Microsoft is planning a lengthy two hour press conference at E3 2019, and the details are starting to emerge: not only has the company announced (but not thoroughly detailed) the arrival of Xbox Game Pass on PC, but Phil Spencer has revealed that 14 Xbox Game Studios games will be shown at the press conference. In his words, that's "more first party games than we've ever had in the show".
Xbox Game Studios is the name of Microsoft's portfolio of first-party development studios, which includes the likes of 343 Industries (Halo), inXile (Wasteland 2), Obsidian (The Outer Worlds), Ninja Theory (Hellblade), Playground Games (Forza) and many more.
Just finishing our final E3 rehearsal here with the team in Redmond. Feel really good about the briefing. Lots to show. We have 14 Xbox Game Studios games in the show this year, more first party games than we've ever had in the show. Fun times. #XboxE3May 30, 2019
It's likely that Gears 5 will count among those, as well as Halo Infinite and potentially, the open world RPG that Playground Games is working on (which could very well be a new Fable). In keeping with Microsoft's new habit, all first-party Xbox games will make their way to PC, and could even end up on Steam.
Whatever the case, it looks like Microsoft's long first-party drought is emphatically over. Microsoft's E3 2019 press conference begins at 1:00 pm PDT on Sunday, June 9 (find your time zone here).
