing the traditional Monday E3 Xbox briefing for 2017. Instead, fans of the console will get all the big reveals a day earlier. This includes what is sure to be the official reveal of the Xbox Scorpio along with unannounced games.
The 2017 Xbox E3 briefing will take place Sunday, June 11 at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. Those interested in watching the event live should mark their calendars to tune into one of the usual live-streaming outlets, such as YouTube, Twitch, the Xbox consoles themselves, and likely SpikeTV.
Microsoft is shooting to get a jump on the competition during what is one of the busiest gaming news weeks of the year. Moving the event to Sunday also potentially allows more eyes to see what is coming down the pipeline as most fans won’t have to make the decision to take off work or try to squeeze the hour-and-a-half-long conference in during the work day.
Obviously, it is far too early to share plans on what is being shown, but the Xbox Scorpio is at the top of most everyone’s list. Microsoft clearly knows this as well as the announcement includes an image of the console processor and motherboard. This is, in fact, the same image shared in the announcement trailer for the new hardware during last year’s E3 briefing.
All signs point to the Xbox Scorpio’s big reveal happening at E3 and not a separate event. Xbox Head Phil Spencer recently explained he was “not sure yet” if a separate reveal would happen.
What is officially known about the new Xbox console is that it will sport 6 teraflops of GPU performance to power 4K gaming and virtual reality gaming. This puts it well ahead of the PS4 Pro’s 4.2 teraflops.
Additionally, a recent white paper leak picked up by Eurogamer perhaps reveals more. The controversial ESRAM is reportedly gone, but will still be supported to keep games compatible across both the Xbox One and Scorpio. Four times the current L2 cache is also present, but there’s little to no mention of how much more advanced the CPU will be.
The main thrust of the white paper was to present developers with an array of options when developing games. They can shoot for 4K gaming or crank the number of pixels down in favor of better graphical features. There are a number of different techniques available to developers, including the same checkerboarding technique currently used for the PS4 Pro to great success in games like Rainbow Six: Siege and Watch Dogs 2.
As for games, Xbox fans were disappointed by the recent cancellation of Platinum Games’ Scalebond. This came after the cancellation of other titles like Fable Legends and a new Phantom Dust.
What is likely to appear is a slate of titles that fall outside Halo and Gears of War. For example, Rare’s Sea of Thieves continues to sail the rough waters of alpha testing and should be better prepared for a full demo this year. Meanwhile, State of Decay 2 will definitely be shown, as the game’s official Twitter account declared not long after the Xbox E3 briefing announcement.
Crackdown 3 is perhaps the biggest mystery. Cloudgine’s Dave Jones put on an impressive tech demo during multiple Gamescom 2015 presentations. Little has been heard of the game since and it actually skipped last year’s E3 and other conventions. Fans of the franchise are crossing their fingers it doesn’t fall into the same trap as other canceled exclusive titles.
Forza fans should expect to see Forza Motorsport 7 at E3 as that franchise continues to alternate years between the mainline entry and the Horizon series. Outside of that, it will be interesting to see what unannounced AAA and indie titles Microsoft has planned over the course of the next year.
What are you looking forward to from the Xbox E3 2017 press briefing? Sound off in the comments below.
[Featured Image by Casey Rodgers/Invision for Microsoft/AP Images]
