Microsoft’s E3 Announcements Were a Whole Lot of 2019 (Premium)

Excited by any of Microsoft's E3 game announcements? You might want to check the release date, then. All the best games are coming in 2019. Or beyond.

In fact, "everything's going to be great in the future" was sort of the theme of the show, when you think about it. Very little of what Microsoft announced is happening anytime soon. Let alone this holiday season.

Consider the biggest overall news, none of which had anything to do with specific new games.

The firm is "adding five new creative teams to the Microsoft Studios family." Some are new. Some are existing partners. None will ship new IP anytime soon, addressing years-long criticisms of Microsoft's dedication to first-party games.

Microsoft also confirmed the news I first broke, that it is working on a next-generation family of Xbox consoles. When will they ship? No idea.

Microsoft also confirmed what I've been claiming for the past year, that it will evolve Xbox into an online streaming service that will be hardware agnostic. When will that happen? We'll have to wait and see.

And then there were the games.

Microsoft's single biggest game announcement, as is often the case, wasHalo-based. Halo: Infinite is the title. But beyond that name and the fact that Master Chief is somehow involved, details are beyond vague. We have no idea when this game will ship. Holiday 2019 at the earliest, surely.

The next-biggest game announcement, such as it was, was for Gears of War 5, representing Microsoft's attempt to turn this franchise into the next Halo. When is Gears 5 shipping, you ask? 2019, probably late 2019. (Even the Android-based Gears Pop mobile game won't ship until 2019.)

How about Crackdown 3, the long-awaited game that was first announced in 2014? Yep. 2019. Devil May Cry 5? 2019. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice? 2019. Ori and the Will of the Wisps? Yep. 2019.

Are there some more immediate releases? Anything?

Of course. Xbox Game Pass picked up three big new games right away: Fallout 4, The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, and Tom Clancy’s The Division are all available now.

Looking out a bit further, Battlefield V, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are all coming to Xbox in late 2018. But none are Microsoft/Xbox exclusives; they will ship on other platforms too.

Forza Horizon 4 is coming in late 2018, at least, and so is Just Cause 4. A new War Mode for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will too. So will the first Cuphead DLC. (What Cuphead really needs is easier play modes for normal people.) Nothing all that major, when you think about it, unless you're into sequels and add-ons.

I didn't compare the expected release schedule for the games announced this year to past E3's, but it just seems like much of what Microsoft announced isn't happening anytime soon.

And then there's the hardware.

Perhaps burned by criticism that its E3 announcements have been too hardware-centric in years past, Microsoft's didn't...