The E3 is one of those events that a certain breed of people, known to you and me as gamers, wait for while holding breath. Every year, E3 showcases the best and the latest of the gaming world, right from gaming rigs to consoles to hundreds of jaw-dropping gaming titles. For this year’s event, we were looking forward to Microsoft’s Project Scorpio, which promised to deliver a console experience unparalleled to anything else that runs highly complex software codes. Microsoft did deliver that in the name of Xbox One X and even launched a new Porsche supercar along with it. Sounds tempting? Read on.
Xbox One X
Teased to the gaming community as the Project Scorpio for a considerable amount of time, Microsoft finally took off wraps of its latest Xbox One X console. It may not look exciting, particularly with a boring plastic box design. But underneath, lies a silicon-plastic combo beast that can pop your eyeballs with its visual rendering abilities. The Xbox One X is supposed to be the most powerful gaming console existing on the planet. For tech nerds, the console packs 6 teraflops of graphical power, which is humiliating for its arch rival – the Sony PS4 Pro with 4.2 teraflops. The GPU is a custom built unit by Microsoft running at 1172MHz, a big leap compared to the Xbox One’s 853MHz GPU. Additionally, there’s also an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive for 4K movies, which can be stored in a 1TB storage.
Whether you are ploughing through virtual battlefields or cruising through soaking-wet racetracks, the Xbox one X can handle the heat of the situation, literally. It uses liquid-cooled vapour chamber cooling systems, like NVIDIA’s flagship desktop graphics card – GeForce GTX 1080. And, if you were wondering about the fate of your recently purchased Forza Horizon 3 or Gears of War 4, you will be happy to know that the latest Xbox has backwards compatibility as well, boosting frame rates and loading times for them. The One X will retail for $499 when launched in November, which is roughly Rs 32,000, making it good value for money for the keyboard and mouse warriors.
New ‘exclusive’ Xbox titles
Apart from the console, Microsoft also unveiled a list 42 new gaming titles for this year. Out of that, 22 will be exclusive to Xbox and Windows 10 console. These will make use of all the beastly internals to deliver 4K goodness at a smooth 60fps. If you are planning to get the new Xbox, the following are what you should be considering as a bundled addition.
1. Anthem (Electronic Arts).
2. The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti (Console Launch Exclusive).
3. Ashen (Console Launch Exclusive).
4. Assassin’s Creed Origins (Ubisoft – World Premiere).
5. Black Desert (Console Launch Exclusive).
6. Code Vein (Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc. – World Premiere).
7. Crackdown 3 (Xbox One and Windows 10 Exclusive).
8. Cuphead (Xbox One and Windows 10 Exclusive).
9. The Darwin Project (Console Launch Exclusive).
10. Deep Rock Galactic (Console Launch Exclusive).
11. Dragon Ball FighterZ (Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc. – World Premiere).
12. Forza Motorsport 7 (Xbox One And Windows 10 Exclusive – World Premiere).
13. The Last Night (Console Launch Exclusive).
14. Life Is Strange: Before The Storm (Square-Enix – World Premiere)
15. Metro Exodus (Deep Silver – World Premiere)
16. Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment).
17. Minecraft (Unification, Better Together Update, Super Duper Graphics Pack).
18. Ori And The Will Of The Wisps (Xbox One And Windows 10 Exclusive – World Premiere).
19. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (Console Launch Exclusive).
20. Sea of Thieves (Xbox One and Windows 10 Exclusive).
21. State of Decay 2 (Xbox One and Windows 10 Exclusive).
22. Super Lucky’s Tale (Xbox One and Windows 10 Exclusive – World Premiere).
23. Tacoma (Console Launch Exclusive).
Minecraft gains crossplay capabilities
The most popular pixel-style graphics game gets a major update this year. If you play Minecraft on your PC while your sibling plays it on Xbox or mobile devices, all of you will be able to play it together in a common online space. Yes, Minecraft gains the title of Microsoft’s second game to gain crossplay capabilities. The new update called Minecraft: Better Together lets players from Xbox and Switch to play with the ones from Windows 10, Virtual reality and Pocket Edition releases.
The new version adopts the Bedrock Engine, which lets console players expand beyond the limits of 5120x5120 blocks, while also being able to import their existing worlds. The update will be rolled out this November.
And, Porsche’s final 991 911: the 911 GT2 RS
Microsoft unveiled the latest instalment of the Forza Motorsport series and they wanted it to have an impact that other racing games couldn’t match. So, they got Porsche to unveil the 2018 911 GT2 RS and feature it as the cover car of the Forza Motorsport 7. Unlike Microsoft, Porsche stayed mum on the details of the “most powerful road-legal 911 ever made”, hinting at a motor that would generate close to 641hp.
Evo magazine stated earlier that it would be using a reworked version of the turbocharged 3.8 litre flat-six motor from the current 911 Turbo S and will feature water-cooled intercooler system, like a BMW M4 GTS. Until official confirmation on the car, the world will have to make do with its virtual iteration on the Forza Motorsport 7 game.
