We’ve seen Steam rally behind the idea of digitally-hosted game demo events, and now Xbox is doing the same through a partnership with Summer Game Fest. For both developers and players, these events aim to emulate–or at least offer a stay-at-home friendly alternative to–the many canceled events where developers would usually get their demos in the hands of the public.
Xbox’s freshly announced take on the digital game festival is the Summer Game Fest Demo Event, a week-long, Xbox-centric showcase of between 75 to 100 game demos, all of which will only be accessible for the week of July 21 to July 27.
The titles on display represent a selection of upcoming Xbox games, but ID@Xbox senior product marketing manager Glenn Gregory notes in a blog post that the demos offered are quite different from game demos Xbox has hosted on its platforms in the past.
“Typically, the demos you see in our Demo channel are created after the game is completed (or nearly completed) and represent the final version. Many of these demos are early, and some are for games that won’t be out for quite some time,” writes Gregory.
“We’ve never done this before; what that means is that you’ll get to experience these games early – some way early – which is awesome, but you should also note that these games will continue to evolve and be polished as they near release. In other words, think of these as akin to ‘show floor demos’ and not necessarily indicative of the final product. And speaking as somebody who has worked in the industry for a while – that’s not a bad thing!”
Xbox is encouraging players to reach out to developers with their feedback after checking out each game, however they’ll have to do so over social media or each dev’s website as the Xbox platform isn’t set up to funnel feedback directly from players to developers like other storefronts that have put on digital game expos this summer.
More details on the event, and a peek at the first 60 games launching demos during the showcase, can be found in that full Xbox post.