“Halo Infinite”, expected late 2020, is the sixth core entry to a 20-year-old franchise. Image: Xbox Studios via AFP Relaxnews
In the middle of a seven day long Xbox game demo festival, an Xbox Games Showcase will highlight some of the console family’s upcoming attractions. Here’s how and when to watch.
The sci-fi adventures of action hero and super-soldier John-117 will continue in “Halo Infinite”, tentpole attraction at July 23rd’s Xbox Games Showcase.
Franchise foundation “Halo: Combat Evolved” was considered a system seller on the original Xbox — fans would purchase a console on the strength of that game’s broad and intense appeal — and “Halo Infinite” could be positioned to do the same for the current and next generation of Xbox technology.
The Xbox Series X is due to launch towards the end of 2020 but Microsoft’s EVP of Gaming, Phil Spencer, has been keen to remind fans and potential customers that Xbox won’t be pressuring players to upgrade.
Games will be released for both Xbox One and Series X, but the latter’s enhancements, however, are expected to make next-generation gaming an enticing prospect.
A pre-show for the July 23 presentation starts at 8 a.m. Pacific Time on YouTube with Geoff Keighley, host of The Game Awards and 2020’s Summer Games Fest, of which this is a part.
The main event then begins an hour later at 9 a.m. Pacific Time.
That’s equivalent to 12 noon Eastern Time, 4 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time, 5 p.m. United Kingdom, 6 p.m. Central Europe and South Africa, 9:30 p.m. India, then midnight on July 24 in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and on China Standard Time, 1 a.m. in South Korea and Japan, and 2 a.m. in Sydney, Australia.
Xbox will be broadcasting the event through youtube.com/xbox, twitch.tv/Xbox, facebook.com/xbox, and twitter.com/Xbox, with the YouTube stream providing 1080p (progressive scan) and 60fps (frame per second) visuals live and 4k resolution afterward, as well as multilingual support.
Notable by its omission is Microsoft’s Mixer platform, once the company’s preferred destination for video streaming content, closing on July 22 after a month’s notice expires.
As part of an agreement with Facebook, Microsoft recommended that its content creators on Mixer join the social network’s Facebook Gaming service, though its top streamers Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, both of whom joined on multi-million dollar contracts, were among those declining to do so.
The Xbox Games Showcase takes place within a July 21 to 27 Summer Games Fest Demo Event featuring over 60 game demos for upcoming titles available for download from the Xbox One dashboard. CL
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