Pre-E3: Microsoft Press Conference Impressions

[Shadowblind]

First things first: If E3 has this kind of momentum all through the next press conferences and E3 days, E3 is gonna be the most badass display of games in history.

Every forum needs a discussion thread for E3 so far. If you've been watching E3, post your impressions here!

My impressions: Nobody really expected Microsoft to show anything new, really. By that i mean new as in unannounced games, new ideas, and a whole new innovative idea.

Good lord, could I have been more wrong.

MS started the conference moderately strong. This was also the first time we really got to see gameplay videos of two huge games, Fallout 3 and Resident Evil 5. We saw Gears of War 2, but to be totally honest, it doesn't look as special as the first one did. Still, a solid presentation got the crowd cheering. Fable II didn't really show anything we haven't seen. After these things, a major announcement got peoples heads turning, and that is the re imagining of Xbox LIVE. The new format for the menu looks great, and looks much more appropriate for the new age with its ohso shiny look. The next announcements could have been more exciting.

MS announced Prime Time for the Xbox 360 which looks to bring XBox players together over LIVE to live out their ideal dreams of being on reality TV. My impressions of this was that MS felt forced to do this, as I really can't think of any people that would really make happy. Still, the fact that they did it must mean that it was in some way desired by the public, though I'm personally less then excited for it. Now Avatars are something I can get behind. The look is a mix of the Mii's cartoony feel and a more realistic style in clothing. Granted, they look far less stupid then Miis, but they still seem to be a bit of a rip from them. Still, the idea of using them for all the new features of the 360 really makes the mouth water. Now two huge XBLA titles have been announced, and thats the sequel to the award-winning Portal and the original Banjo-kazooie, both having a wildly huge fanbase, and both very welcome.

Then the show slowed a little. Microsoft announced some more family-friendly titles such as Scene it? 2 and You at the movies. Both of them look good, but aren't nearly the show stoppers that the first games were. Then we got a presentation of music games Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock band II. I'm really not much of a music fan, but those who are, you have a huge amount of things coming to you, through hundreds of blockbuster songs, to the new game Lips.

Now I thing we can all agree that they saved the best for last. Square Enix made its presentation, and at first, it wasn't so unexpected, but at the same time made a great impression of The Last Remnant. Star Ocean 4, Last Remnant, and Infinite Undiscovery all look great and the former of the three is highly anticipated. But the biggest announcement of the day probably came in the form of Final Fantasy XIII being announced for the 360.

Oh thats right, you heard me. Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360. I won't lie my heart stopped beating for 10 seconds when I saw the trailer.

So E3 got a huge start, but I'm wondering whether MS has exhausted all of its big announcements on the Press Conference. We'll see, but this was one hell of an act to follow. I can't wait for the Nintendo and Sony press conferences, and those too I'll post impressions of. What did you think of E3 so far?

[fg-54]

xbox 360 is the best console in history!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for the new console update! it will be the best day of my life! and I can't wait for the xbla games! AND the hardcore games, pluss, that movie game with the camera looked amazing! there is not one thing in there that I didn't absolutley LOVE! and now I am hoping nintendo does some cool stuff too cuz I also got a wii and it hasn't had much action in a while. I was planning on buying a ps3 this holiday, but that will have to wait, now I am going to get a 120 gig hard drive, gears of war 2, fable 2 ect, AAAAANNNNND a bunch of microsoft points, I am REALLY hoping they start selling add-ons or packs for the avatars, so they can have new shirts, skin tones (blue, green, red, ect) and maybe even cooler stuff like wings, slug eyes, maybe a laser in hand, I REALLY hope microsoft starts to see how much money they could make out of those avatars, and make TONS of avialable extras for them!

PS: one thing DOES bother me......how will themes work now? I hope they didn't get rid of them, cuz I payed for a few :P still, it is a relativley small sacrafice if they DID get rid of them. but if they did, they should compensate people who bought some so they don't feel ripped off.

[Shadowblind]

xbox 360 is the best console in history!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for the new console update! it will be the best day of my life! and I can't wait for the xbla games! AND the hardcore games, pluss, that movie game with the camera looked amazing! there is not one thing in there that I didn't absolutley LOVE! and now I am hoping nintendo does some cool stuff too cuz I also got a wii and it hasn't had much action in a while. I was planning on buying a ps3 this holiday, but that will have to wait, now I am going to get a 120 gig hard drive, gears of war 2, fable 2 ect, AAAAANNNNND a bunch of microsoft points, I am REALLY hoping they start selling add-ons or packs for the avatars, so they can have new shirts, skin tones (blue, green, red, ect) and maybe even cooler stuff like wings, slug eyes, maybe a laser in hand, I REALLY hope microsoft starts to see how much money they could make out of those avatars, and make TONS of avialable extras for them!

PS: one thing DOES bother me......how will themes work now? I hope they didn't get rid of them, cuz I payed for a few :P still, it is a relativley small sacrafice if they DID get rid of them. but if they did, they should compensate people who bought some so they don't feel ripped off.

I was wondering about the themes too. I really want to keep my Bioshock theme, but i also want to have the avatars too. And I agree, the 360 looks absolutely amazing right now

We'll see what else comes to the show. I'll post each E3 impression for each day here at DCEmu, though I'm gonna miss tomorrow because I'm leaving, but it'll happen...somehow

[fg-54]

leaving? where? how long? with you and I out of the picture, dcemu will not be getting a whole lot of reviews since we are the ones who do the most reviews (can't review at the moment cuz I am out of the country and I am planning something special for my future reviews, and this pc does not have the equipment needed to do so)

PS: I have been trying to install aim on this pc so we can talk, but it is password protected, so I will ask my uncle if he can type the password for me tomorrow (but you are leaving tomorrow) also, I bought a card to do long distance calls, but I haven't found a phone to do the calls with :P aparently the phone in this house does not do long distance calls. anyways! I can't wait to chat again, it has been about a long time, a week to be precise, lol.

[Shadowblind]

Im gonna be on vacation for the next 2 weeks, so reviews will be pretty limited. But with the exception to Soulcal, there really isn't gonna be a huge amount to review anyway.

[Accordion]

Looks to me like Microsoft Game division have borrowed the photocopier from the Windows team. Set to: charmless.

Miis, plus eyetoy, coverflow, low quality movies, buzz, and singstar.

[Darksaviour69]

Final Fantasy XIII for the xbox was a surprise, but really when you think about it, not really. The last time a console war was so close in the West was the Snes and Mega drive (Genesis) time, and back then most games were published both consoles, some times there was a delay but most of the big games from 3rd party's was on both consoles, and with development costs so high now, publishers need to maximise profits. Meta Gear making it on to xbox 3096 in some shape or form, at some stage, would not be a huge surprise.

The good news for sony is that have developed their own studios very well since the early 90s. That's where MS has to catch up on the most (but its getting there)

[Accordion]

I would like to see MGS4 on the 360 actually, it is certainly possible each act on its own disc with a compressed 5.1 soundtrack seems very plausible.

It would be fun to see the multiple Apple products feature so prominently on a Microsoft console.

-nintendo conference has started… my eyes and ears are bleeding!!! /edit: Oh good, the crazy woman is gone! /edit: and back again!

[fg-54]

i am also very exited for lips cuz it is from the makers of elite beat agents and guitaroo man, two of my favorite music games EVER! and i think i can even plug in my psp to it cuz it takes usb to load the songs, lol.

[Shadowblind]

Looks to me like Microsoft Game division have borrowed the photocopier from the Windows team. Set to: charmless.

Miis, plus eyetoy, coverflow, low quality movies, buzz, and singstar.

I disagree with a lot of stuff you say about the MS conference, but your right about one thing; MS has copied a lot of ideas. As per usual, the execution they use will be better then the original, but a copy is a copy. Still, the majority of the announcements were full on original, including the new dashboard look and many of the games.

MS is really taking out the stops on the awesome XBLA games. Portal? Banjo Kazooie? Geometry wars? F*** YEAH!

What videos weren't quality?

PS Scene it? came out a good long time before Buzz. So Buzz is the copier there. The Eyetoy never worked for me, and the XBL Vision cam has been out for a longtime. Its just now being used for games.

All in all, quite possibly the best E3 press conference I've ever seen, even with a good bit of copies