Microsoft Xbox at E3: all of the latest news and announcements – The Verge

Microsoft’s Shannon Loftis on E3 leaks, the status of Kinect, and the future of controllers

2016-06-15T11:30:05-04:00

Last December, Shannon Loftis, Microsoft's general manager of Microsoft Studios Global Publishing, shared a vision of the future in which Xbox extends beyond the game console, onto Windows 10 PCs, tablets, smartphones, virtual reality headsets, and anything with a screen and an internet connection. This week, Microsoft took the stage at E3 to formalize that plan, announcing two new consoles, and Xbox Play Anywhere, a strategy that intends for players to do just that.

We sat down with Loftis to discuss the company's plan for executing the controls of Xbox Play Anywhere, the status of the once champion Kinect peripheral, and the struggle to k …

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This USB adapter is Microsoft’s final admission that Kinect failed

2016-06-14T08:11:22-04:00

Microsoft had a bold vision for its Xbox One console that involved its Kinect accessory. While the Kinect for Xbox 360 was one of the most popular game console accessories of all time, a bundled Kinect with the Xbox One introduced a $100 price premium over the PS4 competition. Despite switching course and unbundling the Kinect, Microsoft hasn't recovered yet in the games console battle, with reports suggesting it has sold 20 million Xbox One consoles vs. Sony's 40 million PS4 shipments.

Microsoft unveiled a new Xbox One S console yesterday, and it's 40 percent smaller with a Bluetooth controller. It looks great, and it's arguably the consol …

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Microsoft’s E3 2016 press conference in 8 minutes

2016-06-13T17:25:00-04:00

Microsoft crammed a ton into its lengthy E3 press conference - New hardware! Specialty controllers! More Forza! More Dead Rising! More Gears of War!

Of course, many of you don't have time to watch the entire press conference, which also contains its fair share of executive preening and corporate monologuing. We've condensed all the important bits into an 8-minute video.

Now you can sound like an expert, while still having time to do something else with your time, like take up carpentry or finally read that dusty copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma.

See all of the E3 news right here

Subscribe to What's Tech? on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud, or su …

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The 5 best game trailers from Microsoft’s E3 2016 press event

2016-06-13T15:25:14-04:00

Microsoft had so much to cover at this year's keynote that it had announced a whole new console within the first five minutes. By the end, we'd learned of a second, "VR-ready" Xbox coming in fall 2017. But there were also some exciting new game announcements, including Forza Horizon 3, Dead Rising 4, and Halo Wars 2.

While at least one big rumor didn't pan out - we don't have a new Crackdown trailer to show you - we've put some of our favorite trailers from the Xbox E3 event below. Check out our E3 hub for all of this week's news.

Forza Horizon 3

Forza Horizon 3 is our latest colorful open-world racing game, and the new trailer is basically a …

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Sea of Thieves gives you the keys to your own pirate ship

2016-06-13T14:18:02-04:00

Venerable British game developer Rare has showed off the first footage from Sea of Thieves, the ambitious freeform pirate game it announced last year. A freeze-framed trailer gave us an idea of the nautical theme as it panned around a galleon in the midst of a ocean-bound battle, but it was a short clip of in-game action that gave us more of an insight into what players will actually be doing in the game - working together to take to the high seas, crew pirate ships, fire cannons, and presumably swab the poop deck.

Players work together to crew their boat

Players without any knowledge of the game were brought in and given free reign to work …

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Microsoft at E3 2016: the 7 biggest announcements

2016-06-13T14:03:20-04:00

Who would have expected, three years ago, that the biggest news from Microsoft's 2016 E3 event would be not just a new console, but two new consoles. The Xbox One S and Project Scorpio were the standouts of an E3 event that underscored Microsoft's new direction - a purposeful shift from the focus on entertainment and media to video games. Microsoft is treating the Xbox brand like Amazon's Kindle ecosystem, envisioning a future in which Xbox games can be played on a console, a computer, a mobile device, or whatever else comes next.

Microsoft's vision for the future of games is so big, that it's almost easy to overlook the actual games being …

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Xbox: Start to Continue

2016-06-13T14:01:55-04:00

It was a rare sunny day in Seattle and Phil Spencer seemed very pleased. Sitting across from me in a meeting room at Microsoft's sprawling Redmond campus, the head of Xbox smiled as he talked, mixing serious discussion about the future of his business with jokes about how his employees dress. (He's not a fan of cargo shorts in the office.)

Xbox: Start to Continue

An exclusive look inside Microsoft's plan to turn your Xbox into a PC

By Andrew Webster | Photography by Amelia Holowaty

It was a rare sunny day in Seattle and Phil Spencer seemed very pleased. Sitting across from me in a meeting room at Microsoft's sprawling Redmond campus, th …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Project Scorpio is a 4K-capable, VR-ready Xbox One launching next fall

2016-06-13T13:58:19-04:00

The next major addition to the Xbox family is coming next year. Today at E3 in Los Angeles Microsoft officially revealed the long-rumored Project Scorpio, an enhanced version of the Xbox One that's capable of running 4K-native games, and which will also support virtual reality experiences and feature a hefty six teraflops of power. According to Xbox chief Phil Spencer, Microsoft views the new device as much more than a simple refresh.

"It's a dramatic step up for us."

"The important thing for Scorpio is that it's a dramatic step up for us in terms of hardware capability," he told The Verge in an interview last week. "Because as we saw 4K gam …

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Halo Wars 2 is out February 2017, beta goes live today

2016-06-13T13:57:26-04:00

Halo Wars 2 will be released on February 21st next year, Microsoft announced at its E3 press conference today, and will be set immediately after the events of Halo 5. The sequel to 2007's Halo Wars, Halo Wars 2 offers a different take on the series' traditional first-person combat, giving players an aerial view to control human and alien forces in real-time strategy battles. A new trailer showed the forces of humanity fighting against "the Banished," a new race of aliens led by a brilliant general who looks quite a look like an angry monkey.

The game's being developed by Halo head studio 343 Industries, but is being put together with help fr …

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Watch 7 grim and gritty minutes of Gears of War 4’s single-player campaign

2016-06-13T13:53:42-04:00

We got our first look at Gears of War 4 gameplay at last year's E3, our requisite emo trailer earlier this year, and an early look at the redesigned multiplayer combat in a public beta. But at E3 2016, Microsoft gave us a few new minutes of the over-the-top single-player campaign, featuring previous protagonist Marcus Fenix's son JD Fenix. It's full of monsters, one-liners, and a surprise reveal at the end. You can see it in all its grim and literally gritty - it's a big monster-filled sandstorm! - glory above.

Gears of War 4 is the first game in the series since Microsoft acquired it from Epic Games, and it's being developed by The Consortiu …

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