Microsoft pulled out all the stops with its media briefing on Monday. The company even went so far as to hand out bracelets that lit up the arena like Christmas trees whenever a specific game was on the big screen. The company does a good job of lighting up game trailers and actual gameplay with dazzling lighting effects. The media briefings are epic to say the least.
Now that the Xbox One is on the market, it's all about pushing the software to sell hardware. The media briefing was rather explosive thanks to the likes of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Evolve, enough so that you might have been persuaded to purchase an Xbox One as soon as the presentation was over. I know I was.
The biggest news coming out of the media briefing was Halo: The Master Chief Collection. This bundle includes all four of the original saga on a single disc: Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3 and Halo 4. They will be remastered with 1080p visuals and run at 60 frames per second. The collection will also have more than 100 multiplayer maps, six of which are all-new maps in Halo 2 Anniversary, built specifically for Xbox One.
Other games showcased during the media event were Forza Horizon 2 (available Sept. 13), the Nurburgring map for Forza Motorsport 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider (available in 2015), Sunset Overdrive (Oct. 28), and Street Fighter DLC for Dead Rising 3 (available now). Gameplay of Assassin's Creed: Unity was also shown along with Dragon Age: Inquisition (Oct. 7), Fable Legends (beta sometime this Fall) and Dance Central Spotlight (September).
With all of this now revealed, will these games help push the Xbox One past the PlayStation 4 in sales? Right now that remains to be seen; we still have to see what's up Sony's sleeve. Presumably, the PlayStation 4 is doing better on the market due to price (according to some analyst numbers). However, Microsoft may be catching up soon, since it has backtracked and chosen to sell the Xbox One without the Kinect sensor, the very move Microsoft said it wouldn't do when the console first hit the market.
Microsoft, it seems, is listening to the gamers.
Still, there's a good chance the Halo: The Master Chief Collection may be enough to really push hardware sales. Backing up this collection is a great library of games that stretches into 2015, and addresses all gamers young and old.
Now let's see what Sony has in retaliation.
