A week ago, Nintendo held its first Nintendo Direct in about a year and a half. Then Sony wrapped up its first PlayStation State of Play of the year just a few days ago. Now it may be Xbox's turn for a big game reveal show.
There have been plenty of rumors about what, where, and when the next Xbox event will take place. While there is still a lot of excitement around the Xbox Series X launch, it seems like a good time to let fans know what they can expect moving forward.
According to the leaked information (so take this with a grain of salt for now), Microsoft is holding a "What's New for Gaming" event on March 23, 2021. The lack of detailed info and somewhat ambiguous name leaves room for imagination as to what sort of event this could be. There may also be a "What's New for Windows" event that will follow this Xbox event, so it could be the proceedings are less about game announcements and more along the lines of broad-scale planning for the industry, like where Xbox may eventually go with cloud gaming. But the event could also certainly be a games reveal showcase, which is something that fans are clamoring for.
With 2020 being quite the odd year in terms of standard physical or digital game reveal events, Xbox dominated the news at various points with massive news drops like the Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda. But other aspects of the year seem to have been won by Nintendo with the success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the Switch or the head-to-head bouts with PlayStation as it and Xbox both released their next-generation consoles. If this "What's New for Gaming" event is real, and Xbox has the opportunity to follow up Nintendo and PlayStation with some big hitting announcements, that could be big.
There are many places that an event like this could go for Xbox. It is possible that Bethesda reveals a new game, or that Starfield is shown off and announced to officially be an Xbox exclusive (or timed exclusive). Microsoft is rumored to still be wheeling and dealing, so perhaps other acquisitions could be announced as well. Meanwhile, there are also many Xbox exclusives that deserve updates like the Halo Infinite, Avowed, the new Fable, State of Decay 3, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, and more. For now, the information is far from confirmed. But even if the March 23rd date is not accurate, one would expect that Xbox would put forth a digital event at some point to show the goods for 2021 and beyond.