Microsoft will focus on Xbox Live services at E3 next month, according to an industry analyst that met with the firm last month.
Xbox 360 gamers should not "expect a lot of game stuff" at E3, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter.
“They told me don’t expect a lot of game stuff, expect a lot of dashboard, interface, multimedia,” said Pachter on the ‘Microsoft E3 2012 Preview‘ of GameTrailer.com’s Bonus Round.
I'm not quite what to think of this, but it's especially disheartening. Xbox 360 gamers have Halo 4 to look forward to, but beyond that, it doesn't seem like much else is on the agenda.
This is in stark contrast to Sony's "20 new gaming experiences", which we know will house three anticipated exclusives -- The Last Of Us, God of War 4 and its recently-announced brawler -- as well as new Vita titles.
Alternatively, Xbox 360 gamers have a whole hoard of third-party software to look forward to, but nothing that's really going to justify them playing their 360 more over their PS3 if they have both, aside from maybe Black Ops 2.
The problem is that, personally, Xbox Live dashboards updates and improvements are cool, often needed, but hardly worth going crazy about, and certainly not something that's going to push me to wake up at 3am to watch the company's media briefing.
Furthermore, it seems increasingly more likely that we won't see or hear of a new Xbox at the event, if this new revelation is anything to go by. We've heard the rumours and possibilities, but big announcements like that of a new console always get leaked, and nothing especially solid has been discovered about a new console announcement by Microsoft.
The Xbox 360 is definitely in an interesting phase at the moment. It keeps selling, games like Kinect Star Wars increase the install base, while Halo 4 is sure to move a few extra million units for the company. But yet, it seems a console driven almost exclusively by multi-platform third-party titles, which is, well, kind of boring.
I'm not confident we'll see a new game revealed by Microsoft at E3, and sure, while its new Xbox Live enhancements might be beneficial for the casual Xbox 360 gamer, limiting the game showings doesn't do anything for a fanbase that has stuck around for a considerably long generation.
By Gaetano Prestia
What would you like to see from Microsoft at E3?