All sorts of fun facts coming out of Microsoft's E3 2005 Xbox 360 press event. Story will be updated as they come in.

Xbox 360 will have limited backward compatability. Only the most popular Xbox games will be supported, through an emulator.
Square Enix is releasing Final Fantasy XI on the 360, with Live support. First of several Square Enix games on the platform.
More than 160 games are in development.
During a 90 day launch window Microsoft hopes that between 25 and 40 Xbox 360 games are released.
You can buy movies and music online through the 360
All games must support 720p, a 16:9 aspect ratio, anti-aliasing and 5.1 multi channel sound. ...

Today's issue of USA Today ran some of the first details on Nintendo's next-gen console and Revolution will be the final name. The machine is roughly two to three times as powerful as the GameCube. "It's not all about having 'turbo power,' " Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan told USA Today. "It's about what you do with it."

The online service will feature downloads of a wide range of Nintendo titles, from old classics like Donkey Kong to GameCube releases such as Super Mario Sunshine. No word yet on if they will be free of charge. "We've built Revolution around the concept of 'all-access gaming,'" said Kaplan. "We're about sticking to the soul of gaming." ...

Here they are ...

High res pic of the revolution ...

Microsoft opened the next-generation floodgates last week when it publicly unveiled the Xbox 360 on an MTV special, firing the first shots at its rivals in what is sure to be an all-out war for consumers. The Xbox 360 will be released this holiday season, and Microsoft held its annual E3 press conference today to tout the system's features and show off its planned lineup of games. The event took place shortly after Sony wowed the crowd at its own conference by unveiling the PlayStation 3.

The biggest story of the press conference surprised many attendees at the Shrine Auditorium. Microsoft announced that Square Enix, a longtime partner with Microsoft rivals Nintendo and Sony, will be bringing Final Fantasy XI to the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.

This will be the first Square Enix game for a Microsoft console, and the third platform for FFXI, which previously appeared on the PC in 2003 and PlayStation 2 in 2004. Final Fantasy XI was the first game in the popular role-playing series to go online, and the Xbox version will sport new high-definition graphics and make use of all of Xbox Live's features.

Along with a firm release date and price point, the other big question surrounding the 360 was backward compatibility. However, Microsoft would only say that the console will be "backward-compatible with top-selling Xbox games." This ambiguous wording could mean that Microsoft will select which titles will run on the next-gen console. However, it could also simply mean that Microsoft is merely being prudent in case some original Xbox titles don't work on the 360, as was the case with some older PlayStation 1 games and the PlayStation 2.

Although future Xbox 360 owners will be able to play the more than 200 Xbox titles expected this year, it's the 360 games that they'll really want. Microsoft expects 25 to 40 Xbox 360 titles to be available during the console's launch window (defined as within three months of the system's release), and developers currently have more than 160 games in the works.

Among the games Microsoft announced for the console were Tecmo's previously unrevealed fighter Dead or Alive 4 and Capcom's zombie-slayer Dead Rising, which is being developed by legendary game designer Keiji Inafune.

Publisher Electronic Arts announced that its lineup of 360 games, which includes Madden NFL 06, Need for Speed Most Wanted, and The Godfather, signifies its largest commitment to any next-generation console's launch.

As detailed last week, Xbox Live will come in two different packages. Xbox Live Silver, which allows gamers to send voice and text messages and participate in other basic features, and the premium subscription-based Xbox Live Gold package, which includes spectator mode and multiplayer gaming privileges. It turns out anyone with an Xbox 360 will get a taste of the good life. Microsoft today announced that all 360 owners will be treated to a free month of the Gold service when they first jack into Xbox Live. ...

Today, Nintendo revealed its contribution to next-generation gaming to USA Today, and the newspaper hit the streets just hours before the company's scheduled pre-E3 press conference. The console will be called Revolution, and is scheduled for release sometime in 2006.


Nintendo is the last of the "Big Three" to reveal its next-gen plans. Microsoft took the lid off its future console, the Xbox 360, last week, and Sony unveiled the PlayStation 3 yesterday at its pre-E3 conference.

The Revolution design didn't follow suit with its curvaceous competitors, the concave Xbox 360 and convex PlayStation 3. In fact, its simple rectangular design can be easily mistaken for a modem at first glance. However, like its competitors, the unit can stand vertically or lay supine. The black console can fit snugly in a grey stand, where it is pitched upward at a slight angle for vertical positioning, or be removed and laid flat (and look eerily similar to Apple's Powerbook batteries).

Revolution's enigmatic controllers were not revealed, but they will be wireless. Rumors have been awash that the controllers will be unlike any before, possibly losing buttons in favor of touch screens or incorporating some sort of gyroscopic functions.

By Nintendo's own admission, according to USA Today, the system is two to three times as powerful as its current-generation console, the GameCube. Sony's PlayStation 3, announced yesterday, is reportedly dozens of times powerful than its predecessor, the PlayStation 2.

However, Nintendo told the newspaper "It's not all about having 'turbo power', It's about what you do with it." What Nintendo plans to do with it is still under wraps--the publisher has not yet announced any games for the system.

Eschewing its previous business ideas, Revolution will be online-friendly, and support a broadband gaming service similar to that of Microsoft's Xbox Live. Its most significant contribution to online gaming will be the ability to download games, and not just simple puzzlers or platformers from the NES days. GameCube titles will be downloadable, though it's not clear whether the games will be saved to a storage devices or memory cards.

For those who would rather just pop in their hard copy of Mario Sunshine, Nintendo offers a simple solution: backward compatibility. As indicated before, Revolution, like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, will be able to play all the games from the current-generation GameCube, as well as DVDs through its blue-LED-illuminated front-loading media drive. ...

With just hours to go until Nintendo's pre-E3 conference kicks of in LA, newspaper USA Today has published the first picture of the company's next-generation console, Revolution.

It's a slim and sleek design, no bigger than a pile of three DVD cases, and features a front-loading disc tray. Like Microsoft and Sony's offerings, the console can be positioned horizontally or vertically.

USA Today has also confirmed that the Revolution is backwards compatible with GameCube games, and - a first for Nintendo - will play DVDs. An Xbox Live-style online service is planned, and will offer downloadable versions of almost all the games in Nintendo's back catalogue, from classics such as Donkey Kong to more recent titles including Mario Sunshine. There's no word on a pricing system, however.

The console is said to offer two or three times the power of the GameCube - a somewhat humble claim compared to the figures Microsoft and Sony have been quoting. But "It's not all about having 'turbo power'," Nintendo exec Perrin Kaplan is quoted as saying. "It's about what you do with it."

"We've built Revolution around the concept of 'all-access gaming'," Kaplan continues - meaning developers should find it easy to create games for the console, and all types of gamers should find something in it that appeals to them. "We're about sticking to the soul of gaming," Kaplan states.

It's also worth noting that Nintendo has traditionally cited more realistic figures for the performance of its consoles than Microsoft or Sony - who both tend to manipulate the figures in ways which are by no means untruthful, but which don't give a realistic view of how the systems will perform in real world conditions.

Last generation, for example, Nintendo's graphics performance figures for GameCube were significantly lower than the PS2 and Xbox figures - simply because Nintendo cited figures for fully textured and lit polygons per second, while its rivals cited raw throughput figures that would never be achievable in a real videogame.

As such, assuming that Revolution will be enormously less powerful than its rivals is no safe bet. Nintendo certainly isn't aiming for the performance crown like Sony is, but their console is unlikely to be completely out of the league that PS3 and Xbox 360 are in, as these figures would seem to suggest.

The Nintendo conference kicks off at 4.30pm UK time. ...

As the battle of the next-gen consoles gets underway, the battle of the handhelds continues - and Gizmondo was given a boost today with the announcement that Electronic Arts will publish three top-selling titles for the platform.

Only two of these have been confirmed so far, however - FIFA Football 2005 and snowboarding sim SSX 3.

"We are seeing a dynamic swing towards mobile gaming," said Nancy Smith, executive VP of publishing for EA North America.

"These titles are a superb opportunity for us to work with Gizmondo in delivering an exhilarating EA gaming experience on this exciting new format."

Tiger Telematics head Carl Freer added: "Each of these titles represents another step forward for us in delivering mainstream games content.

"These are among the strongest game franchises in the world, and a co-publishing relationship with EA has been a priority goal for us from the outset."

Tiger says this is just the start of a series of announcements to be made at E3, where the Gizmondo stand will occupy 4500 square feet of floor space. More than 15 new titles will be revealed once the event gets underway. ...

The official Xbox 360 press conference was Monday evening, and an AP article has news that the 360 is backwards compatible, and that Square Enix will be releasing Final Fantasy XI for the console." Coverage also available at Gamespot. From the article: "Along with a firm release date and price point, the other big question surrounding the 360 was backward compatibility with the library of games from the original Xbox. Robbie Bach, senior vice president and chief Xbox officer in the Home and Entertainment Division at Microsoft, made Xbox fans around the world happy when he announced that the 360 will indeed play Xbox games." Mostly. Gamasutra points out that backwards compatibility will be selective, with most but not all of the top selling games supported. Kotaku and the Guardian Gamesblog have firsthand accounts from the event, and to watch the conference for yourself Xbox.com has the footage. ...