News

E3 is under way in Los Angeles, and Microsoft is the first of the big gaming companies to take the stage with a specialist press presentation. For everyone who felt the Xbox One reveal last month was too short on gaming info, this new fact blast should energise you.

First of all, the really important news: when is it out and how much will it cost? November and £429 are the respective answers. Preorder your console now and you'll get a special Day One edition of the machine. This comes with a specially branded controller and an exclusive Achievement, to remind everyone that you were one of the first aboard the Xbox One train. Choo choo!

You'll also get Day One DLC for a quartet of launch titles. Those are first-person sword fighting game Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza Motorsport 5, Kinect Sports Rivals and Dead Rising 3.

Other games announced or shown off during the presentation include Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which revealed the game's open world nature with Solid Snake riding a horse through the desert; epic RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt; Panzer Dragoon follow-up Crimson Dragon; and a new Halo game. Bonkers Japanese genius Swery65, best known for the oddball Deadly Premonition, is working on the suitably surreal D4 exclusively for Microsoft's console.

Alan Wake studio Remedy showed more of its ambitious transmedia Quantum Break, which will be part game and part digital TV show. Your choices in the game will change the episodes of the show that you download. As well as Kinect Sports, Rare announced it will be returning to hardcore gaming with a revival of its dinosaur fighting game, Killer Instinct, for the console. Ratchet & Clank creators Insomniac unveiled open world shooter Sunset Overdrive and there will be a new Xbox One edition of Minecraft, with larger maps and more players.

Finally, Respawn - the developer set up by Modern Warfare creators Jason West and Vince Zampella - showed off its top secret debut project. Titanfall is a massive multiplayer game where foot soldiers and giant Titan mechs mix it up on the battlefield.

It's a seriously impressive line-up, and one that is going to lead to a lot of very long Christmas lists.