Microsoft Xbox E3 2015 News

Watching the Xbox press briefing this morning. Here’s what got announced:

• Stop saying IP. Holy crap that terminology is dumb.
• Halo 5 has 12 v 12 multiplayer that looks like battlefield and what looks like 4 player co-op.
• Something new from the folks behind Metroid Prime but it was just a trailer instead of gameplay footage. Robots and power spheres in the desert called ReCore.
• Xbox One, like the 360, will have limited backwards compatibility with some Xbox 360 games. There’s a list of 100 games that’ll be available later this year. People on the invite-only dashboard preview program can get access to some of them today. More games will be added later on until Microsoft stops caring and they have already put the onus on developers/publishers to approve their games for backwards compatibility during the conference.
• Fallout 4 mods will work on the Xbox One at no cost. Fallout 4 comes out this November.
• Xbox One Elite controller, it’s customizable, changeable parts, paddles and extra buttons on the back.
• Electronic Arts’ Access Vault garbage having more games available. Access Vault is EA’s subscription thing ($5/month) where you get early access to games via download.
• Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2.
• An advertisement for a new Ford car preceded a Forza Motorsport 6 reel.
• Dark Souls III. Early 2016.
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: The Division beta this December exclusively for Xbox.
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Vegas 1 & 2 backwards compatibility this December. They’re free if you buy The Division. I loved Vegas 1 & 2.
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Seige comes out October 15th.
• Tacoma from Fullbright looks awesome. Timed exclusive for Xbox and Windows. No specific date but out in 2016.
• Ashen, not Ashens.
• Beyond Eyes, Summer 2015. It’s a third person game.
• Cuphead, 2D platformer that looks like the original Mickey Mouse and old Betty Boop cartoons. Exclusive. 2016.
• Unfinished games come to Xbox with Game Preview. It’s Microsoft’s answer to Steam’s Early Access. Each game will have some kind of free trial version. The Long Dark, Sheltered, Elite: Dangerous, DayZ are the first announced games for it. All are already on Steam. Elite: Dangerous and The Long Dark will be available later today.
• Rise of the Tomb Raider, end of the year. Xbox exclusive. Pre-order now to commit your money before you know if it’s any good or not.
• The rumored Rare game collection is real. RC Pro-Am, Solar JetmanKiller-Instinct, Battletoads, Blast Corps, 30 games total. $30. It’s called Rare Reply and it’ll be out August 4th. Battletoads still sucks. No Goldeneye, no Donkey Kong Country, of course.
• Sea of Thieves from Rare, exclusive multiplayer Pirate adventuring.
• Fable Legends. Free2play for Windows and Xbox.
• A bunch of VR stuff. They’re working with Valve VR as well as Oculus to display games in 2d in both headsets when streamed from an Xbox One to Windows. Mixed-reality with Microsoft’s Hololens.
• Apparently Mojang is pronounced Mo-yang. What.
• Hololens will work with Minecraft. It’s 2D and displayed wherever as long as you have a Hololens device. Or it can be displayed on a physical table and it’s augmented reality-ified. Nifty.
• Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. August 25th. Xbox One version of the first Gears. 1-week public beta starts today.
• New Gears of War. Looks good. Dark. Seems less bro-ver-the-top. It’s just called Gears 4. Late 2016.
• There’s a new Xbox One UI coming.
• I just got an e-mail from the Elite: Dangerous developer, Frontier, encouraging me to buy Elite for the Xbox One with a £5 gift code for the Elite store if I do. I don’t really see any reason why I would do that when I  have it on my computer and can display that on my TV with a long HDMI cable and a wireless controller. Or a Steam Link. Or a Steam Machine.
• No Call of Duty at this event, no mention of Xbox on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 banner outside the E3 building.

That’s it.