After spending a lot of time discussing it at E3 last year, it looks like Xbox Originals are still a thing. To draw more people into Microsoft’s multimedia hub, the Xbox One will get a slew of exclusive shows that can be seen through the system.
“Microsoft has a long and rich legacy in the content business,” says executive vice president of Xbox Entertainment Studios Jordan Levin, “Games have been part of our DNA for at least the last 15 years, and creating original TV content is a logical next step in our evolution.”
The list of shows starts with Xbox’s bread and butter– Halo. This was announced last year with Steven Spielberg producing it. Not much is known about the series, but it will be live action, kind of like Halo 4: Forward unto Dawn. The other Halo series announced is a digital feature produced by Ridley Scott. It will be interesting to see which acclaimed Hollywood director produces the better series.
Another show that’s getting hyped is Every Street United. This one is a series of eight thirty-minute episodes with a one-hour finale. Soccer stars Thierry Henry, and Edgar Davis coach two teams in a four on four street game against undiscovered talent across eight countries with the finally taking place in Rio de Janeiro just in time for the World Cup.
Atari: Game Over has had a media spotlight on it for the past few days following the unearthing of the infamous E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. This is a documentary about the game and it’s excavation directed by the man who directed X Men 2 and The Avengers writer Zak Penn. That’s not the only documentary lined up though. Signal to Noise is an eight part series that looks at how technology has changed the way people interact.
The next up is Humans. This is another eight part series like most of the shows they revealed. This one is based off of the Swedish series Real Humans, where robots serve people but develop free will.
Those are just the shows they’ve committed to. Xbox Entertainment also released a list of projects that are in the works.
Those projects include: an adaptation of the pen and paper game Weird West titled Deadlands, and a hybrid stop motion show from the creators of Robot Chicken called Extraordinary Believers.
On the more action oriented side of things, there’s an unscripted series following a former navy bomb clearance diver and shark attack survivor as he follows those who risk their lives to keep others safe titled Fearless. With that, there’s also a detective thriller based off the novel Gun Machine. And to keep things light, there’s a comedy show featuring Sarah Silverman, Michael Cera, Tim and Eric and Reggie Watts called Variety Hour, and a show based on the graphic novel Winterworld.
This news comes just four days after Microsoft released it’s quarterly earnings, where they announced they shipped 1.2 million Xbox Ones but did not reveal how many were actually sold.
