Poll: How Would You Grade The May 2020 Inside Xbox Show?

I mean usually they have a 20 minute detour where they talk about things like the Windows “game bar” so just trailers is an improvement.

I gave it a “C”.

They showed off some really cool games from smaller developers & publishers. Bright Memory & Scorn were the big highlights for me. It felt like a 30 minute indie showcase pulled from an E3 show to give the developers more eyes on their games, which is a good thing. And Xbox getting several of these games as exclusives was a big win.

However......the show was over-hyped for what it turned out to be. The lack of actual gameplay was very disappointing. And the Valhalla “gameplay trailer” was a huge bust.

It was good, but not great. Sony fans can rip it all they want, but at least Microsoft is doing something. And it was certainly better then that embarrassing Mark Cerny thing that put us all to sleep & showed absolutely nothing.

I am very excited for July’s E3-like showcase of the first party games & some bigger third party releases! 👍🏻

Overall i was Underwhelmed with the reveal, I gave it a D rating...We were promised gameplay and didn't get much at all.. I'm not to bummed out though, I'm sure they'll make it up to us in July with some amazing first party titles..

@KelticDevil I felt like I was in college lecture class and forgot to read the chapter the night before. Cerny seems nice but if you have to say “doesn’t that sound fun” it’s not ._.

D
Passable because there was some cool stuff but still underwhelming in terms of showing what Series X can do. Good thing is it was only one showing, MS still has a chance to make up for this and then some with the first party showcase in July.

@KelticDevil Same here, to be honest. Even discounting my insane belief of any sort of Sonic news at this thing (we did get Yakuza, so... eh, close enough!), I'd be hard-pressed to call it anything but a mighty disappointment.

Hopefully we can top the PS5 showcase next month with the July event. (I don't have much hope for the June one, but we'll see.)

I gave it a B because there was quite a few games revealed - a lot I had no idea were coming and mostly new IP's too. I felt let down by AC's trailer but I am not letting that affect what came before it.

Its what I probably would expect from 3rd Party devs at MS's E3 except at E3, we would have MS's own studio games too as well as other news...

A solid "C". They billed the show as something that wasn't, but gave us our first look at next gen, the first third-party console exclusive and some real gems.

@mousieone

Cerny is about as smart as they come. But he is not the guy you want on stage hyping up a console.

Like you said.....he seems like a great guy to have as a college professor teaching us the ins & outs of console technology, but good lord the man is like a Dana Carvey robot. Lol.

@Alpha-2002

That’s a good point about no Sonic news. Getting (and keeping) the Yakuza franchise on Xbox is a big win for Microsoft though.

I am not a huge fan of the games, but Sony has always had the leg up on some Japanese titles without an actual exclusivity deal because Microsoft never seemed to care about those games. Phil Spencer is, clearly, trying to change that narrative & getting a Yakuza game for XSX launch is a big 👍🏻.

I gave it a C. Not a solid one, mind you...

But still, some cool things were shown, so that was nice, so even though I don't see it as an above average showing, it was still a positive experience for the most part.

On a side note: I see quite a few people making the mistake of thinking that gameplay was promised for more or all titles. This was NOT the case. The only "promised" gameplay was for the new Assassin's Creed game.

And there definitely was gameplay of the other games: Bright Memory: Infinite, DIRT 5, Chorus, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, Call of the Sea, The Ascent, The Medium, Scarlet Nexus, Second Extinction and Yakuza: Like a Dragon all showed gameplay segments, so either people aren't able to tell the difference between cut scenes and gameplay, or people are grossly exaggerating...

I'd grade it a very low C. I was hyped but my expectations were in check. I really was only wanting at least one game to make me say "yup, instant preorder, day 1 buy" and I got that with Dirt 5. 2 of them I was already going to get (Madden/AC), 2 looked "interesting" and the rest were just not for me. So 3 of the 13 will definitely be mine but hard pass on majority of what was shown. Not terrible but not the introduction to next gen we were expecting

Fun fact: The folks rating the show with an F, chose this particular low moment in an otherwise impressive road to launch for SeX to debut here, usually hang out on those other "sister" sites, and quite often express very colorful opinions about anything Xbox related over there. That being said, welcome to Pure Xbox. 😇

I have never been an XBox player. I own a Switch and a PS4. But due to the lockdown I gave my attention to the stream, open to the chance all the money Microsoft has spent on developing new games meant they might be trying to appeal to me this time around.

They haven’t so far. They focused on some grey/brown trailers and traditional shooters and games about killing. If you like that great, but in my opinion it isn’t going to grow the player base by drawing in people like me.

@MrGawain which is why of course they had Call of Sea and Scarlet Nexus? o.O It’s fair not to like what you saw but they had a pretty good genre variety.

Edit: I’m not arguing that preference. Don’t want to give you that impression I suggest waiting to see what they have up theirs sleeves in July

I put B because Scarlet Nexus looks cool. The first person shooters looked okay. It did have a focus on horror which I didn’t like. The franchises weren’t anything new either.

@gingataisen

Yea this show will bring out the Xbox haters from the sister sites. I figured that would happen.

Don’t worry. Sony fans are still upset about “The Last Of Us” debacle & it sounding overrated, similar to “Death Stranding”. And yes.... I have seen the spoilers. 😳😂

@MrGawain

Microsoft didn’t develop the games in the show. You do know that, right? Those were 3rd party games they showed. Not sure how you couldn’t figure that out. They announced it, for God’s sake.

Are these the types of people commenting on the sister sites? Lol.

I graded it a C. There was very little gameplay, but given the Covid-19 situation, I feel generous. Normally, I'd feel much worse about that presentation but everyone is in the same boat right now.

@MrGawain
Okay, so Call of the Sea and Scarlet Nexus had some browns, yes, (along with every other color in the visible spectrum) and Madden as well (but from Cleveland), I'll give you that.

In The Ascent and Chorvs you can shoot stuff, I guess, but the only thing shooting in Scorn was that alien penis, and I won't get into that.

It was all third party stuff this time, chief. Come watch in July for the big guns. Phil will make a believer out of you, yet.

@KelticDevil

Yup, I’m a commenter on the sister sites. But I am a prospective customer for XBox. As a purely advertising standpoint Xbox had a chance to show me why this console is worth me buying where the XB1 wasn’t for me. Yes it was just 3rd party games, but why particularly THOSE 3rd party games? XBox had a captive audience to show things that were exciting for everyone, and continued to sing from the same hymn sheet of the XB1which lots of us didn’t buy. You can argue ‘It’s just not my sort of thing’, but if they want to grow their business then they need to draw customers from Nintendo and Sony.

This is the opening salvo to next gen content, and Microsoft have given me the impression it’s the same old song and dance. They may have the most exciting games to announce in June, but why start off
with the 3rd party business as usual message that limited the XB1? In fact they could of just waited until June if they have something 1st party that will put them in the game with their rivals.

I gave it a C as I'd have preferred to have seen a bit more gameplay, I did however like some of the games on show and would be interested in playing them. It's also funny seeing so many dismissing these games but as soon as they are announced for PS5 they turn into good games

@MrGawain

Your comment is ridiculous. You rip Microsoft, but Sony has shown......nothing. In fact, from a lot news reports....Sony is having major issues.

Rumors of the console overheating & being overpriced. The Last Of Us 2 is a mess. Yes, I saw the spoilers & yep.....it’s a mess. Who knows if Ghosts will even be good? Oh and what first party games will be out soon? Maybe Horizon: Zero Dawn 2? And what else? I’ll wait........exactly.

In fact, they haven’t even shown the console itself. The only thing we know about PS5 is the logo will look like PS4, the system is way less powerful, it has a controller that tries to rip off Xbox, and it has a guy working there that puts us all to sleep when he speaks. Lol.

At least Microsoft put out an “opening salvo”. Sony is doing....nothing. No salvo. No anything. So you can take your “prospective customer”ness negativity & take a long walk off a short cliff. 👋

@KelticDevil

Trust me, I have no deep affiliation to Sony, but if they announce a big title we’re all familiar with like Uncharted or Metal Gear or Resident Evil in their first reveal, psychologically it makes a bigger impact. It’s Mindshare. You don’t announce a music festival starting with your opening acts- you show the headliner.

I just think it would make sense to delay announcing things that people think are ‘okay-ish’ until you can show the ‘wow’. And if XBox has another gen of people not being wowed by their product, then people won’t buy their console and it’ll be less appealing for developers to put games on. You don’t want XBoxto become Betamax.

As a PS4/Switch owner even a lesser presentation like this one is still a lot better than the media silence from Sony. Moreover, the Medium and Scorn trailers were really interesting and multiplatform stuff like Yakuza and the 120 fps Dirt 5 looked good too. It's getting increasingly more likely that I'll switch platforms come Winter.

@MrGawain That's a valid point. I myself am not the biggest AAA game fan, but most people are, obviously. I would also have shown first party games like Halo and whatnot before the stuff that's not as popular for the masses, as the first impression matters.

@MrGawain

Did you just compare Xbox to Betamax? Lol.

Are you high?

And don’t act like Sony has any affiliation with Metal Gear or Resident Evil. Those are on Xbox too.

Oh and by your words, Sony should have announced their console later instead of that awful M. Cerny show, which was embarrassing? Because, by your words, that didn’t hit the definition of the “wow” and was WAY worse than “ok-ish”.

Hell....maybe Nintendo should stop having their directs because most of them kinda suck. Another mobile game? Really?

Or maybe use a “friend code” to play online? What year is it? And use an app on your cell phone for voice chat in a game? Lol.