Xbox news recap – E3 Edition: Tons of new games, Original Xbox backward compatibility, Avatars being redesigned and more

Welcome to our weekly Xbox news recap series, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Xbox. Let’s get started.

Tons of new game announcements

E3 was huge this year, with a ton of games covered. We’ll start off with a list of some games that got covered during this year’s conference, to show off the lion’s share of announcements.

• Ori and the Will of the Wisps
• Cuphead
• Assassin’s Creed: Origins
• Life is Strange: Before the Storm
• Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds
• Metro: Exodus

Original Xbox Backwards Compatibility

Backwards compatibility has been a big staple of the Xbox One for a while – being one of its biggest selling points since it was introduced. At E3 this year, Microsoft announced that original Xbox titles are being added to the backwards compatible library, including games like Crimson Skies an Fusion Frenzy. This is a huge deal for fans that have been with the franchise ever since the original console first came out, and will make a large library of previously irrelevant games to get their time to shine once again.

Avatars getting a total rehaul

Some time in Fall 2017, Microsoft is going to be completely redesigning avatars – something that have been core in the Xbox experience since the early years of the Xbox 360. The new avatars look quite a bit different than they used to, sporting more lifelike features and expressive faces. Mouths that used to be black lines are now fully realized, lips, teeth, and all. Noses that used to be flatly colored bumps are now glossy, and realistically shaped. It’s unclear what this means for people who spent money on props for last year, or anything – but it’s an exciting change nonetheless.

Phil Spencer expects the Xbox One X to sell at a loss

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to say that the Xbox One X won’t be a very profitable venture for Microsoft – at least, not on its own. Phil Spencer talked about the console’s potential numbers recently, admitting that “the hardware part of the console business is not the money-making part of the business.” The question for the Xbox One X is going to come down to one thing: If there are enough hardware enthusiasts out there willing to spend $500 on a console this powerful. We’ll have to wait and see.

Video streaming will be 4K/60FPS on Xbox One X

The Xbox One X is going to be able to play games in 4K and 60FPS – that much we knew already. What we didn’t know, however, is just how strong the streaming and video recording is going to be. Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra recently addressed the issue on Twitter, and gave us some news that we didn’t really expect – the Xbox One X will be able to stream to Mixer and record video at 4k/60FPS quality. This should make a pretty big difference for content creators looking to step up the quality of their broadcasts or videos.

Thanks for joining us. To keep up to date with all the latest Xbox news, keep a close eye on our Xbox One tag.