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.
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
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
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
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
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!
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.