E3 Microsoft Press Conference

Today E3 officially began and, here at the Boar, we’ve been keeping a lookout for the newest and most exciting announcements. Considering LA is 8 hours behind, news has only just started to trickle in but the first main event of E309 has just finished, Microsoft’s press conference…

#### Main Announcements:

– 360 to get 2 timed exclusive Modern Warfare 2 map packs.

– Shadow Complex, new XBLA game from Epic (makers of Gears of War). Appears to be a 2D side-scrolling shooter.

– Joy Ride, looks like a kiddy car game.

– Crackdown 2 (woop). Slightly different from the first game, seems to be with monsters now.

– Left 4 Dead 2. Original was an awesome game – expect more of the same.

– Splinter Cell: Conviction, now completely different from what was seen a couple of years ago. Came across as very cinematic, but there wasn’t a lot of actual gameplay.

– Forza 3. Is meant to be “the definitive racing experience” with 400 cars, online video sharing as well as all the features from the previous game.

– Halo: ODST gameplay demo. Different from previous Halo games (as you no longer play as the Masterchief). Will come with Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta code (see below).

– Halo: Reach. Looks like a prequel to first Halo game, nothing shown at all apart from a very brief trailer.

– Alan Wake is still actually going to come out (it’s been in development for years), a very pretty survival horror game.

– Last.fm for coming to the Xbox 360.

– Sky TV to stream live and on-demand content to the 360 with no need for any extra hardware.

– [Facebook](http://www.giantbomb.com/xbox-live-facebook-integration-demo/17-718/) and Twitter to come to the 360. My life just got destroyed…

– Metal Gear franchise coming to 360, goodbye PS3 exclusivity. Metal Gear Solid: Rising (next main game) will be on the 360 but not exclusive.

– [Natal](http://www.giantbomb.com/xbox-natal-demo/17-719/?linktags=home,home-videos) announced. A crazy motion/voice detecting camera system that can be used without a controller. Demo shows Natal being used to control 360 dashboard, playing games using your entire body and making friends with an AI kid called Milo (this bit looked a little scary).

#### Will’s impressions:

A pretty solid showing on Microsoft’s behalf. They showed quiet a few games that, although didn’t get me ultra hyped, still combined to form a rather impressive line-up of titles to be released over the next year. I’d assumed that Halo:ODST would simply be more of the same but, after seeing some in-game footage, it’s started to get me excited again about all things Halo. The announcement of Halo:Reach also got me spark my interest in the franchise again; I wonder how many Halo games they can make… Although the trailer hardly showed anything, another full Halo title coming our way cannot be bad.

Since I have a PS3 as well as an Xbox 360, I’m indifferent to the fact that the Metal Gear franchise will now be coming to the 360 but the announcement of a completely new game, sort of Metal Gear Solid 4.5 (Raiden addition), does. It also makes me want to actually finish MSG4, which I still need to do.

Forza 3, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Alan Wake all came across as 5 star titles and, although also available on the PC (you’ll need a £600 computer to run them mind), the fact that they won’t be appearing on the PS3, reduces how much I’ll actually play my Playstation over the coming year. Let’s see what Sony has to offer tomorrow…

In terms of new features, the additions of Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter all sound like excellent ideas that’ll make the 360 even more of a social hub, when combined with Xbox Live. The 360 is now way ahead of the PS3 and Wii, in terms of online connectivity. The Sky TV deal also interests me, I’ll hold out on my opinion until some substantial facts are known about how it’ll work and how much it’ll cost.

The new motion control device, Natal, looks good and would be awesome if it actually worked. I have my doubts though; there’s potential but at the moment it’s nothing more than a tech demo. Saying that, at the Ubisoft press conference that followed later in the day, they did back up the tech, mentioning that they also see it as the future of gaming. If companies like Ubisoft get behind Natal, we could be seeing some very interesting games in the future. The Ubisoft press conference, itself, was terrible though.

Overall, MS focused on real games just enough for it not to get boring; no major new exclusives, but a solid line-up of titles that makes me glad I’ve got a 360. Saying that, there was no mention of the Zune HD; iPod Touch it is…

#### Nathan’s impressions:

I’ll put this upfront: I’m not a 360 owner, and as a PS3 and PC owner, I haven’t yet seen much point in getting a 360.

But this press conference demonstrated a strong showing from Microsoft; and in lieu of the big new hardware announcements that generally come at this stage in each generation’s lifecycle, it’s probably about as good as anyone could have expected.

Starting at the end, the Natal project looked like a fantastic piece of technology which, perhaps just like the Wiimote, will be able to really appeal to the mass-market and introduce a whole new demographic to gaming in a newer and more intuitive way. But somehow… I suspect not. As with all technology, the success of Natal will live or die by its implementation. If developers can release decent software and games that really use Natal well, then it’ll be a great system. If it’s limited to what was seen today, as cool as Milo was, it will remain forever a gimmick.

Metal Gear on 360? So what? It doesn’t look like it will be a stealth title, and it’s clearly also coming to PS3. Exciting, perhaps, that it’s an MGS game; but there’ve been quite a few of those lately, and it seems to be only the main numbered ones that are staggeringly good.

Facebook/Last.fm integration? As convenient as it may be to integrate these to a dashboard, it’s just a different front end to something I’d frankly rather do on my PC. Cool, but not a selling point. As for Sky… it’s awesomeness probably depends very much on the pricing models that they offer; but watching the presenter trying to drum up excitement with the promise of “streamable test match cricket” was… priceless.

The games that were announced were quite disappointing. With the exception of Halo: Reach, none of them were really new reveals, and had all be known of before. Given that my hardware choices are driven almost entirely by software catalogue, the complete lack of unique and interesting exclusive game announcements (I’d point out that Alan Wake and Splinter Cell are both PC releases, and thus not exclusives), there’s been nothing shown today that makes me want a 360 any more.

Roll on Nintendo!