I think it's all on Halo Infinite.
If MS could find a way to show off Fallout 5 gameplay at their E3 conference, it wouldn't matter at all if Halo doesn't look acceptable for the public in terms of graphics and fidelity for a next gen Halo.
I beg to differ on this; right now while many are aware Bethesda/Zenimax are owned by Microsoft, the hard-linked association between the two still hasn't settled in for a lot of people as it will take time, and as long as games like Death Loop and Ghostwire-type deals continue to happen for PlayStation, it'll take that much longer for the association of MS/Bethesda to fully settle in to see the latter as a 1P under Microsoft's umbrella.
Halo is still seen as Xbox's marquee franchise; it's THE Xbox IP in many people's eyes. Another lukewarm showing for Halo Infinite (in terms of visuals, fidelity, texture quality etc.) at E3 can really stifle future growth of the IP with new gamers, and increase the chance of more OGs dropping out of the community, leading to contraction. That's not what companies want to happen, so it's imperative it has a strong showing that washes out any lukewarm tastes from the 2020 presentation.
If you want a parallel, just look at SEGA during the Saturn era; they may've had industry powerhouses like Virtua Fighter 3 out there with top-tier visuals that did good for the brand, but it wasn't enough to negate the lukewarm showing of various Sonic efforts on their then-marquee console in the face of competition from Sony & Nintendo. While PS1 grew with Crash and N64 stunned with Mario 64, Saturn got....ports of the Genesis/MegaDrive Sonic games, a quirky/niche 3D racing/exploration game and a decent (but not amazing) isometric platformer...which was also a port from Genesis/MegaDrive. And Sonic Xtreme, having an interesting presentation at trade shows up to a point (but still not as impressive as Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot), which ended up getting cancelled.
That did a lot to hurt Sonic's brand worth during the 2nd half of the '90s; another lukewarm showing of Halo Infinite that only appeals to the most hardcore of the fanbase and still lacks the visual fidelity comparable to AAA titles from their chief rival can have a longer-term negative effect on the IP and even Xbox brand going forward (the latter can have that mitigated with some other new marquee title taking up Halo's mantle, though).
Gamepass deals. EA, and possibly Ubisoft games coming day to date. Expect lots of third party games coming day to date on gamepass including BF6.
I mean they could surprise us and show gameplay for Fable or something. But I highly doubt it.
If they make any GamePass plays they need to be major AAA titles; if you look at the new GamePass entries for first week of June I'm sure those are decent/good games, possibly even great games, but none of them are going to gin up a lot of attention outside of the ecosystem, especially considering some like For Honor have been around for years now.
In fact I'd say at least for this month PS Now has better entries thanks to Virtua Fighter: Ultimate Showdown alone, which is also a Day-and-Date for a new release. The last significant major releases into GamePass that were also Day-and-Date were Outriders and MLB The Show '21, but it has to be more consistent on that note.
Semi-open world*, but yeah, its very unlikely Halo Infinite will impress. There's some hope, considering a game like Horizon 2 looks the way it does and its cross-gen.
I really don't think any Bethesda game can mitigate the blow MS will face in the media and public perception in general if Halo doesn't deliver again.
Feel like I have to agree with this; how Halo Infinite shapes up will be a statement to how well the lead management of the Xbox Division are able to curate and nurture a prominent internal 1P studio handling their biggest brand/IP. If it's successful, it'll bring a lot of goodwill not just to Halo and 343i, but also Microsoft and the Xbox division. If, however, it's still visually subpar, still lacks a real visual "punch" and some parts of the gameplay (like the grappling hook) still look stilted/rigid, plus the campaign is mediocre from a scenario gameplay/map level design etc. perspective (the actual story sounds like it'll be great at the very least)....
....well, if that happens, then the whole chain gets hurt from the top and downward. It will do some damage to Halo certainly, but also 343i and even the Xbox brand if appropriate improvements haven't been made and show in motion when they demonstrate the game again, particularly WRT the campaign. That all said, I have faith that the game is in a much better state; the drip of new photos seem generally improved (visual quality could still be better tho even considering it's a cross-gen effort) and some of the gameplay and QoL features sound nice. But we'll have to see how it all comes together.