Xbox defends E3 line-up: ‘We wanted to show games people can buy soon’

Microsoft has explained its decision to reveal just a handful of games at last month’s E3 games show.

The firm showed new trailers for a series of previously announced titles at E3, while the new game surprises at the show came in the form of Dead Rising 4, the expected Forza Horizon 3 and State of Decay II.

By contrast, Sony revealed Days Gone, a Crash Bandicoot remake, Spider-Man, Dead Stranding, Resident Evil VII, God of War, and several VR projects.

Dave McCarthy, Xbox operations boss, observes that most of those PlayStation games lacked release dates, and that Xbox wanted to focus on titles that are coming soon.

I like to show games that people are going to buy soon,” he says. I didn’t see a lot of dates discussed on games [at PlayStation’s conference].

"We have four triple-A exclusives coming to Xbox One and Windows 10 in 2016: ReCore, Forza Horizon 3, Gears of War 4 and Dead Rising 4. In 2017, there’s another five to call out. We have Halo Wars 2, Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2, Crackdown and Scalebound. I haven’t even mentioned our great third-party partners and ID@Xbox. We are going to see Inside at the end of June, we’re going to see an open beta for We Happy Few, which we showed on stage. It’s awesome. It’s going to be across Xbox One and Windows 10 and is going to be an Xbox Play Anywhere title. Then we have Cuphead, also a Play Anywhere title. And Below coming as well. I get excited about showing games that I am going to be able to get this year and next year.”

You can read more about Xbox on E3 in our full interview.