Xbox wants to replicate E3 by bringing game demos to Game Pass

gamesradar.com:

With Project Moorcroft, Xbox wants to recreate the E3 experience in your living room. Microsoft announced its new game initiative today, with the platform holder working with developers to bring curated demos of upcoming games to Xbox Game Pass. 

Sarah Bond, corporate vice president of Game Creator Experience & Ecosystem at Microsoft Gaming, says that Project Moorcroft is a result of the Xbox team reminiscing about its favorite conferences, and the connection that has been lost as a result of the pandemic putting in-person events on hold. 

"It used to be that you'd go to E3, you'd go to PAX, and you would go visit some of your favorite creators, and they would have a piece or a level of a game that you could sit there and play. And there would be someone from the studio like right next to you in your ear, saying 'press that button, go under there, do that stuff.' You would get to experience the game, and they would get to generate excitement about what they're building and what's coming next."

"Those opportunities are getting smaller and smaller, and more difficult to replicate. And they're especially difficult for indie developers – smaller studios that don't have as much resource, necessarily, to put on their own show and attract a big audience," Bond continues. "So we said, you know what, why don't we take Game Pass and make it like the Show Floor?"

Project Moorcroft is set to begin rolling out within the next year, with Microsoft's initial focus on providing independent developers with a platform to showcase small sections of their game to the public via Game Pass. Not only as a way to "generate excitement for what's coming" but also to help studios gain "really valuable feedback as they are tuning and preparing