I hope they drop them if they haven't already. Personally, I find Xbox's presentation of virtual content to be highly lacking when compared to the way in which they presented at e3 (or how Sony presented their PS5 events last year). The Third Party Games Showcase from last summer, the Xbox Games Showcase in July, and their Inside Xbox's all felt cheap to me.
that's all nonsense
Xbox conferences are the only top tier conference left in the industry. They're the only ones that genuinely feel like games conferences, that are packed end to end with games and announcements. not like Sony's CES-like keynotes or like watching Nintendo's pre-recorded E3 sizzle reel of trailers halfway stuck in a time machine between 2002 and today.
While yes, the 2 showcases this year (covid) and IX were generally ehhh, they work better on big stages. X019 (the one big Inside Xbox) was relatively small but they hammered the pacing and feel of it out of the park.
sure people cried about cheering fans, but those people are irritated that a) Xbox has fans and b) that they're excited for anything Xbox. this is why year after year you see initial reaction of Xbox conference is "ewww" and then after the next day people realize that it was the better conference and just slightly "upgrade" their review of it.
Microsoft has generally had the best conferences since X02 and I really do not want them to change much with them. Except the demos, those are annoying as hell. They (MS) not only represent themselves well, but the industry and the third party publishers, as well.
this has been their rough general structure for the last while and it works quite well:
[big open trailer]
[keynote]
[general third party trailers]
[studio/accessories/services keynote]
[first party trailers]
[indie sizzle reel] * used to be third party sizzle reel in the early days... rip A/AA games
[random talk about any major 3rd party gets/initiatives]
[major third party/published trailers]
[major finale FP trailer/mic drop]
[conference sizzle]
they are fast paced, moving from topic to topic and cover an extraordinary amount of ground
people start to get lost usually around the indie sizzle/third party trailers/initiatives because they usually have games people don't want or are re-treading previous announcements but they are important for the overall industry... a lot of publishers don't have the output or the financial capability to get the exposure they need so this segment can usually be critical support.