Microsoft’s E3 press conference was full of the usual bluster about having the best games and being the best place to play that we hear from them every year at this time. They’ve done a good job of broadening their library with games that aren’t the usual yearly installments of shooters, sports, and racing games that’s been the bread and butter of the Xbox library for so long. They’ve accomplished this by buying out small game studios like Ninja Theory and, announced at the conference this year, Double Fine Studios. So kudos to Microsoft for making a real effort to diversify their library. I hope this continues into their next console.

Speaking of which, Microsoft officially announced their next console, codenamed Scarlett, will be launching Holiday 2020. This was followed by a long-winded trailer with a bunch of technical jargon detailing how super-duper-uber powerful Scarlett is going to be. Perhaps the biggest piece of braggadocio to come out of the trailer was the claim they’ll have the capability to run games at 120 FPS on Scarlett, and the possibility of 8K resolutions.

Given that the vast majority of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games have a hard time running games at 60 FPS at 1080p resolutions with any consistency, this should be taken with a massive truckload of salt. I’m sure Scarlett will be powerful, but I’ll believe 120 FPS and 8K resolutions on a console when I see it. PC gaming hasn’t even fully embraced 4K yet.

They also announced Halo: Infinite as a launch title for Scarlett. That’s significant and is a signal that Microsoft is serious about their new console doing well out of the gate this time around. It will be interesting to see if Infinite will get a PC announcement eventually since the Master Chief Collection is finally hitting PC this year.

The conference featured more gameplay in their trailers from past years, which I appreciated. Fancy CG cutscene trailers look good, but when you see literally dozens of them at E3, they blur together and make them that much more forgettable. Show us gameplay. Microsoft did a better job of that this year, even if it was just short clips that were only a few seconds long.

Maybe the biggest standout game at the conference was Cyberpunk 2077. The trailer showed zero gameplay, but it did feature Keanu Reeves, who then came out and talked about the game. It was obvious the whole audience was surprised and starstruck seeing him in the game and onstage. He talked a little about how he got involved in the project, and then revealed perhaps the most important piece of news about it: the release date of April 16, 2020.

There were rumors that Shigeru Miyamoto from Nintendo would be making an appearance on Microsoft’s E3 stage this year. Given the rumors that have been swirling about some sort of alliance between Microsoft and Nintendo, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but it didn’t happen. Nintendo still has their Nintendo Direct video cast to show on Tuesday for E3. If something is brewing between Microsoft and Nintendo, we could hear about it then.

Overall, I thought this was a strong conference from Microsoft. The Cyberpunk release date, the announcement of their next console, and Halo: Infinite as a launch game give Xbox gamers a lot to look forward to. Microsoft seems focused and determined to right the wrongs of the last few years and get Xbox gaming back on course.