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After years of being told the Xbox One has no exclusives, Microsoft went on a full frontal assault last night during its E3 press conference, showing a total of 42 titles, 22 of which had some form of Xbox exclusivity.
It’s clearly made an impression, too, as IHS Markit’s Piers Harding-Rolls said last night that "Microsoft answered its critics by delivering a large roster of exclusives" with "enough variety on offer to provide a compelling advert for buying into the Xbox One platform."
What Microsoft did not do, however, was provide a compelling reason to buy into its newly-christened Xbox One X (previously known as Project Scorpio), which Harding-Rolls said wasstill "targeted at enthusiast Xbox fans."
The final price was revealed to be 449 in the UK – 20 higher than IHS’s original estimate yesterday – but Harding-Rolls said "we do not expect [a higher price] to impact sales of the console at launch. Xbox enthusiasts will pay significant sums to get hold of the latest and greatest."
He also said he expects the Xbox One X to form 10 per cent of all Xbox One sales in Q4 2017, when it launches on November 7th, shifting 500,000 units worldwide.
"This price point will go some way to mitigating a downward pressure on console ASPs, a result of the price drop for the Xbox One S. The expected price differential between Xbox One X and Xbox One S is high enough to reduce the impact of the new platform on the broader console audience. Crucially, we do not believe that, at this stage, Xbox One X is a device to re-ignite Xbox One sales in continental Europe and to gain market share from Sony in key sales territories outside of USA and UK."
