ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Don Mattrick. (Cheers, applause.)
DON MATTRICK: Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the entire team, thank you for joining us on the Microsoft campus at the home of Xbox.
I’ve spent my entire career in interactive entertainment, and I’ve never been more excited than I am today, because today we put you at the center of a new generation in the living room, where your games look and feel like nothing else, where your TV becomes more intelligent, where all of your entertainment comes alive in one place.
More than a decade ago, Xbox put the most advanced hardware and software in the hands of creators so they could realize new visions for games. We believed in a connected future so we made an early bet on Xbox Live, a living service that gets better each and every day.
Gamers were hungry to adopt emerging technologies, and with Xbox 360 we launched the HD era of games.
You wanted more competition and bigger communities, so we doubled down on Xbox Live.
With Kinect, we made you the controller.
We brought you new, interactive content, two-way TV, fitness, sports, and now, nearly eight years after our launch, Xbox 360 remains a vibrant platform, continuing to lead the industry in sales.
In a few short weeks at E3 we’ll be sharing great news about what’s next on Xbox 360.
We’re thankful to you and proud of our leadership position in this thriving $65 billion a year industry.
Today we look forward. Incredible shifts are happening across games and entertainment, with exciting new ways to play and have fun. Audiences are spending their time enjoying different types of content: core and causal games, live and recorded television, sports and movies. These stories are lighting up on every device, from the big screen to the tablet to the mobile phone.
The living room has changed radically over the last eight years with the addition of the cloud-powered Internet, voice and gesture and more devices.
To continue to lead we must provide compelling answers to new questions: Can we take what you love, and make it better? Can we improve a living room that has become too complex, too fragmented and too slow by harmonizing your experiences? Can we offer new performance and power to inspire the world’s greatest creators?
Team Xbox is on a new mission: design and build an all-in-one system to light up a new generation of games, TV and entertainment. It must be built for the future with hardware, software and services that put you at the center. And at its very core it must be simple, instant and complete.
We believe we can evolve what you love to make it decidedly better, and deliver breakthrough innovations.
So it’s time for technology to step behind the curtain and for you and your entertainment to take center stage. Today, we’re thrilled to unveil the ultimate, all-in-one home entertainment system, the one with the power to create experiences that look and feel like nothing else, the one that makes your TV more intelligent, the one system for the new generation.
Ladies and Gentleman, introducing Xbox One. (Cheers, applause.)
(Video segment.)
(Cheers, applause.)
DON MATTRICK: This is it, Xbox One. (Cheers, applause.)
This system is built to amaze on Day One and continuously improve over the generation ahead.
In designing Xbox One we’ve obsessed about every finite detail. In every engineering milestone, at every corner, in every feature, the principles we followed were to be simple, instant and complete.
Please welcome Yusuf Medhi to show some of the new experiences you’ll find only on Xbox One. (Cheers, applause.)
YUSUF MEHDI: Thanks, Don.
Good morning. How are you guys doing? (Cheers, applause.)
Here at Xbox it’s no secret that we love gaming. We love the immersive worlds, the epic battles, and the thrill of competing with our friends.
With Xbox One you’re going to experience a new generation of gaming like you’ve never seen before, and you’re going to see that in a little bit, and a lot more at E3.
For now, though, I want to show you how I’m going to take that passion for gaming and apply it to your entire TV experience.
Join me over here in front of the new Xbox and Kinect.
Now, let me set up the aspiration. What if a single device could provide your entertainment, and what if that device could turn on your TV and talk to all the devices in your living room? And what if it was always ready and connected?
Well, now, it’s all going to begin with two simple words: “Xbox, on.” (Cheers, applause.)
And it’s that simple. Xbox One instantly recognizes me and gets me right to my own personal home screen. No more manual login, no more waiting on system or game updates.
Now, the home screen, as you can see, has a familiar interface, but let me point out for you a couple of the unique differences.
First of all, it will remember what I was last doing. So, for example, here in the center of the screen you can see I was playing one of my favorite racing games. This one here is just one of the new amazing Xbox One exclusives you’re about to hear a lot more about.
You can also see I was listening to some music by Deadmau5, and watching a movie.
Now, like many of you, I also discover new entertainment based on what my friends like, and for that we created a new area called Trending.
Here I get a snapshot of what is popular in the entertainment world, both with my friends and with the entire Xbox Live community.
Of course, I can still browse the great content I’ve come to love on Xbox, such as games, TV and movies, and music.
“Xbox, go home!”
Now that you’ve seen the start screen and home experience, let’s see what millions of people do every day when they turn on their TV. Guess what? They watch TV. It sounds simple and obvious, and it should be, but today it isn’t because of the need to change inputs to get to live TV.
All that is going to change with Xbox One. Let me show you.
“Xbox, watch TV!”
And with that simple command, I’m watching live TV. (Cheers, applause.)
Now, here in Seattle, I’m a Comcast subscriber, so this is the programming available in my area. But hold on, let me show how we’re going to take live TV and make it not only integral to the Xbox but also incredibly useful through a great new feature called Instant Switching.
“Xbox, game.”
“Go to TV.”
“Go to music.”
“Watch TV.”
Yes, that fast. Did you see how instant that was? (Cheers, applause.)
Come on, it was so good let’s see it again. Let’s see it again.
“Go to Internet Explorer.” Oh, nice.
“Watch TV.”
“Watch movie.”
Switching between live TV and all my games and entertainment is now as fast as switching channels on your TV remote.
Now, you’ve already seen how simple it is to use your hands to navigate through the Xbox One, but we’re going to create a new set of universal gestures to control your entire TV experience, gestures such as Grab & Pan and Swipe Up.
Let me show you one of my favorites. Here’s an example of how I can get easily back to my home screen from anywhere in the system. I simply spread my hands to grab the screen and I’m back home. (Cheers, applause.) And if I want to get back to my movies, I grab and I’m back to the movie. (Cheers, applause.) And again this is not only now simple but it makes it instant to get what you want.
Now, have you ever wanted to do more than one thing at a time when you’re watching TV? Of course you have. On Xbox One, the ability to do multiple things at once on your TV is now a reality.
Introducing Snap mode for the Xbox.
“Xbox, Snap Internet Explorer.”
With Snap mode, I can run multiple programs alongside one another and easily interact between them without having to shut one down and start up another.
“Xbox, favorites.”
“Star Trek.”
OK, so right now I’m watching Star Trek. And I’ve heard great things about the sequel “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” So now I can use Internet Explorer and my cell phone as a remote control, for example, to watch a trailer, and I can even navigate to find movie times and buy tickets. And again, at any given time now if I want to go home, I just grab and I’m home. All right. (Cheers, applause.)
Now I’d like to introduce for you another amazing thing you can do on your Xbox: Skype.
Skype on Xbox One connects you to family and friends in ways you aren’t going to find on other TVs. Not only will you get Skype experiences in widescreen HD, with the best living room camera available, but only on Xbox will you get to do group video calls on your TV.
Let’s take a look at Skype in Snap mode. OK, I’m going to go ahead and grab my movie and zoom back to it.
And to help you show it off, I’ve asked my friend, DJ, one of the members on our sports team, to call in and help me demonstrate. And right on cue, DJ calls in.
“Xbox, answer call.”
Hey, DJ. Thank you for calling in to help me show off Skype in Snap Mode. Looks like you’re working pretty hard out there.
DJ: Hey, Yusuf. Thanks for having me. I’m happy to do it. You know, it looks like you’re doing OK yourself. I’m looking forward to you showing off the great work we’re doing with our partners at ESPN.
YUSUF MEHDI: Well, as a matter of fact, that’s what’s coming up next. So why don’t you sit back and enjoy it?
DJ: That’s great. Just make sure when you get to fantasy you show the real version. You know, the one where I’m in first place.
YUSUF MEHDI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
“Skype, end call.”
Let me go ahead though and show you that Xbox sports offering that DJ was talking about.
“Xbox, watch ESPN.”
All right, let me set up the scene here. Imagine I’m at home watching an NBA game during the regular season. But if you’re like me, I like to keep up with my fantasy team. Now what I can do though is instead of having to pull out necessarily a separate device, when my player scores here, like LeBron, I automatically get an alert that just pops up on the TV, and I can say, “Xbox, show fantasy.” And now I get my fantasy players — (cheers, applause) — right alongside. Really one of my favorites here. And that’s updated live.
But in addition I can go ahead and check out league standings, and you can see here’s why I passed DJ with that score from LeBron. Always good when you’re doing the demo.
And in addition, I can go ahead here and I have a nice thing called featured highlights, so I can see clips of my favorite players when they’ve done things even if I’m not there.
So let me throw this one to the full screen. Here’s my center, Tyson Chandler, and here’s how he helps me dominate the fantasy league with plays like that; always very nice.
All right, now what you’re seeing was just one example of what we can do with live TV, but can you imagine what we could do with the Super Bowl or the Golden Globes, or even with political debates with this ability to have interactive TV?
All right, finally, let’s tackle what I think is the biggest challenge with watching TV. Anybody? For me, it’s finding what to watch and keeping up with it.
Introducing the Xbox One Guide.
“Xbox, show the Guide.”
Now you can find, discover and watch TV in three powerful new ways: voice controlled search and navigation, favorites, and trending. With the Xbox One Guide, I see all my local TV listings right through my Xbox, and I can use my voice to check out what’s on.
“Xbox, ‘Today Show””
“Watch SyFy Channel.”
“Watch MTV.”
“What’s on HBO?”
Pretty cool, huh?
Let’s see that again. (Cheers, applause.)
“‘Mary and Martha.'”
“Watch CBS.”
“Show the Guide.”
See how easy that is? No more memorizing channels or hunting for a remote control.
The next thing I want to show you is how I stay on top of all the series that I love to follow.
“Xbox, favorites.”
The Favorites area is an easy way to keep up with all the TV shows that I like to watch. All I have to do is pin the content in one convenient place. It’s a lot like having my own personal channel.
And finally, there’s one of the areas I like the most.
“Xbox, trending.”
Trending gives me a glance at what everyone in the Xbox Live community is watching. I like how current it is. It’s up to the minute. From here, I can instantly jump into the most popular shows.
But “Trending” isn’t just for live TV. There’s also a section for video on-demand, so I can see what people are liking, no matter what time zone it’s in.
“Xbox, go home.”
So there you have it, the all-in-one system where it all comes together: games, movies, music, Web, and now Skype and live TV, the one place where you are now at the center of your entertainment, the one place where it’s simple and instant to connect with your friends.
This is the beginning of a new generation of games and entertainment. This is the beginning of truly intelligent TV.
Now I’d like to welcome Marc Whitten to the stage to show you the magic and science that makes all of this possible behind the Xbox One. Thank you. (Cheers, applause.)
MARC WHITTEN: Thanks, Yusuf.
At Xbox, we’re focused on how you play and how you’re entertained. We’re driven to build a future-proof system that brings together the cloud, smart devices, new content, and new ways to interact with all of your entertainment.
Yusuf just showed you intelligent TV and the high performance of Xbox One. There’s an amazing amount of technology that enables all that you’ve just seen. I’m thrilled to be the one to show you under the hood and give you a taste of what powers the new Xbox.
There are three ambitious investments we made to drive a new generation of entertainment: First, there’s the console and the revolutionary Xbox One architecture; second, advancements with the most important input devices: Kinect, the controller and SmartGlass; and third, Xbox Live reinvented by the power of the cloud.
So starting with our system, it’s connected and ready. It’s an elegant design that meets the needs of the new generation.
The heart of that system is raw power, from 500 million transistors and 512 megs of RAM in the Xbox 360 to over 5 billion transistors and 8 gigabytes of RAM in Xbox One, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi direct, a Blu-ray drive, a native 64-bit architecture, and variable power states, all while delivering practically silent operation. This is a modern, powerful box, engineered to deliver now and well into the future.
But it’s how we marshal that power, how we create the system that works to deliver the world’s greatest games and provides the flexibility to power entirely new, connected experiences. To do this, we’ve brought technology from across Microsoft to create an industry first. The soul of the new system is the Xbox One architecture: three operating systems in one.
The first is the best of our Xbox operating system, made even better by providing deep and instant access to the hardware so that creators have no limits in harnessing the power of Xbox One for cinematic realism.
The second is the kernel of Windows, providing consistent access to Web-powered applications and experiences: flexible, powerful, simple.
The third connects these two operating systems to create instant switching, multi-tasking and effortless control.
Only Microsoft and Xbox could bring this level of power, performance, and sophistication to the living room. And it changes everything.
The Xbox One architecture enables the new experiences you saw from Yusuf. There’s no waiting. You can switch to your game like it’s a TV channel flip. You can snap Internet Explorer and the New Star Trek movie.
But how did the TV know Yusuf and react to his voice?
We’re bringing a new Kinect sensor, paired with every Xbox One, which puts you at the center of your entertainment. Kinect is completely redesigned to respond instantly to you, your voice, and your gestures. Voice is now more conversational, it’s faster, and it supports the entire family.
And our new, proprietary Time-of-Flight measures the time — about 13 billionths of a second — that it takes individual photons to bounce off of you to create unprecedented accuracy and precision, over 2 gigabits of data per second to understand your world. This is rocket-science level stuff.
Games and applications will create new experiences like you’ve never seen before.
Three years ago, Kinect ushered in a new capability to make you the controller. Let’s take a peek at the power behind the next-generation Kinect sensor.
We started with the ability to see your world. Now that world is crisp, it’s clear and beautiful, a 1080p, wider field view capture of your world.
As you saw with Yusuf’s Skype call, Kinect’s camera and Skype offer the best shared communication experience in the living room.
In 2010, Kinect layered in an analog understanding of how you move, but in 2013 we’ve revolutionized this capability. There are more joints, and now, for the first time understanding the slightest rotation of a wrist or shoulder. We understand your balance, the transfer of weight from one foot to another, the energy of a motion. When you’re exercising, it can read your heartbeat. This is human control for a human experience.
Now, we wouldn’t bring you next-generation gameplay without innovating on our controller. For the new generation we’re taking the world’s best controller and we’re making it better.
The Xbox One controller is updated with over 40 design innovations. It features updated ergonomics and an integrated battery compartment that just fits better for gamers of all ages.
New dynamic impulse triggers allow creators to program feedback directly into the trigger. And a newly designed dpad creates precision for immersive gaming.
This is your controller, designed by gamers for gamers, for the next generation.
And we can’t talk about input innovation without SmartGlass. Last year, we unveiled SmartGlass to enable your devices to work together with your Xbox. Your tablet can instantly become a remote control and a deep companion experience.
We have had over 10 million downloads of SmartGlass for Xbox 360.
But with this new generation your smart device will behave like it’s born to work with Xbox One, because it’s natively part of the platform.
Kinect, controller, SmartGlass — innovative familiar devices to control your experience your way.
But the real magic is what happens when all of these devices work together to create all new experiences.
The new Kinect sensor is the binding power between these devices. When you press power-on or volume-up, when you change the channel on your SmartGlass device, Kinect seamlessly makes it work. When you pick up your controller, Kinect recognizes you and the controller, and it gets you into your latest game-save instantly.
Speak, and your troops follow your commands. Raise your controller and a virtual shield follows. Your devices work in harmony to create a lag free, instant and complete experience. (Applause.)
Now, to truly evolve the next generation of games and entertainment, you need access to the most powerful entertainment service. The new Xbox Live is built on Xbox One to amplify an all new generation, based on the same membership you have today, but now more powerful, more personal, and more intelligent.
When we launched Xbox Live in 2002, it was powered by 500 servers. With the advent of the 360, that number had grown to over 3,000. Today, 15,000 servers power the modern Xbox Live experience. But this year, we will have more than 300,000 severs for Xbox One, more than the entire world’s computing power in 1999. (Cheers, applause.)
Let’s talk about the experiences enabled with all that power. Your content is available and it’s stored in the cloud so you can access your movies, your music, your games, your saves, anytime, anywhere.
As you’ve seen today, Live brings all new experiences, including Skype and what’s trending across games and entertainment, and of course intelligent TV.
And playing games is brought to a whole new level. Just imagine, you will now have a dedicated game DVR to capture and access your magic moments and save them to the cloud.
With our native editing and sharing tools, you will have the most amazing bragging rights with Xbox Live. Achievements become dynamic and changing. They tell your personal story of how you play, not just what you’ve done.
You will play richer matches with the future of matchmaking, and our new asynchronous capability will allow you to search for your perfect match in your favorite game while you play another game, while you watch a movie, or while you browse the Web.
And finally, game developers can take advantage of our worldwide, multi-data center infrastructure to drive direct game computation. This means bigger matches with more players. It means living and persistent worlds. (Applause.)
There you have it. The breakthrough Xbox One architecture, next-generation inputs anchored by Kinect, and a completely redefined Xbox Live. You’ve seen how we built it, but the real magic happens when you put that power in the hands of the greatest creators.
I’m proud to introduce Andrew Wilson from Electronic Arts. (Applause.)
ANDREW WILSON: Today marks the beginning of a brand new, broad, strategic partnership between EA and Microsoft. In the months ahead, we will share the many details of this special relationship. But, today, for today I want to start with the world’s first look at EA Sports on Xbox One. We share a common vision with Microsoft that games should be intelligent, dynamic, connected, rich with emotion and, most importantly, fun.
We are developing four games for Xbox One that are all of this and more. “FIFA,” “Madden NFL,” “NBA Live” and “UFC.” (Applause.) All four will launch in the next 12 months, all four will be revolutionary, and all four will fundamentally change the way you play. Best of all, this new generation will be powered by EA Sports Ignite, an all new game engine that we are unveiling for the first time today.
EA Sports Ignite is designed specifically to help us blur the line between real and virtual. For us, creating a new engine started with examining what defines sports at the highest level. Instincts and decision making, human intelligence, speed and agility, true player motion, dynamic environments that impact how the game is played, living worlds. This is the essence of sports.
Let’s hear from some of the best athletes in the world.
(Video segment.)
What we heard there is that sports are as much about your head, as your feet or your hands. We’ve built new technology that allows players in the game to make decisions with four times more calculations per second. They’ll have a greater field of vision, and the ability to make smart decisions with awareness, anticipation and context. This advanced processing power creates human-like intelligence.
We heard that beating your opponent is about inches and angles. That’s why we’re delivering ten times more animation depth and detail. This level of fidelity powers how players will plant, pivot, cut with speed, how they win with true player motion. We also heard that athletes are fueled by the roar of the crowd. Our games are now living worlds with 3D crowds, dynamic sidelines, and on Xbox Live a daily stream of new content that impacts the game as you play.
We’re inspired by the revolutionary Xbox One and we know gamers will be too. We have much, much more to reveal from across EA very soon, including exclusive content for the most popular mode, in the most popular sports game in the world, “Ultimate Team in FIFA 14.” (Cheers and applause.) And, only on Xbox. (Cheers and applause.) Look for more details later in the year.
But for now, let me show you how our EA Sports games will look and play on Xbox One. (Applause.)
(Video segment.)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Phil Spencer. (Cheers and applause.)
PHIL SPENCER: We’ve joined forces with our industry’s premiere publishers to bring exclusives, to bring content first to Xbox, and to make our platform the best place to create. This is a commitment unlike any previous generation.
I believe the groundbreaking technology at the heart of Xbox One will broaden the landscape and canvas for the storyteller and enhance the experience for the gamer, making games more immersive, more personal, and more connected than ever before.
As the head of Microsoft Studios, I oversee the work of talented, creative teams around the globe. These teams are hard at work right now using all the power of Xbox One to build original content and break new ground in game creation and game play; to amaze you, your friends and your family; and to showcase the unique capabilities of our platform.
That means all of you Xbox fans will get more new, innovative games than ever before along with all of your favorite franchises reimagined for a new generation. Let’s take a look at one of those blockbuster, exclusive franchises now, a franchise that has embodied innovation, quality and visual excellence. This is “Forza Motorsport 5” running on Xbox One.
(Video segment.)
Turn 10 Studios have taken the very best of Xbox One to redefine what we can expect from a next-generation racing game. “Forza Motorsport 5” will be available at launch, and we can’t wait to show you more at E3.
For many of us, the thrill of gaming is defined by those first-ever game experiences, the first time you earned an achievement, the first time you took your Xbox to a friend’s house to play multiplayer in Halo, the first time you painted your car in Forza and traded it online. I have seen how developers are using the magic of the platform to deliver new first-ever experiences. Cloud-powered games that change based on the actions of the community; multiplayer, multi-device game play tailored to the unique capabilities of your device; visuals so real, you’ll see the imperfections and effects of time, weather, and wear and tear in the world around you.
Let me share a glimpse of the future of gaming from a studio that invented the hallmark game play technique “bullet time” and garnered numerous game-of-the-year awards with “Max Payne” and “Alan Wake.” Remedy are world class storytellers. They have created a revolutionary entertainment experience that weaves the cinematic action of intense game play with the tension and drama of scripted television, creating a world where each has a direct impact on the other. The actions you take, and the choices you make, shape your experience as the story unfolds. This is “Quantum Break.
(Video segment.)
To jumpstart this new generation of development, Microsoft Studios is investing more than ever in studios around the world to create new and original IP for Xbox One. In fact, we have more titles in development now than at any other time in Xbox history.
I am proud to announce that Microsoft Studios plans to release more than 15 exclusive games in the first year of Xbox One, eight of which are brand new franchises. (Cheers and applause.)
We believe that the television screen remains the most relevant, most important screen in the home, and Xbox One will make your games and TV come to life in ways that haven’t been possible until now. To tell us more about our mission to transform television, please welcome the head of Xbox Entertainment Studios, Nancy Tellem. (Cheers and applause.)
NANCY TELLEM: Thank you, Phil.
It’s really a thrill to be here. During my years at CBS and Warner Brothers, I was fortunate to work with some of the best creative talent in entertainment. Among our many achievements were the “CSI” franchise and “Survivor,” television shows that offer proof that innovation is about breaking the rules and betting on the power of invention.
Today we stand at the threshold of another great era of groundbreaking television. Xbox is expanding the canvas, and conceiving a whole new art form for the creator, for the viewer, for the community and the industry. Until now, the television viewing experience has been a one-way street for the viewer. But that is about to change.
TV on Xbox will immerse you, enabling you to virtually jump into the action whenever you desire. For the first time ever, TV will be truly personalized to your tastes, your needs, providing recommendations with amazing precision. And only on Xbox will TV become social in ways unknown to us today, driven and shaped by the community of tens of millions on Xbox Live. Xbox is about to become the next water cooler.
And this is only Act One. At this very moment, our talented teams in Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver and London are using the magic and science of Xbox to re-think dramas, comedies, competition shows, sports, live events, and digital shorts. And one of our first and most important projects starts close to home. Halo, one of the foundations on which Xbox was built, has been played for billions of hours, by tens of millions of fans.
Please welcome my friend, and head of 343 Industries, Bonnie Ross. (Cheers and applause.)
BONNIE ROSS: Thank you, Nancy.
For me, Halo has always been more than a game. It is an amazing experience that takes place in a rich and deeply connected sci-fi universe. A universe in which we can tell hundreds of stories. We tell these stories through our games, our novels, and most recently, our award-winning web series, “Forward Unto Dawn.”
At 343, we’ve put a lot of thought into how we want to evolve storytelling on Xbox One. As a huge fan of television shows like “Breaking Bad,” “Band of Brothers,” and my personal favorite “Game of Thrones,” it’s been inspiring to see television become a medium to bring the scope and scale of ever more ambitious worlds and adventures to life.
I am excited by the potential of merging the storytelling magic of television with the interactive innovation of Xbox One. So today, along with Nancy, I’m thrilled to announce a live-action Halo television series, created in partnership with 343 Industries, and one of the best storytellers of all time, Mr. Steven Spielberg. (Cheers and applause.)
(Video segment.)
NANCY TELLEM: We are really excited to bring the world of Halo to Xbox as a premium television series.
Thanks, Bonnie.
Now before I leave there’s one more piece of news I’d like to share. For years now, the leading edge of interactive TV on Xbox has been live sports. We’ve invented new ways for fans around the world to enjoy the games and teams they love. So we’re determined to deliver even more innovation to make Xbox your home for sports.
It’s my honor to introduce a game-changing partnership with the most popular league in the United States. This alliance will not only change the fan’s viewing experience, but transform the sport itself.
(Video segment.)
DON MATTRICK: This partnership will redefine NFL experiences for the fan through exclusive and interactive content that you will find only on Xbox. And, it will also change the game for coaches and players through Microsoft technology on the sideline. The NFL on Xbox, just one more reason Xbox One is a must-have system for your living room.
I want to thank you for joining us today. We have an ambitious vision for Xbox One: To become the all-in-one system for every living room. The one system you are going use and love every single day, the place where your games, TV and entertainment come alive.
Today you have seen how we are transforming TV experiences. We’ve shared the magic and science behind our system, and you’ve tasted a new generation of games powered by Xbox One. We’ve welcomed Steven Spielberg to the Halo Universe with the “Halo” TV series, and celebrated an historic partnership with the NFL.
I’m pleased to announce that we will be launching Xbox One around the world later this year. (Cheers and applause.)
But this is just the beginning. We can’t wait to share the next chapter of our story in a couple of weeks at E3. There you’ll be seeing an incredible line-up of blockbuster games, including many exclusives that you’ll find only on Xbox One.
As we set our sights to the future, I’d like to leave you today by presenting a world premiere from one of gaming’s great franchises. They helped define excellence on Xbox 360. They found their home with our Xbox Live community. And they are the No. 1 series in games today and one of the biggest franchises in entertainment history. Just like on Xbox 360, all downloadable content for Call of Duty will launch exclusively first on Xbox One. (Cheers and applause.)
Please welcome Activision Publishing CEO, Eric Hirshberg. (Cheers and applause.)
ERIC HIRSHBERG: Thank you Don.
It’s great to be here. This is a huge day, not just for gaming, but for all of entertainment. Now just to be clear, I am the last human speed bump that stands between you and seeing the world premiere of the next generation of Call of Duty up on that screen in a couple of minutes. So, knowing my audience as I do, I’m going to try to get through it as fast as possible.
I think everyone was expecting us to play it safe this year and simply make “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.” But, we didn’t want to do the safe thing. We wanted to do the right thing. And that meant eliminating as many creative restrictions as possible so that our developers could create an entirely new Call of Duty for the next generation. And that’s exactly what we’re going to deliver with “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” An entirely new world, an entirely new narrative, an entirely new cast of characters all built on our new, next gen Call of Duty engine.
“Call of Duty” set the gold standard for first person action in the current gen, and make no mistake, we are going do it again with “Call of Duty: Ghosts” for the next gen. We’ve had a camera crew inside our iconic studio, Infinity Ward, capturing the creative process as the vision for this game is unfolded. And we wanted you to be the first to go behind the scenes and take a look at what they’ve been up to.
(Video segment.)
This will be the most beautiful Call of Duty game we have ever made. It will also be the most character-driven and emotionally engaging Call of Duty game we have ever made. And it will also be the best Call of Duty game we have ever made. A stunning leap forward, not only for this franchise, but also for console gaming.
To show you what I mean, we’ve put together a little comparison video that shows you what’s possible on the next gen, and puts side-by-side the differences between what we’re going to be delivering in “Call of Duty: Ghosts” and what was in Infinity Ward’s last game, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,” which was state of the art just a very short time ago. And when you look at the differences side-by-side, it’s actually pretty stunning. Let’s take a look.
(Video segment.)
OK. You’ve seen the vision for the game, and you’ve seen the technology behind it. You’ve seen just a few of the ideas that we’re bringing to “Call of Duty: Ghosts” inside campaign, new characters, new story, new narrative; and inside multiplayer dynamic maps, character customization, and there are a lot more new ideas to come from co-op ideas to seamless second screen integration, to voice commands via Kinect, and more.
But now, it’s time to see it all come together. The game play you are about to see is running in-engine on the new Xbox hardware. This is the new generation of Call of Duty on the new generation of Xbox. This is the world premiere of “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” (Cheers and applause.)
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