A reader is impressed by the Xbox Games Showcase but argues that the reason the Xbox 360 stands out is its industry innovations, not just its games. I watched the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday and I was very impressed. I don’t think any reasonable person could say otherwise.
There’s not even any point comparing it to the State of Play or Summer Game Fest, both of which were boring and had no real game announcements of note ( except Astro Bot for PlayStation ). The Xbox one felt like E3 from five or 10 years ago, only with all the surprises spoiled ahead of time – but hey, that’s modern internet life for you. As has been pointed out, Microsoft didn’t used to be very good at these sort of things.
Mostly because they didn’t have good enough games to fill them out, but also because they used to waffle on for ages, with far too much stage time for their odious execs (they were still the worst part of this showcase and they were only on screen for a few minutes each). I’m sure they were very pleased with the event and its reception but thinking about it more deeply I couldn’t help but think that they still haven’t moved on very much. Apart from a few more Western role-players than they used to have they’re still basically the ‘Shooter Box’, with the first, last, and 30 minute special preview all being dedicated to shooters.
Plus, Perfect Dark. There’s a certain mentality at Xbox that doesn’t seem to want to learn from its past mistakes. More than that, i.