While Halo Wars 2 obviously took the center stage when it came to Microsoft’s Gamescon announcement press conference, a lot of other exciting announcements were made by the Redmond giant, which are sure to give Xbox gamers a fresh adrenaline surge.
First up is the visual overhaul for Xbox’s interface that Microsoft detailed in the announcement. The new interface will go live this November, and as per the company, it gets a redesigned dashboard that will emphasize speed, performance and simplicity. For Xbox One users with Kinect, Windows 10’s Cortana will allow gamers, access to audio controls.
Who can forget Halo Wars 2 ? This was probably the focal point for not just Microsoft’s Press con, but for the entire Gamescon as well. While Microsoft didn’t divulge much details on the new title, it confirmed that it would be available from fall of 2016. And yes, there were plenty of Halo 5 footage videos on show as well.
While Microsoft announced backward compatibility for Xbox 360 at E3 itself, the company today unveiled a slew of more details on this feature. Most important of them all, is that users will be able to start playing games via backward-compatibility starting this November, with over 100 titles available at launch.
Also, all future Xbox 360 games in the Games with Gold program, which gives Xbox Gold subscribers free games, will now be backward-compatible.
Another major boost comes in the form of DVR recording, a feature which will come in the bext-gen Xbox One consoles. Gamers would be able to record TV shows subscription-free through the One using an over-the-air digital tuner. Once the service is up, you would be able to play that recording on any Windows 10 device, perhaps utilising the power of Continuum and Windows 10’s massively marketed cross-platform capability.
Xbox One controllers now have a new chatpad, pretty much similar to the one found on Xbox 360 consoles. However, the new chatpad has better audio controls,with new user programmable keys that can be used for functions like screenshotting or recording in-game DVR clips.
Rounding it up, Microsoft also announced a new, limited edition 1 TB Xbox Halo console.
