MICROSOFT E3 08 PRESS CONFERENCE Wrap-Up

Edited from live blogging version

 

INTRO:

Don Mattrick on stage, bout time he showed his face

Home of the best selling games like GTA4, Assassins Creed, Halo, COD, Gears of War, Bioshock ..

Can we deliver to everyone and satisfy our hard core gamers?

Yes we can with Fallout 3, RE5, Fable 2, GoW2 this year project to do half a billion in sales in 08

FALLOUT 3

Fallout 3 trailer running .... black and white 50's style video

Todd Howard on tage to talk about Fallout 3

Live demo of fallout 3

2277 is the year it takes place, play first or third person. Post-nuke environment. Little bots floating around broadcasting propaganda

Skills and perks can be developed. YOu can play stealth, combat, diplomat or combat wise. Targeting system to target different parts of an enemy

Nice gruesomness

Imagry is kind of low on teh color scale, kind of like GoW 1

Centry tanks patrol the wasteland, EMP blast grenade takes it out.

Game reacts to whatever type of character you develope.

Fatman launcher launches some type of RPG bomb

Demo done. Substancial DLC will be offered exclusive for 360 and GfW.

Demo VIdeo

Another demo Video

RESIDENT EVIL 5

Capcom RE5 Jun Takeuchi producer on stage

Talking Japanese .... !

Going to show the first ever public gameplay demo

Takes place in Africa, hero is there to investigate a bioterrorism inscident.

Online Co-Op 2 player, 2nd player is playing a chick

Working together taking out the infected bad guys, chick is working a sniper rifle, dude working a machine gun

Imagry is similar to what i've seen of MGS4

Chainsaw weilding boss fight

Demo end

RE5 will be out world wide on Friday 13 March 2009

FABLE 2

Peter M on stage to talk Fable 2 ... says IT'S FINISHED !

Fable 2 opening on screen .. 500 years after Fable 1

Looks like winter, snow everywhere, great landscape shots

Did the bird just poo ??? Oh sick it did it landed on a kids head ...

Story about how you uniquely grow from a kid to a hero

Hero shown on screen with dog

Goign to demo coop over live ... Purple orbs are ambien orbs of your friends playing their own game. You can click or the orb and they can isntantly materialze in your world ! No lobby/invite and what not. Just click the orb.

You can get married, drunk, hang out and of course adventure

Showing off his house, wife, 4 year old kid. Coop buddy can chat up the wife too. Wife is belching .. not very lady like!

Fable 2 will be out in October 2008

Demo done

E3 DEMO/TRAILER

GEARS OF WAR 2

Gears of War 2 teaser showing.... oh my god !

Dude, this better be up on Marketplace for download today !

Cliff B on stage

2 player co-op campaign going to be demoed

lol, the game froze

Marcus and Dom going down a sink hole taking it to the Locust

bullet streams are much more defined

Meat shield is the bomb

Hammer of dawn and boomshot still in the game

Flame thrower rocks, increased range with active reload

Chapter check-point system still in the game

Brumak boss fight.... SICK !!!!!!

Troika mounted machine guns still in

Environments seem to be much more fast and more going on

Brumak goes down, Marcus and Dom considering riding it ....... Yep ... Giddyup!

5 player co-op mode Horde ... take on wave after wave of locusts until you all die

November 7th is release date

demo done

GEARS 2 E3 intro trailer

BUSINESS SIDE OF THINGS

Mattrick back on stage ... probalby going to start spewing numbers ...

blah blah blah ... Mattrick is boring

48 billion estimated to be spent on games this year, more than dvd sales, box offices etc. Biggest media segment

Xbox 360 has 10.3 billion install base in USA, leader

2.7 billion in sales over last 12 months, leader

3rd party sales on 360 outsell PS3 and Wii total

6million last year on Live, 12+ million today ... a new member every 5 seconds (how many are silver for friends list expansion?)

VIDEO MARKETPLACE

1 billion in sales on Marketplace, 500 million pieces of content

10,000 movies and TV shows

Worlds largest provider of on demand HD movies and TV shows

Movies/TV are 1 third of sales on Marketplace

NBC and Universal announced as new partners for Video Marketplace

Fast & Furious, scorpion king, 12 monkies, american pie, mummy returns, bourne .... all available today

XBOX SYSTEM UPDATE ANNOUNCEMENTS

John Shappert on stage to tell us how we can welcome more people to Xbox

Interview with Major Nelson

Biggest revolutions will come online this year (Avatar stuff ?)

360 will be re-invented this year through software .... System update .....

YES Avatar stuff ....

It's a whole new interface ! Dashboard is totally gone ..... !

It's all kind of like slides that you move around to get to the 'blades' and Avatars are now officially being introduced.

Clothes, hairstyles , accessories, pants, shirt .. it's all there to make your own custom avatar

This will be your new 'gamerpic' i guess

Created by Rare

Avatars can be included in games

See them in friends list, websites ...

Going to build an accessory mall to download your new stuff for your avatars

Avatars will be fully integrated into the experience

New community channel, you see your friends avatars if they're online instead of just getting a listing.

Live Party announced ... Create a group of up to 8 people and play games , chat. You're always connected to your party

Share and stream pictures with everyone in your party

New gameshow video games being announced for use with your Party, 1 vs 100 is being demoed. Called "Xbox Live PrimeTime" You'll get to win actual real prizes !

There will be regular scheduled new content for Xbox Live PrimeTime

Uno Rush being announced. Launch for everyone in the party at the push of a button if you're the party leader

Seemlessly moved the Party from sharing photo's, to Primetime to Uno, all stayed together to play

VIDEO

XBOX LIVE ARCADE

Geometry Wars 2 announced to come out in August

Galaga sequel announced

Galaga Live Legions will be available in August

Portal Still Alive announced !

Portal Still ALive will be available on XBLA this fall

OH MY GOD South Park XBLA game announced !!!! Where do i pre-order !

XBox Live Community Games looking good for going live this fall

WIll launch as part of the new Xbox Live update

NETFLIX PARTNERSHIP

Video Partnership with Netflix announced for Videos

Netflix subscribers will be able to instantly watch over 10 million offerings from netflix at NO additional cost

You can share your Netflix videos/tv shows with anyone in your Party! That's huge!

PRESS RELEASE

CASUAL GAMING

Shane Kim coming on stage

By end of 08 more than 1000 games will be available for 360

3 in every 4 games is rated E or T

Ne Rare game on screen ... looks stupid like all Rare stuff ..

Oh it looks like Banjo .... ok not stupid

Now they're showing Viva Pinata 2 ....

Sweet, there will be actual cards you can buy and hold them up to the vision camera and they pop into your world immediatly

Original Bango will be on XBLA this holiday

Demoing some type of trivia game .... not title yet

Scene It Box Office Smash ... looks like it has Avatar support built in too. New puzzles, more movies, more content

Will be download content to keep the game content gresh

Your In The Movies being announced ...

3 people brought out to help demo the game

On screen it shows a ghost and you do the actions in the movie and the gmae adds animation to it so you end up being in-the movie. It's a mix live action/animation thing

You get scored on how well you do what you're instructed

John is swatting wasps ... he's swatting the wasps swinging his arms and the bugs fly off when he contacts them

Jenavive on stage now to do somet ype of dancing and striking poses ..

Now the console compiles all the mini=game footage into a full length movie that you can watch and laugh at

They're showing the video .... looks like a fun party game. Not something i'd play normally though

You can upload them to Live and you can share with the community. Comes with the Xbox Live Vision Camera

MUSIC GAMING

3.5 millions ongs download per month / 80% of all music sales across all platforms

Red Octane prez coming on to talk GH World Tour

Showing Drums with Cymbals

Will be able to make YOUR OWN music and share them via "GHTunes" with the world

REM Track Pack announced

Van Halen and Eagles will be exclusive

Metallica coming on board with GH. They will have their entire album available for DL when they release their new album this fall

New music party game being announced by Microsoft .... showing a teaser ...

They're showing some type of two piece controller ... guy singing into one of the pieces

Nope sorry, it's only 1 piece ... it's just a mic

"Lips" available this holiday

Lips will let you sing from your own music collection. Plug your zune or ipod in and sing along to all your favorit songs

Also will have wireless mics and are motion sensitive

Duffy on stage demoing Lips (don't know who this chick is... never heard of her)

Looks like Karioki , words are up on the screen and they highlight as she's going along.

Looks like Diffy scored pretty good singing her own song

Lol, Shane Kim says it'll be the must have game for this holiday for evereyone ... (i'l pass lol)

Rockbad 2 will exclusively premier on Xbox 360 this september.

Alex from Harmonix on stage now

84 songs in RB2, full list shown on screen (not typing them all sorry )

Guns and Roses will debut a new track on RB2

Bob Dillan will have a track

Ac/Dc will appear first time in video games on RB 2. FUCK YA !

Let there be Rock will be released this Sept.

20 bonus tracks will be made available later this fall post-release for FREE

All RB1 tracks will import into RB2

More than 500 songs will be avaiable by end of the year for RB2 (including RB1 stuff)

SQUARE ENIX ANNOUNCEMENTS

Square Enix President Yoichi Wada coming on stage

Wow he's speaking English ! Good too!

Announced Infinite Undiscover, Last Remant and Star Ocean .. first will be I.U. release in Sept 7 exclusively for 360

StarOcean coming Spring of 2009

Last Remant coming this holiday season, 360 will get it first.

Last Remant footage being shown ... Looks like great Japanese Anime like you'd expect

Last Remant coming Nov 20th for 360 and sometime later for Games for Widnows

Mattrick back on stage ... sounds like a wrap up ... no motion controller announced... no halo news ??? come on Mattrick ....

Wada back on stage doing a scripted interruption

Some video trailer rolling .... no idea ... camera angel has changed so you can't really see it ... Star Wars esque music

WOW Final Fantasy XIII !!!!!!!!! Finally coming to XBox !

H-U-G-E score for microsoft !

80 million units shipped for 'other' platforms. Wonder what makes them think it'll sell on 360 ... hasn't everyone already played it though?

Mattrick gloating over Playstation games finding 'new homes' on 360.

Mattrick waks of stage to summarize and wrap up

END

No halo news, no bluray xbox, no motion controller .....

 

Press Conference Fin.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION stuff not talked about on-stage about the new Dashboard Update (from gamescoreblog.com)

What John Schappert unveiled for the world on stage at E3 was just a sneak preview, so I wanted to share some deeper details on some of the new features in the new Xbox experience.

Here is a look at some additional features you will find interesting:

• Play from hard drive. Copy your games from the game disc and play directly from the hard drive. Not only will the drive not spin, but load times are quicker, as well. Of course, you will still need the disc in the tray to prove you own the game.

• Access Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web. Browse and purchase Marketplace content whenever you want from Xbox.com and it downloads automatically to your console. Purchase that new map, television episode, the latest Xbox LIVE Arcade game or set up a movie to watch when you get home from work.

• Dashboard built into the new Xbox Guide. For everyone who loves the blades interface, it’s not going away; they are now built directly in to the new Xbox guide. Every feature and option is available right from the guide. You can even access your full games library at all times. No matter where you are (in dash or in game), immediately call up your games played list and directly launch a game.

• LIVE Party system. Create a party of up to eight friends, and stay with them from one game to another, or watch a Netflix movie together, or share a slideshow of your personal photos. It works with all Xbox 360 titles, not just upcoming games. LIVE Party allows up to eight people to chat in the dashboard, so you can meet up before playing.

• Xbox LIVE Primetime. This whole new category of games is going to give you more reasons to get online with your friends. Games will support everything you’d expect, like Achievements and leader boards, but many of these games will include real prizes. You can invite your friends, and even set a reminder for an upcoming show. Each game is broadcast simultaneously, so everyone is answering the same questions. Many events will have a live host, calling the shots as they happen.

• Avatars. Your online identity started as a Gamertag - it then grew into a personalized Gamercard. Now, it has evolved even further into avatars. You can express your style, check out new outfits and share this with the community. Avatars will also be integrated into Xbox LIVE Arcade games, LIVE Party, as well as retail games.

• New display support. Because you asked for it, we are adding 16X10 over VGA or HDMI, and support for 1440x900 or 1680x1050.

This is only the beginning. Over the next few months, we will share more details on the upcoming changes.