Just misses out an an A, as I felt it missed at least one more big hitter from Xbox, but given that the focus was on the next 12 months, makes sense.
Starfield is shaping up to be my dream game, I’m now sold on Redfall, some cool surprises like High on Life, to name a few. There was a lot to look forward to.
Bonus point to Xbox for giving all attendees a year of XGP Ultimate as well!
B
Pro:
Con:
B.
The show was great and has made me excited for 2023 and some things in 2022 (plague tale).
The reason it is not a A is because of what wasn’t there, Goldeneye, Banjo, Hellblade, FF7R, AoE on console.
I guess they can’t show off games that don’t exist or aren’t coming to the platform.
Overall a great show, I think they aimed for a wide audience and landed somewhere in the middle.
I started watching with different expectations. If only Xbox beforehand told us the show was built around upcoming games in the next 12 months. That would have saved me a disappointment. And I didn’t expected Fable, Project Dark, The Outer Worlds 2 or Hellblade 2 (next show off in ONL of TGA). I did expect that we get a glimpse of project Midnight (Compulsion Games). Gameplay of Contraband. And my personal favorite revealing of project Belfry (The Banner Saga is one of the best games).
I am rewatching the show now, knowing what we got, in 4K@60 and is so much better then yesterday. Game Pass turned me a Xbox (console) gamer. Before that all PC with a few PS4 exclusives on the side. I fell in love with Game Pass and it never failed me. I know I get great games in the next 12 months.
Last thoughts:
Again, expectations were managed badly, almost everyone expected a different show, the 12 month window basically limited the showcase by a lot. It was a C for me considering the best looking game was probably motorsport and I’m not into sim racers.
Highlights for me were the last case of benedict fox, silksong, wo long and obviousy starfield.
I agree that the showcase was limited by the “next 12 month” rule AND the “all games must launch on Game Pass” rule, I understand that Game Pass is Xbox’s main focus this generation but I think that not having again a hype 3rd party reveal like DMC5 or Elden Ring for example (or something like Dragon’s Dogma 2 which we may see today) on stage will be a bit disappointing IMO. I think that they should reconsider this for the future showcases.
That being said the showcase was pretty good, I’d love to see Avowed or what Tango, Compulsion or id are working on but there were some really cool games shown yesterday - the highlights for me were the great indie/AA line-up , Wo Long, the Persona announcement, Forza Motorsport and Starfield (both look really impressive).
A
I guess this might be the format that gamepass-oriented xbox carries from now on, as they put their first party in line. “Here are the games you will play in the next 12 months”. They can always drop new games or further away games inside this, or even show them at other events, like game awards
I would say a solid B. It was good but had way to much filler for me to justify anything above a B
C From me
I was actually thinking during the show about how Geoff Keighley puts out his tweet asking for a rating and it was a C for me. Then they showed the Person games and it shot right up to an A out of excitement but having looked back at the show, a lot of cool games but not really a lot that interests me, maybe 2 or 3 things and only really the Personas that I feel I have to play day one.
Everyone is different I guess but I’ve seen that sentiment a lot.
B for me, a Great show, but too many 2023 for me, but holy cow did Forza and Starfield look ace and hopefully they’ll both be early 2023
Solid B. Lots of games i want to play. Cool surprises like the Pelican for Flight Sim and Persona games for Xbox. FM looks good and Starfield might consume my life. And I liked the focus on the next 12 months.
But stream quality was shitty (RIP Mixer) and where was GoldenEye?
I gave it a C… it was imho strictly whelming… not over whelming… not underwhelming… just an average show.
I think this is partially because ive gotten older and less and less games are “Hype”.
Overall they showed some neat games Pentiment was the show stealer for me. Obsidian is kicking it out of the park.
B - needed a big 2022 game there.
I will say though, I have gone back and rewatched this more than any other show that i can remember (and im old).
Things that came off as lukewarm initially have really started to pique my interest far more on second and third viewings.
For what it’s worth, in Geoff’s poll on Twitter of more than 100,000 voters, the majority gave it an A and the vast majority gave it an A or a B.
Oh well that’s good, there was good stuff in it and the last half an hour was great. I think maybe if a few of the trailers was in a montage instead I might have been a bit higher on it but y’know, not every game is for me and those trailers might have appealed to someone else.
The one where you were in a mech suit and farming, I loved that but I could see many people not for example.
6\10 , Next year will be the biggest year for Xbox !!! 
I suppose the approach Xbox is taking in offering a broad range of game genres will always prevent it being an A show, for me.
Simply because there are games that I simply don’t enjoy (usually Japanese), which will always drag down a show.
But it won’t impact on my practical enjoyment of their real-life service as I’ll still have plenty to play that I like.
The alternative is to focus down on a small set of genres, which will make certain fans go totally hype, but turn off all the rest. Obviously, to grow the service, Xbox needs a broad appeal. It is the right strategy.
As someone who isn’t hardcore I mainly look at it from a mainstream casual gamer perspective. I don’t think it was a showcase in which you’d go to other causal gamers on the playstation side of things and say look at games Xbox has coming in the next 12 months you should look at getting an Xbox as well.
For the hardcore gamer It may be different but I don’t think many games would appeal to the casuals
B
Would been A with Contraband and Avowed gameplay
