Here are the highlights from Microsoft's E3 Press Briefing (Darren's fingers are killing him from typing furiously to bring you the news). Read on for in-depth details.
-Microsoft is revamping its interface with an even more consumery interface -- and Avatars. Y'know, just like the Wii.
-XNA-based games, created by the community, are coming of age -- and coming to the console later this year.
-Netflix subscribers will be able to watch their movie queue online over Xbox Live (in a word: awesome. No need for that Roku Netflix Player, now).
-Lips. Karaoke. Motion Sensing Mic = good. Duffy = not quite Danny's favorite singer.
- Games, games and more games. Metallica does Guitar Hero games, REM releasing early tracks on Guitar Hero as a download. Rock Band 2 shoots off with Guns and Roses' Chinese Democracy.
-While it's really an EyeToy game a couple years later, I'm actually looking forward to seeing more of You're In The Movies by Codemasters. It looks like a fun little game that I'll probably play with the family.
-This little thing called Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360.
-Security at the MS event sucks hard. While trying to write this wrap up, we kept getting hustled out of the room and down the hall so that we could post this. Hurray, security.
Live Blog: OK, before Darren Glastone and I get started with this LiveBlog of Microsoft's E3 2008 presser, let?s set a couple ground rules:
First, brace yourself a slickly produced presentation. In the past I've seen the likes of Muhammad Ali trot out on stage. My personal favorite moment, though, was during the E3 where Microsoft unveiled Xbox 360. For that one, a bunch of hipster kids sat around the stage on beanbag chairs someone swiped from Urban Outfitters and at a key moment they all froze and crossed their arms in an "X." They actually hired beautiful people to sit there, y'know, just chillin on stage. Right then and there I knew I'd be cool if I bought an Xbox 360. And I am now. Thank you, Xbox.
Second, everybody is number one! For years now, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all slice numbers to show how each one has the lead or is poised for future growth. No doubt, we?re about to get another dose. Will someone finally claim dominance in the coveted basement-dwelling grognard demographic? I can only hope.
Third, rumors will be confirmed, others will prove me dumb. Technically, it?s not even a rumor anymore so I doubt they?ll even bring up the fact that the Xbox 360 dropped the price. You can now call the 30GB model, the Xbox 300 ? y?know, to match the price.
You like how I did that? Well, we?ll hear about the rest soon enough.
10:15 OK, so I'm sitting here in the 2nd row, waiting for this thing to kick off and I'm getting treated to a bunch of videos "Street Talk" - whatever. I'm just wondering about why there are a couple Webcams next to a monitor at the front of the stage. I'd like to think it's because it's part of a new interface for the dash board. It'd be pretty sweet if I could navigate menus -- or play some games -- with gripping a gamepad Minority Report-style. I mean, it's not like this hasn't been done before with the EyeToy / EyeToy2.
10:30 Cue the technomusic. You ready to rock this joint?
10:36 Forgetting the hoopla, they dive straight into a quick "yay Microsoft." They've got a bunch of games so inside of seconds, Todd Howard from Bethesda fires up Fallout 3. Opening up the PIPBoy - think a post-apocalyptic iPhone. Firing up some patriotic music on the PiP Boy, Howard starts walking on the nuke blasted road. Howard actually promises about 100 hours of gameplay. You can walk down to Washington, DC and ride an escalator to the top of the Washington monument if you wanted to. I might just do that. And maybe take a couple photos. Their games are amazingly wide open and let you not only go anywhere, but choose your own fate.
Also, says Howard, "We love Xbox Live Marketplace and plan to release a lot of exclusive content only for Xbox 360 and GFW." Nice for MS, bad for the PS3 version.
10:42 OK, Jun Takeuchi, Producer of Capcom's Resident Evil 5 is on the scene. The first thing they start showing is the co-op online mode. One player is Chris, the other Sheva, start working together to solve environmental puzzles. Splitting up to get around a locked cell door -- stuff like that. Oh, yeah. And fight zombies. Speaking of which, I'm staring right now at the united colors of zombie. Sheva takes a couple potshots at zombies and they react to locational damage.
Resident Evil 5 will be available Friday 13th, March 2009 (in Europe and Stateside). Why am I not surprised by that one?
10:48 Peter Molyneux comes out. "Fable 2 is done," he says. I want to believe, really, I do. Because I'm a huge fan of his games. But his games rarely hit on time. You start as a boy or girl and your character grows with your choices...kinda like the last game. But the cool news (besides the dog companion that trails you through the game) is that this game, like RE5, also supports an online co-op mode. Play your single player game and people can just pop into your world. Will Danny want to join me. Wait. He just said that. He's cleaning up my text and taking photos as we go...
10:55 CliffyB of Epic Games comes out as the first party game demos begin. To illustrate the steroidal rage of the few surviving humans (as they take on the Locusts), he dives right into Gears of War 2. If you asked me to boil it down into a simple description, here we go: a balls-to-the wall action movie in game form. You know, a lot like the last one. The big deal of this level walkthrough is how the revamped engine is looking sharper. The one thing that sticks in my head as I see Cliffy cutting down waves of Locusts and the odd Brumak (did I even spell that right?). It all looks pretty cool, but I'm starting to wonder about the red-and-brown heavy color palate. A lot like it was in the last game. Hey, not complaining. Just observing. I'll still play it and probably dig it.
A new mode called horde. Up to five people can team up and take on waves of enemies. Nice, a kind of nod to old-school arcade shooters. Like a crazy robotron. Also, the game is coming worldwide November 7, 2009.
11:03 And now, Don Mattrick takes to the stage...and here come the stats! According to a Pricewaterhouse Cooper forecast, $48 billion spent on gaming this year. According to NPD, he says, they are 5 million units ahead of the competition. "Xbox 360 will sell more in this generation than the PS3," he says. What, no Wii mention?
Another interesting stat: $1 BILLION bucks spent on Xbox Live content. Movie and TV downloads account for a third of the revaenue generated from the live service, according to Mattrick. And, of course, they are ready to announce new partners with content today from NBC.
11:09 John Shepperd (sp?)The corporate vice president of Xbox live services (sorry, I missed his name. I'll update that in a sec) steps up and talks about how the service is going to change for the 12 million current members: a new dashboard interface with Mii-like avatars called, you guessed, Avatars. Customize your dress-up do---er, I mean, character--and they populate a MyXbox page. And, yes, they are going to build out thousands of pieces of content. Will I get charged to pimping out my online self with some Hugo Boss threads?
It looks a WHOLE lot like a series of windows scrolling through in Vista. Y'know, I'm okay that.
Part of the new community page has a series of options. Say that you want to share photos between a couple buds, it's all viewable in one room. Not earthshaking, but cool
Xbox Live Primetime is a channel that'll be up online in the fall. Imagine playing one vs. 100, where you get to compete for money. Strange, I know.
Now, I was a big fan of Bizarre Creations' arcadey Geometry Wars. But I think I might be ready to fight carpal tunnel in Galaga championship edition.
Other announcements: Portal: Still Alive coming to the Xbox 360 with new levels and in 2009, a South Park game on Xbox Live.
What's interesting is that a million people have downloaded MS's XNA development tools. That means you can download well-done, homebrew games coming this fall. Honestly, I can't wait to see what the community has come up with.
Oh, and here's a little bonus: if you're on Xbox Live and happen to be a Netflix subscriber, you'll be able watch your movies through your Xbox. Ok, that settles it, I'm signing up for Netflix later today.
11:24 Shane Kim, Head of strategy and business development takes to the stage . More than a 1000 games will be available by the end of 2008. Will they all be good? Don't ask. ;p
What I will ask about is when that new content for GTA IV will hit (apparently later this year). Also, the kids get a couple nods as well: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (coming this holiday season). It looks a lot like a platform-jumping game with the bonus that you're building oddball gadgets and vehicles to get around the world. In addition, a new Viva Pinata and an updated Scene It that provides online play. But MS trots out a bunch of people on stage to play You're in the Movies by Codemasters. A new game, well, is very EyeToyish with a bunch of minigames. Would I use it? Probably as a drinking game. A special shout out to Genevieve from Microsoft for her awesome dancing skills.
Another interesting feature of You're In The Movies also lets you record and edit yourself -- then upload it online. That actually looks pretty fun. I'm gonna give that a go. And hopefully not make too much of an ass out of myself.
11:38 Kai Huang, founder of Red Octane, comes to the stage to talk about the next Guitar Hero game. It's going to ship the game with more than 85 songs. Plus more available online. Here's hoping for some solid tracks. But they do name drop Van Halen and The Eagles as exclusive to Guitar Hero World Tour. Nice. Even nicer: finding out that the game will have exclusive preview tracks from REM. Also, Metallica's new album will be available for Guitar Hero III in September, and later in the fall when World Tour hits. Until Lars complains about it. Heh.
11:45 Did someone say music? MS is getting in on the action as well with Lips. What's cool is that this karaoke game works with motion-sensitive microphones (and there you have it, folks) that work with your own music and a bunch of tracks including stuff from the latest Virgin Megastore / VH1 pop pusher, Duffy. (and, of course, cue her to come up on stage and belt out her own tune.) E3 may be a shadow of its former self, but that ain't stopping MS. No sir. Danny just told me that, "he's begging for mercy." So hateful, Danny, so hateful.
11:48 Of course, we haven't talked about the "other" music game yet. Alex Rigopolus of Harmonix, comes up on stage to announce an 84-track setlist for Rock Band 2. Guns and Roses will release its first track from "Chinese Democracy" on Rock Band 2. Seriously. The album is actually happening. Nice to add Bob Dylan, but I'm more psyched for the release of AC / DC's Let There Be Rock. Unlike Danny, those Aussies really know how to rock. (sorry, buddy, couldn't resist). Oi!
11:53 Yoichi Wada of Square Enix comes to the stage. What's going on? Are we seeing a crazy bombdrop of news about to happen? Exclusive Japanese Role-Playing games inbound: Infinite Undiscovery launches 9/2 in north America, 9/5 in Europe and 9/11 in japan. Star Ocean: The Last Hope will hit the Xbox 360 in Spring of 2009. The Last Remnant, a pretty hotly anticipated game, is also hitting later this year--November 20 to be precise.
And he just said that the game will launch on Games for Windows as well. Thank you, sir. May we please have another?
12:00 Don is about to try and close this mamma jamma out and then Wada-san cuts in to show a video clip. Like all Square stuff it looks majestic and amazingly creative at first. Serene. And then the gunplay and the high-tech swords and summoned creatures. And it is Final Fantasy XIII BOOM!
Wow. Huge news for Microsoft as it ships to launch in North America and Europe. Obviously, a huge move to cater to Japanese gamers and try to bolster a better foothold in the Asian market. And it's also good to see that MS is making smart moves to secure games that were previously platform-specific.
With GTA IV and Resident Evil 5 - and now this - we are seeing an interesting shift. Hey, are they gonna start working on Metal Gear Solid, next? But they need more than just simultaneous launch - MS needs more exclusives.
Hang on. No Halo news? Not even the RTS game, Halo Wars? Oh well, maybe next year.
And on that note of FFXIII, Mattrick ends the presser. Nicely done, friend. But have we seen enough?
Now that the ball is in Sony and Nintendo's court tomorrow, we'll see how they can fire back.
