Although we don’t even know what the PS5 is going to look like, there’s plenty of information around the Xbox Series X. We know it will support a huge 12 Teraflops of graphical power, it’s going to come with a dedicated hardware chip for next-generation spacial audio, and its games will be synergistic with the Xbox One, allowing owners of Microsoft’s previous console to upgrade their games for free.
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We even know a bit about some of the Xbox Series X’s launch titles, as it’s set to come with Microsoft games like Halo: Infinite and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. In addition, it’s very likely to come with new versions of classics such as Forza and FIFA, as shown in the Series X’s announcement trailer below.
However, it turns out there’s more. Microsoft has announced a schedule of live events, set to be streamed online, to replace its schedule for the now-basically-cancelled Games Developer Conference.
GDC was all set to go ahead from March 16-20, but has been “indefinitely postponed” due to the recent health crisis as several of the industry’s big hitters, including Sony and Microsoft, pulled out of the conference. However, many events from the GDC, including panels and award ceremonies, are going to be livestreamed as planned even if the boots-on-the-ground conference is not going ahead.
Halo: Infinite will be part of Microsoft's launch lineup
The Microsoft events are from its Game Stack team, the section of Xbox responsible for liaising with games developers. The Game Stack site (opens in new tab) claims the events will centre around “cloud and game development technologies from Microsoft, behind the scenes with the creators at Xbox Game Studios and the ID@Xbox program, and... deep technical talks and panel discussions”.
As Game Stack works closely with games developers, expect a few more announcements regarding launch titles and demonstrations as to what the new console can do. You can watch the announcements, presentations and panel discussions live on this link here (opens in new tab), between March 17-18.
So where is PS5 in all this? Sadly, although Sony pulled out of the Games Developers Conference too, there’s no word on an alternative PS5 reveal date. It’s a shame: the smart money was that an event like GDC would have been perfect for a grand PS5 reveal. However, now the event is no longer going ahead, we’re left grasping at straws once again. Surely a PS5 live-streamed reveal is imminent?
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