Though Microsoft has been largely considered an afterthought for most of this year due to the lack of high-profile releases, the company has been building steadily towards the launch of the Xbox One X. With the so-called most powerful console ever finally available worldwide, how has the response been from the general public?

As per Xbox marketing manager Aaron Greenberg on Twitter, there have been “great” initial results from the United Kingdom with similar numbers in Europe. He also noted that sales in North America were much bigger and that it was an “amazing first week”.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer chimed in and said that it’s been an “amazing response from gamers” thus far. He also noted that his job was to remove barriers for his team and “let them run”.

Initial tests for numerous games, even those that aren’t optimized for the Xbox One X, have been very encouraging. With the console priced at $499, perhaps Microsoft have hit upon a winning formula after all. We’ll know in the coming months so stay tuned.

https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/930094752090832896

It's been great to see the amazing response from gamers for the X.  Thanks to everyone.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 13, 2017

Thanks.  My job with this team is just to remove barriers and let them run.  Fun to see the results.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 13, 2017

While speaking to YouTube Live after Microsoft’s E3 2017 conference, marketing head Aaron Greenberg offered some new information about the Xbox One X. He was joined by Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb and executive creative director Carl Ledbetter.

Greenberg noted that the company was “proud” of the $499 price and that it was “not designed to be a low-price product, but a premium product for people that want the very best console gaming they’ve ever seen.” The console is all about power and Greenberg said that games would look and play better on Xbox One X.

He called 43 percent additional graphical performance and 60 percent more memory over the competition a “massive leap.” The fact that developers have managed to get things running in just a few days has impressed Microsoft. Of course, all games must be compatible with the original Xbox One as well as Xbox One.

Ledbetter then revealed that there’s another colour for the Xbox One X that is “a little fancier” but that won’t be sold. He said that the team was proud of the design and that designers and engineers worked “super close together” to make a small, powerful console.

Interestingly, Greenberg then revealed that The Coalition is “working very hard on the future” of the Gears of War franchise while 343 Industries will have “a little bit of Halo news” this week. It will be for a current product though so either Halo Wars 2 or Halo 5: Guardians.

Thoughts on Microsoft’s E3 2017 presser and the Xbox One X which is out on November 7th? Let us know in the comments.

With the Switch getting The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and PS4 receiving Nioh, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Gravity Rush 2 (among other exclusives), one has to wonder about Microsoft who’s biggest news yet this year was cancelling Platinum Games’ Scalebound.

Indeed when a fan tweeted to head of Xbox Games marketing Aaron Greenberg about when the console would be getting such exclusives, the latter replied, “You must have missed the Gears 4, ReCore, Forza Horizon 3, Halo Wars 2 & Dead Rising 4 we just shipped recently!”

On being told that these don’t really compare to the likes of Horizon or Uncharted, Greenberg responded, “Also great games! I have both systems and plenty to play.”

Finally, Greenberg shared a neat little photo that Crypt Concepts did for Project Scorpio, Microsoft’s upcoming high-end console. The design is actually pretty cool, depicting a scorpion compared of little Xbox icons. You may now speculate on whether it will be showcased before E3 2017 or not.

Do you agree with Greenberg on the number of exclusives currently available for Xbox One? Let us know below.

https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/838913880260661249

https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/838989197583122432

https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/838912851754430464

Even if you’re on the side of the fence that doesn’t agree with Xbox One exclusives heading to Windows 10 at their respective launches, it’s hard to deny the new Xbox Play Anywhere feature. This essentially allows you to buy a digital copy on Xbox One and receive a Windows 10 version for free (and vice versa).

As head of Xbox games marketing Aaron Greenberg told DualShockers, “So that is absolutely exciting. To be able to do that and to say: You’ll be able to play both versions on both platforms without having to pay twice…I think is a tremendous value.” Greenberg also believes that Xbox Play Anywhere games will do “pretty well on PC.”

“I think we will see that a lot of gamers, despite us putting them in already pre-defined buckets, most gamers play on multiple devices. They play on the console and on the PC.

“For me as a gamer, the benefit of, ‘Hey, if I’m at home and I wanna start playing Gears, but then I’m at work, at school, on the road, wherever it might be, and I can continue where I left off in my PC,’ is a tremendous benefit.

“It gives a lot more value to the games for fans. So we’re excited and we’ll see. It’s something that we’d like to hear people’s feedback about, and hopefully they’re excited about it and they’ll support it, so that we can continue to do it, and other partners will see the opportunity there as well.”

ReCore, out on September 13th, will be the first game to support the initiative and will be followed by Forza Horizon 3, Gears of War 4, Halo Wars 2 and so on.

Speaking to Engadget about a number of things, including Microsoft’s Xbox One and how it’s faring in the console war, head of Xbox marketing Aaron Greenberg noted how this could be the final console generation. He also spoke about how the future of gaming isn’t dependent on console hardware.

“For us, we think the future is without console generations. We think that the ability to build a library, a community, to be able to iterate with the hardware — we’re making a pretty big bet on that with Project Scorpio.”

“We’re basically saying, ‘This isn’t a new generation; everything you have continues forward and it works.’ We think of this as a family of devices.”

Greenberg also said that “appears to be a lot of demand and interest around Project Scorpio” with a good number of sales expected in Holiday 2017 when it launches. What do think of his opinion, especially with PS4 Neo rumoured to be revealed next month and Scorpio incoming? Let us know below.

Microsoft has been pushing hard for the Xbox One this season and for good reason. Not only does it have a very strong line-up for the holidays but it’s also gaining momentum on the PlayStation, which has outsold it worldwide thus far. According to Xbox marketing team lead Aaron Greenberg while speaking to VentureBeat, if you’re going to buy a console this holiday for games, it’s going to be an Xbox One.

“If you’re buying a console for games, you’re buying an Xbox. Xbox is the platform with the most games, the most exclusives, and probably the most anticipated game of the year in Halo 5. If you’re a fan of Halo, if you’ve ever played Halo, you know how special Halo 5 is. If you never have, the rich story with Locke and Chief and what’s been created — I can tell you, I’ve played through the entire campaign. It’s the greatest Halo ever made. It’s stunning. It’s worth the investment. That game alone is worth the investment.”

Of course there are other reasons to get invested. “Plus, if you like Forza or Tomb Raider or any of the other big titles like Fallout or Call of Duty, we have them all. On top of having the premier online gaming service in Xbox Live. If you want to play with your friends, that’s the place to play. That would be my pitch. And we’ll do it at a great value. Starting at $349, we have some great holiday bundles. I don’t think you’ll regret the purchase. The other commitment we make to you with backward compatibility — over the next year we’ll continue to innovate and improve on the console month after month, just like we’ve been doing since we launched Xbox One.”

It’s not a bad deal when you think about it, especially since Forza Motorsport 6 and Halo 5: Guardians are both critically acclaimed (with Rise of the Tomb Raider seemingly heading down the same path). That being said, we’ll find out if Microsoft has the chops to catch up to Sony sooner rather than later.

However, Greenberg later clarified, stating that Ryse would be running at 900p while up-scaling to 1080p.

@deaconblade Update from team, Forza 5 is native @1080p, Ryse is native @900p, but Xbox One upscales all titles to 1080p & they look amazing

— Aaron Greenberg (@aarongreenberg) September 17, 2013

This seems to also fit in with Double Helix Games, which stated that Killer Instinct technically runs at 720p, which indicates that it could upscale to 1080p.

A mishandled message or just a lack of information on Greenberg’s part? We’ll go with the later but it’s interesting that he took the chance to clarify it immediately rather than waiting for some one to contradict him later.

The number of native 1080p titles on Xbox One seems to be dropping, with Forza Motorsport 5 thus still confirmed at 1080p. Stay tuned for more as the Xbox One launches on November 22nd worldwide.

“Please know we appreciate your feedback and do listen and care what our loyal customers and fans have to say. Key message and feedback we heard was not all consumers wanted a fully digital and online system, most wanted the choice of current physical model versus digital, online required versus flexibility of being offline, etc.

He did stated that Microsoft would continue to add features to the service. “We have to make decisions for our platform, having a starting point and over time we will continue to add features and give consumers choice of the next several years. Please also know we are committed to continue to make it better and better over time, just like we did with Xbox LIVE and with the Xbox 360.”

icrosoft Interactive Entertainment Business Chief of Staff Aaron Greenberg recently teased next week’s Xbox Reveal event via Major Nelson’s podcast and how Microsoft will show its “vision for the future of games.”

“We’re really going to tell one story across two events. So we’re going to start on the 21st and really that’s about revealing the next Xbox platform, really our vision for the future of games, the future of entertainment. We definitely have a lot of surprises planned.” Greenberg then specifically called out Call of Duty: Ghosts, which will have its next-generation engine demoed during the Microsoft event.

“People are going to get a great inside look at really the making of the new platform and the team that’s brought it to life,” Greenberg added. “I mean, to be honest it’s really about the team, the people here. That’s why we’re inviting people to campus, we’re going to bring them behind the scenes a little bit. We’ve never done this before and so it’s really exciting to be able to do that. But I think it’s a lot of laying the foundation – probably the best way to describe it – and then just a couple of weeks later we go to E3.”

Greenberg confirmed that E3 will be more about the next-gen Xbox games while the Xbox May 21st Reveal Event is more about the console, how it was developed and Call of Duty: Ghosts. “E3 is all about the games. At E3, I mean, if you’re a gamer, it’s going to be tons of exclusives, world premieres and obviously even beyond that we have a lot to share between then and this holiday.”

The next-generation Xbox event will be happening on May 21st at Microsoft’s Redmond campus, which is located in Washington state.

Let us know what you think of this and what are your expectations for the reveal event of the next Xbox in the comments below.

Check back on GamingBolt next week on Tuesday which is when the event will be happening for all the latest news regarding Microsoft’s next-generation console.

Via Major Nelson and NeoGaf.

One user tweeted at him saying, “Adam Orth is very insulting to your customers.” To which he replied, “Very sorry if you were offended, I don’t actually know who he is.”

That is something baffling because a creative director at Microsoft Game Studios is not a small position and Orth does have an impressive resume. He previously worked for Sony and Popcap, and has been working on an unannounced project at Microsoft.

He presumably knows about Xbox 720 based on his tweets, and considering this issue has been blown out of proportion and covered by every major media, it’s something that is a cause of concern for Microsoft.

"Very sorry if you were offended, I don't actually know who he is."

- Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg.

More importantly, Xbox fans who have supported the company for a long time are also against this move, and based on these tweets and the negative media coverage, Sony may not have to do anything to win over some customers.

It is also quite possible that Orth may get fired, as it usually happens in such circumstances, because he has insulted people (maybe a joke) who live in rural areas. It doesn’t matter if he was joking because people are going to take it seriously and it’s also sort of a “Hey, I don’t care attitude”.

It is also something that is disrespectful to people who don’t live in the US and Europe, because the most internet connections in Asia and the rest of the world except those countries I mentioned, will not easily support an always-online Xbox due to bandwidth limits and speed limits. Even in some regions in the US, such a thing just won’t fly, based on our interview here with PSN game Fuel Overdose creator.

As a Twitter user aptly put it, “A whole gaming community was offended. I’d suggest Orth keep his mouth shut in the future as a rep for Microsoft.” Another user was also quite livid with Orth’s comments: “Basically this just told everybody to f off if you don’t live in a city. Making fun of peoples lifestyle now..”

This is what the problem is. The gaming community is not interested in an always-online Xbox because it presents a lot of issues like privacy concerns, and also makes the gameplay experience dependent on the ISP, and that feeling of paying for something and getting incomplete product in return is hard to shake of, because let’s face it; if you are bound by an external force to enjoy something you paid for, then you really didn’t get complete value for your money.

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