Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference may be longer than usual

If Microsoft is creating a bridge I get it...Windows 10 for PC's run literally millions of games; however, if they are not sold by Micorosft studios or on the Windows store they do not make a penny from sales.  Look at Android phones and iPhones, both companies make billions annually with no personal investment besides offering their store/servers.  I understand that Micorosoft would like to tap into this, so this may be the first steps to take.

The controller is actually a Surface Phone

IT's actually A SuRfACE ToILET!

This is a so never would happen but would be so cool if it did idea.

nice...

They could trim it down back to 90 by minimizing those painful-to-watch live gameplay demos. I want announcements; I don't want to watch Kamiya-san awkwardly play an unfinished game for 12 minutes that may never get released anyway (and it didn't). Keep gameplay demos to two minutes, tops, or, better yet, keep it to videos.

I just hate how scripted they are. But I do enjoy seeing game play.... Unlike Sony who show tech demos

I agree with coip ..while its nice to watch gameplay ..it does get boring when it goes on for too long so they should tone it down a notch ..it's almost as bad the days we'd be playing a 1 player game with a friend and he/she would take forever and we'd be itching to play 😂

Can't wait. Sincerely hoping there are some surprise games. Sub £379.99 is my predicted price. Hope that it has SSD too. Be interesting to know if load times are better.

That's an aggressive price point, and I don't think it's hapening. I'm guessing MS wants the XB1S to stick around and handle that budget segment. IDK what the direct price translation to your currency would mean, but I would think $500 in the states is the optimistic outlook, unless they're going to get really aggressive to sunset XB1 faster than we think. It definitely wouldn't come with a SSD at that price either, given that they said the console is supposed to start at 1 TB of storage and those start at close to $300 on Newegg (I know MS wouldn't pay retail, just saying they'd be a massive chunk of the cost). I'd guess a SSHD, if we're lucky. In a perfect world, you have a dual-drive setup and the option to self-replace the stuff.

$500 is not an optimistic outlook that is a pessimistic price.  Phil said previously it would be priced within this generations pricing structure.  That means, if he is true to his word, the most Scorpio would be priced at would be $499, the original Xbox One price.  Microsoft knows the PS4 Pro is getting a price drop to $349.  The PS4 will get a $50 price drop as well. And make their PS4 base unit permanently $249.  Like the Sony’s PS4s reduction I suspect Microsoft will also reduce their Xbox One S down to $249 or even less. So, where does that leave us?  $500 would be twice their base unit and $150 more than the PS4 Pros possible new pricing. Assuming the Scorpio internals costs are $150 more compared to the Pro, is the price of $500 too high? Will it chase away new users that have more money to spend but see $150 more a little too much to overcome?  Would it be better to be a loss leader? Sure, Scorpio looks like it will blow most of the visual doors off the Pro but, will those differences translate into people wanting to spend $150 more?  And this pricing difference is not a question I pose for the diehard owner of Xbox One.  Most of those within that group and are interested in Scorpio would see $500 acceptable price. Of course, the lower it is the more it would attract other current Xbox owners to upgrade.  But, in most cases those current owner sales in the end represent a zero-sum game for Microsoft; This means the current owners who upgrade are not going to vary their Xbox software buying patterns compared to a scenario where the Scorpio did not exist.  No, Microsoft needs to grow their ecosystem. The goal is to get more users willing to buy more software and services beyond current Xbox users.  Yes, most of those new users will be buying the base unit.  But, they also want to attract users that were willing to spend $399 for a PS4 Pro or those that have no console but a higher disposable income. Those type of users have a high attachment rates. Microsoft is much more interested in pricing it lower than $500 and selling as much as they can. Even though they call it a premium device (like PS4 Pro) it is only premium compared to their current device.  So, selling low even if it initially means as a loss leader may be a more proactive approach.  Why? Because in the end Microsoft rather sell hundreds of thousands (millions) more copies of COD, or Shadow of War or Forza 7, or Halo, etc... and sell more services like Xbox Live Gold. That is where Microsoft makes the real money (~30% for each game). Consoles are a means to an end. So, yes $500 is very pessimistic pricing.  It is the highest end of pricing I would expect Microsoft attempt at this point. And outside of those invested in Xbox already it would mean little in the way of additions of new ecosystem members. The lowest price would to suck-it up and tear right into PS4 Pro pricing and compete with the same price of $349. That is not happening. That is an optimistic price. Foolish to even consider, yes. But, a dreamy optimistic price. A price that would leave nothing on the shelves. However, I suspect Microsoft will enter Scorpio at a competitive range of $399 to $429.  It seems like that is the golden price point from talking to people that do not have an Xbox. Those gamers willing to spend more. Perhaps they have a PS4 or a PC or nothing. Most people that a PS4 only that I have talked would jump on a Scorpio if it met that pricing range and wouldn’t even consider it a $500.  $399 to $429 range appears to attract the greatest number of new users and thus provide the greatest chance of increasing their software, services and secondary hardware devices (controllers, headphones, etc...  And maybe it means a current PS4 user will buy their next multi-platform on an Xbox Scorpio rather than their current PS4 system.  

"Microsoft is much more interested in pricing it lower than $500 and selling as much as they can." There is absolutely no proof of this. Microsoft let the Kinect inflate prices and drive off customers. Both MS and Sony broke tradition of eating money on hardware to move units to maximize software sales with this generation. Those two things tell me there is no longer a willingness to prioritize quantity over profits on hardware; at the least, the balance has been hurt heavily. I see absolutely nothing that woudl suggest an atypical pricing model like $429. That's just not the way the things get sold. $50 increments are how it tends to always work on this stuff, minus sales. I'd consider the range to be $399-599, but also think the MS actions this generation make $400 incredibly tough to defend, especially paired with comments about treating (read: pricing) Scorpio as a premium product. To me, I'm hearing that they want it to be a profitable device, a luxury product that is treated as such.

Microsoft drove off people becaue they had an idiot in charge of the division back in 2013. A bunch of suits that didn't understand the temporment of gamers. They were focused on Kinect as you said and positioned it as the center of a multimedia life experince. All are gone for the most part  with the new X1 narrative that has taken hold over the past few years under Phil Spencer.     This device priced at $500 or more is DOA to a new consumer. It is a consumer device first and foremost.  Microsoft is not making this as reference deisgn to OEMs as they do with their Surface lines.  No they want to be competitve with this device. If they had released this last November it might had been a better narrative to charge that $499 pr ice.  But, not now when you have to compete with ecosystem twice your size with a console that although not as powerful in the Scorpio still would be an accpetable compromise fora premium device for many. Microsoft has no interest in releasing a failing device and that is what over pricing would be. Doing that they might as well include a Kinect with the Scorpio because it will mean thay didn't learn their past lessons. However, one of the reasons (and probably the most important ) for the year long delay was waiting the pricing of components to be driven down to meet the goal price of the console.  They  built this console from day one to meet a certain pricing.  I doubt they said hey lets make another console for $499 because that worked so well last time. Calling this a premium device only gets you so much elasticity for most consumers in pricing. On a shelf they will see the XB1S at $249 and next to it the Scorpio for $500 and a shelf over for $150 less is the Pro PS4 for $349.  Which do you think the average consumer and sales person is going to go for?        And yes thre is plenty of proof Microsoft has c hange their ways about this generation. Just look at how they positioned the current Xbox One S pricing. They competitvely added 4K support with a 4KUHD player.  They focused on providing a broad range of changes over the ecosystem that removed past mistakes. 
 
They designed this Scorpio for developers to easily work with and transition from the PC or to the PC.  They want developers to see that developing for the device means they can sell their products in 4K gaming and use Scorpio to do it.  Developers are not going to work hard to support a device that doesn't provide any large sales benefit or all that transition work is for naught.   Phil and the team know the elasticity of selling point of consoles.  $499 is not going to attract new uses, it just isn't. So selling at $499 or above is only going to get faithful to buy. They don't need sales to the faithful. They can say they built this for all us the Xbox fans.  No they really really did the Scorpio to make up past mistakes. A past mistake which included of pricing a device way to high to be a viable console in a competitive market. Selling only to the faithful gets them what? A nice feel good trophy.  It defintely won't increase software sales or Xbox Gold sales. Those are already going to happen whether the faithful upgrade or not.  It defintely won't make them more competitve in sales against the PS4.  In fact, a higher pice would make the distance in sales greater.  They need to spark the ecosystem with excitement. Xbox One S sales at the moment are flat abd without driving the ecosystem up they will only decline more.     Let's look at this pricing. What are you really getting? The build costs of this device are not $150 more than the PS4 and definitely not more $250 more than a Xbox 1S.  Their just isn't that much more tech in this device over the PS4 Pro to price it $150 more.  Both systems use a customized Jaguar CPU and Polaris GPU for their APUs.  Sure the Scorpio did a lot more cutomzing and it looks like their work is has worked out well. But, after ramp-up of the the APU build here will not be a drastic price differntial between the two.  The hard drives will not differ that much, defintetely not in size as both systems are 1TB.  Where the real difference is the change of memory and the addtional 4GB of total GDDR5 memory and its higher bandwidh needs.  The other difference is the special cooling setup.  And of course the Scorpio will have a 4KUHD player (estimated to have cost only $15 more than just using a plain Blu-Ray in the XB1S).  Other than that the APU difffernces from a manufacturing perspective it is not going to add a great deal of cost over the Pros similar based customized APU (Jaguar/Polaris) design. The CPU speed is not much different and the GPU is not drastical differen in Polaris specs. The difference is in customization. The backend layout is the same, no new additional ports. And they are still using the same heavily cusotmized audio chipset from the original XB1 design. Obvisously  there is a more to pricing then just looking at components and assumed differences and similarties.    As for your $50 increments only. Pricing models change. I was personally giving a price range based on my discussions amoung about 20 or so that have no investment in either consoles or exclusively invested in the PS4. I found from my limited discussions that $450 was too high to get people invested in the PS4 to jump over and try the Scorpio, even though the realized it was quite a jump in capability over the Pro. They felt their current investment was good enough.  As I moved down in $10 increments (yes, not $50) I found that $429 was where most started saying they be willing as it moved form "no" to  into "maybes and "yes" as the primary repsonses. At $399 I didn't find one person that didn't say "no". All thought that given what they knew about Scorpio it would be almost be no brainer not too get one or atleast look at it seriously. 

You appear to have completely missed the point of the Scorpio. It's a premium device. It's not meant to replace the XBO, it's not meant for the general consumer or even the general gamer, at least not at the moment. It's meant for the hardcore gamer, the gamer and consumer that wants the latest and greatest, and is presumably willing to pay for it. At $500, I'd say the Scorpio would be another loss leader, just like the XBO has been all along. Pehraps they'll come in at that price point, but if they do they won't be making any money on the box. Remember $500 is retail. That means what they sell it to Best Buy and others for is something materially less than $500. There's a lot of cost involved down the production and distribution chain. What computer can you buy that has 12GB of RAM, a custom 8 core CPU, a 6 teraflop GPU, a 4k disk drive, a 1TB hard drive, etc., for $500? That would be none.

And the PS4 Pro was described by Sony as a premium device designed to compete against the PC, so what? That and two nickels will get you a dime.   An yes, Scoprio  is not designed to replace the Xbox One on the low end. I never said that it was.  But, it was also not designed to be price so expensively that it only a highly dedicated Xbox ecosystem member would buy it. Once again that does not benefit Xbox ecosystem. Microsoft wants to sell software/services. New users add software sales not there  before.  Ccurrent users who upgrade. don't add software sales that in most cases would have happened anyway.   A for premium it is  a term relative to your own devices.  A premium console doesn't mean exhorborant pricing over your other devices. It immplies a premium pricing. At $399 to the XB1S at $249 that is 43% price increase.  I would call that a premium price.  Calling it  premium doesn't get away from comparing to another premium device costing $150 less.  Once again pricing it beyond users that would be wlling to invest is not beneficial.  The more users that enter the ecosystem the more people become invested, the more they have others (friends, family) invest and the cycle repeats. Those more willing to buy a premium device are more likely to be more influential in briging in more buyers. I do understand but, I don't think you understand. Pricing this console outside what a normal customer with higher disposabe income or one who is invested in gaming lke the PC or PS4  will mean the device will fail. Microsoft's narrative of 4K will fail.  The excitement will die, save for the dedicated.  You can argue all you want but, sales do matter. Sure, they aren't going sell 20 million of these over the next year even if they priced them at my ridiculous example of $349. But, pricing them outside an accpeptable point will mean they will be lucky to sell a  million over the lifetime and against a very active competitor. Not selling doesn't increase their ecosystem in any meaningful way but, will increase the PS4 in a meaningful way if people decide shop the Pro over the Scorpio because of it being over priced.

You're selling that as better than what it kinda is. I can't go get a $250 PC easily at Best Buy easily, but I wouldn't buy an XB1S to replace my PC. YOu're looking at WILDLY different markets right there. On console, the end-game is to sell software and services. That's the driver of profit, since MS has control of all game and app purchases--they alawys get a cut. That's not the case on PC, where MS doesn't get anything of a sale of PhotoShop or Steam games. Though MS wouldn't take a loss on XB1, they weren't selling those things to be the profit generators. It's not even close to the same. Also, saying "custom 8 core CPU" as a positive is a total joke. That's the clear weak pointi n Scorpio, to the point MAJOR software work is trying to make up for it. Those are not 8-core CPUs. They're a lie on that front, look up the way the arch works. Each core is more like 75% of a core, and those cores were bad when they launched. There's a reason AMD totally left that arch behind, willingly skipping out on desktop CPU improvements for about 3 years to let it go as a flagship product. Those CPUs are trash. A 6 TFLOP GPU isn't even impressive either. You can get those at a decent price now as well, since that's what AMD was releasing about 2 years ago. The hardware in Scorpio isn't that impressive, it's about what MS can do on the software side to turn a mid-range set of hardware into a high-end gaming experience. That's what console have always done, and that's what will be impressive to witness.

You're wrong on a few marks here. Phil Spencer has been misquoted constantly about the premium device thing. HE HIMSELF said it won't be priced out of everyone reach. Xbox One has NOT been a loss leader. Microsoft makes money on every Xbox they sell. Lastly comparing to retail PC parts is not the way to do this. It's a mass produced system, built and optimized by a gaming company, not a bunch of off the shelf parts you found on PCPartPicker.

I think you're still missing what Scorpio is. It isn't a mainstream device. It's an enthusiast one. That is, they aren't aiming to make Scorpio their quantity sales device. Nvidia sells video cards priced over what Scorpio costs. AMD is in the process of releasing Vega in a similar manner. Are those DoA? No, because the people who buy on the high-end are willing to spend for quality. I wouldn't have a problem with Scorpio at $500. I have a problem with worrying over exclusive software, and that's the key to all of this. The PS4 Pro is allegedly 20% of PS4 sales. That's for a device without true, native 4K on a consistent basis, while costing a $150 premium over the alternative. People WILL pay for bvetter quality, and the margings always grow a bit more when that happens. A $150 jump from the PS4P to Scorpio wouldn't be shocking to see, even if your guessing about the permanent price cut on a year-old console with vastly inferior hardware comes out as true. You say Scorpio isn't $150 of tech better than the PS4P, but again, look at the PS4 to the PS4P. Is there $150 more in tech? It's basically just a mild CPU OC, I think, with a bit beefier GPU that doesnt' separate itself either. Yet, somehow, it sits $150 higher, when the build difference might not even be $50 (since i'ts just a GPU jump, along with ports and such). Look at stepping in tech, especially computer parts. The curve on price/performance graphs is not linear. A $320 Ryzen CPU is not 30% faster than a $220 one, even though there's a 30% price increase. That's just how it is--margins get better, value gets worse, and the consumer gets the bragging rights of owning the best.

I got the XBox One S for only 150 CHF (~150USD) and have seen it regularly hovering around 200.- with a game and controller (500GB version). So maybe they will make the price cut official and Scorpio can actually be in the 400 range.

Can't wait!

As long as we are throwing out baseless predictions(hope). Here is mine: XBox Surface, around $500, 1tb HD, Surface keyboard and mouse support, all wrapped up in a package that takes design notes from the Surface line.

Xbox and Surface are two seperate brands. Both have a good standing in the market. There's no need to mix them.

Surface is a family of devices, 2in1(tablet), all in one(Studio), the new laptop, and the unique Book and a whole slew of accessories. Microsoft is positioning the Surface brand as a premium brand of many products. It would make perfect sense for them to include the premium XBox in that family.

Well if MS thinks a premium console with a premium price would work they can try it. And then end up like Sony with their PS3 or MS with the Xbox One. Massively dropping the price after the release. And a Surface device has to be expensive.

I definitely want to watch, but 4 PM is a bit of poor timing, since it wouldn't be over until at least 5:30 my time, and I might be busy around then. Might try to DVR, but hate running the risk of spoilers and having to hide from the Internet. Still, I wonder what they could possibly be doing to push the conference long. Maybe some surprise exclusives?

How are you going to dvr it. What channel is this going to be on

Internet says Fuse TV, hopefuly I have that channel.

Yeah I'll be tuning in, but only because I didn't get to go the the pres conference myself. I'm so massively disappointed in the way passes were given out. It just doesn't make sense that I have to literally stalk one person online. On twitter none the less, to have a chance of finding out about some temporary web page that's completely gone by the time I found out. Absolute bs. I'm so massively disappointed with their completely asinine way of reaching fans! But yeah, I'll be watching. Did I mention how utterly disappointed I am with the way fanfest tickets were given out? Yeah, massively disappointed!

Not sure I like Xbox 10S or Xbox 10 Scorpio

the 10 part maybe a reference to a windows 10 link

It won't be called any of those two, no worries.

Drop any EA games

Maybe the new logo registered recently might well be for the new box...

I've seen some convincing videos that make me think they might go for the $399, but honestly, i have no problem paying $499.

At more than 90 minutes I'm really hoping for a surprise or 2... wish MS marketed Windows Mobile like Xbox.

They need the extra time to basically reannounce games they already had announced on E3 two years ago and that got held back since then.  I hope they don't waste their time blathering but are going to show and announce new ips. BTW if Microsoft wants to unite PC and XBOX at some point, why aren't there any PC titles coming to XBOX, yet? A considerable amount of games are still only released on PC and PS4 which shouldn't happen according to Microsoft's textbook.

Abd alot of games are only PC/Xbox. From PC only developers. Alot of PC dogs are on Xbox but not PS4. And Cities Skylines is a runaway success. With no PS4 version. But i think what people are getting at is Scorpio has been rumoured ro be able to download PC games straight from the Windows 10 store. Giving it a HUGE advantage over Playstation.

This is great news. Hopefully more games is a good thing.

Damn, really bad time slot, I can't watch it live, I can only watch the re-run.......

Bottom line here is that if it's anywhere under $500 bucks I will be in line one day one to pair this with my new 4k HDR TV. Hopefully Kodi will be releasing their UWP app soon after and this will become the center of my Home Entertainment system and cable will be banished.

I watch all three conferences, even Sony's though I have no interest in their console.

Same, but i hardly find the strength to finish sony's never liked their flow... Been better lately... But back in the days you could feel the Japanese business tradition spewing out of the show... Uberboaring

I just hope MS doesn't focus on POWER and scorpio. I think it'll be a mistake if they do. 
Sony had the more powerful console but didn't focus on "POWER" in the last 4 E3s. 
I think it's should always be about games. Games FIRST. History has shown us that bigger library has always been a bigger factor than power. The NES (bigger library) beat the Master System (more powerful)
The GB (bigger library) beat the Game gear (more powerful)
The SNES (bigger library) beat the Genesis
The PS1 (bigger library) beat the N64 (more powerful)
The PS2 (bigger library) beat the Gamecube (more powerful) and XBox (more powerful) 
The DS (bigger library) beat the PSP (more powerful)
The Wii (bigger library) beat the PS3 (more powerful) and XBox360 (more powerful)
The 3DS (bigger library) beat PS Vita (more powerful) I think if power/resolution/fps is someone's main priority than he would have already have a PC and will stick to PC... Most of the people I see excited about Scorpio over these forums and comment section happen to be XB fans or already have the weaker console (XB1). I would think it remains brand loyalty for many of them as they didn't mind playing the weaker console for years.
I think if they want to convince non-XB1 owners to get scorpio, they'll need exclusive GAMES!!

OK I'm confused 😖, I keep seeing this statement about this show normally is 90 minutes. How is that when this show has been over 1hr and 30 min. Can someone help me out on this one.