Xbox One at E3: What Must Be Done

E3 2013 is Microsoft's most important, and after a dud debut of Xbox One, it has plenty left to prove.

On the cusp of the next generation, and following its announcement of Xbox One, Microsoft has a lot to prove. Its debut of the next Xbox went, all things considered, very well – it established Microsoft had grand ambitions extending beyond the simple scope of the games space, thus making its console appealing to a wider market. At E3, the goal is to win the hearts of the gamers who felt left out of the reveal. Forza, Quantum Break, and Call of Duty are all well and good, but they’re hardly representative of the future.
This is how Microsoft is going to win us over.

 

Xbox One: Cleaning Up

The Microsoft E3 Media Briefing is, according to every executive desperately trying to convince their Twitter followers to care, 90 straight minutes of software. Of course, we’re going to see our fair share of corporate shills telling us why the all-in-one-entertainment-solution is the best thing your family needs, but you – the IGN reader – are absolutely the focus here.
Microsoft has to come out swinging, so don’t go into E3 expecting disappointment. The future of Xbox One rests on the 15 exclusives we’ll see in year one, the majority of which you can expect to see on the stage. Black Tusk Studios, the Vancouver-based first-party developer, will lead the charge with the Next Big Thing for Xbox – this generation’s Halo equivalent, no doubt, something that Microsoft wants to live forever. IGN has long suspected Lionhead’s Fable MMO for an Xbox One launch title, with Ryse, Quantum Break, Forza Motorsport 5, Rare’s next game, and more supporting Microsoft the rest of the way. Oh, and don't forget the family-friendly Kinect party games.

All of this, however, is what’s on everyone’s mind. Even skeptics expect Microsoft to satisfy with these easy-to-guess announcements. It’s the lingering questions, along with the requisite surprises we couldn’t have guessed, that will carry Microsoft through E3 safely. Serious concerns surrounding Xbox One’s DRM, online requirements, Kinect functionality, and mixed messages remain, and unless addressed aggressively, Microsoft runs a massive risk of leaving otherwise excited consumers confused further than they already are. If this console, with its potential greatness, isn’t as friendly and welcoming to the user as Microsoft’s competitors, Xbox One could very well fail its way through E3 regardless of its appeal to those asking “Where are the games, and what makes them next-gen?”

Clarity, even above games, is the most important thing at stake. If left unexplained on the press conference stage, the positive vibes will be buried by lingering uncertainty – and whatever Sony has up its sleeve.

Xbox 360: Don't Let Go

Xbox One’s lack of backward compatibility means we won’t be ridding ourselves of Xbox 360 anytime soon, and Microsoft will absolutely be taking advantage of that. It would be a daring maneuver to reveal many next-gen titles (but not all; One needs something to make it special) releasing on Xbox 360 at the same time as Xbox One – a temporary hindrance to software developers looking to go for broke on next-gen games, certainly, but a gracious gesture of goodwill to the existing install base. If you’re a 360 gamer concerned you’ll be left out, don’t be: Microsoft definitively cannot afford to leave you unsatisfied, not only because your people are many, but because the publisher wants to hang onto you when you decide to upgrade.

Besides, what Microsoft revealed at the Xbox One event is largely possible on Xbox 360 anyway. The Halo TV series, entertainment focus, and various network features such as Skype will likely thrive best with the Xbox 360 community – and carry over when those players decide to upgrade to Xbox One.

Noticing a pattern? Audience retention is everything.

Xbox Live: The Beating Heart

If Microsoft truly wants to create the all-in-one box, it starts and stops with Xbox Live, where all of that content lives.

Microsoft wouldn’t tell us anything about changes coming to Xbox Live Gold during the Xbox One reveal, and while your existing Gold subscription carries over to Xbox One, you can count on some differentiating factors affecting next-gen gamers – whether they’re positive or negative remains to be seen, but count on Microsoft digging into the Xbox Live experience at E3. Importantly, and finally, it’s simplifying the system, likely consolidating Xbox Live Arcade into the Games Marketplace and shedding the Arcade name altogether. With Kinect, the goal is to make it easier to navigate, thus driving users to content directly rather than leaving them bewildered about where, exactly, anything is. That distilled presentation will no doubt affect the interface, which already appears cleaner than the existing nightmare on Xbox 360 – something that will likely carry over in one last fall update to current-gen console.

And as Microsoft moves more toward entertainment, you can count on some sort of Xbox TV service – something, perhaps, that gets rolled up into your fancy new Gold subscription – that features original programming (and if we’re lucky, unifies the five different logins we have for various video streaming services.)

 

Because Microsoft promised absolutely zero television presence at its press conference, odds are we’ll learn more about the gaming experience on Xbox Live and on both Xbox platforms rather than the stuff surrounding it. While the day will be about Xbox games, the week will be about the Xbox platform, with Microsoft showing what makes One a great gaming platform and talking about why it’s oh so much more. Microsoft has a lot to discuss, more to address, and still much to prove. If it plays its cards right, it could just pull it off and impress everyone.