E3 2008: Microsoft Press Event
Article | July 14, 2008 11:17 pm
Don Mattrick, Senior VP of Interactive Entertainment Business, hosted the MS Press Event this morning at E3. Here are some of my thoughts from the overall speech, including the games mentioned, the special speakers involved, and crowd reaction.
Bethesda - Fallout 3
Todd Howard started off the string of speakers for the MS Event. Simply put, he was speaking about one game: Fallout 3. He debuted a trailer that has since come out online and then unveiled the demo of the game itself.
Graphically, it looks stunning. Textures look smooth, framerates look pretty close to flawless, and this was just the general demo. I'll be able to give you a more in depth look later on as I have a hands on with this tomorrow.
Capcom: Resident Evil 5
Jun Takeuchi came out to debut a demo of Resident Evil 5. Unveiling the online aspect of the game for the first time, he showed how players back each other up while in-game.
Overall, this one looks almost as good as Fallout 3. The view that it uses is the same as Resident Evil 4, with the suspended camera over the shoulder. I really liked what I saw on the video itself, and I'm curious to see how they progress this one along.
Release date: March 13, 2009.
Fable II
Peter Molyneux then came out to show us one of the most anticipated games that Xbox gamers have been waiting for: Fable II.
The fact that this game allows you to go from a boy to a man as the timeline is impressive. So many little things, such as getting married, are just little niches along with the total package. I really like the interface that this game puts out, as its simplistic, yet very intuitive.
Fable II, in Peter's words, is finished. It's just a matter of time until it finally comes out.
Epic Games: Gears of War 2
Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director of Epic Games, took his turn at the microphone by showing off Gears of War 2.
Last year, Gears of War caught a lot of people off guard, becoming more than just a holdover until Halo 3 came out. Now, Epic wants to build off of that momentum with the sequel. Cliff made a mention of how anticipated it is ever since they announced it back at GDC.
The demo that Cliff shows off is actually a co-op mode where they are traversing a sinkhole. The demo shows much of what we loved from the first game. Some of the scenes almost threw me off as they looked a lot like concept video, but you realized that it was just a different view that you can access with the press of a button.
Gears still has that high-speed, in your face feel, especially when you get to running. The interface remains largely in tact, which is a good thing.
Mattrick
Back to Mattrick, who spent some time talking about the industry and how much it has exploded. Estimated sales for 2008 in the entire industry is 48 billion dollars, which will lead all markets in sales.
He moved on to show some numbers on how the 360 is leading in most categories of overall sales, showing that the 360 is alive and well...and leading the industry.
Mattrick spent more time talking about downloadable content, which seems to be the next major force to take on Blu-Ray.
After that, Mattrick handed it over to John Stafford, who is head of Xbox Live. One of the major rumors floating around was talking about the revamping of the Xbox Live Dashboard, and I have to say, it looks quite impressive. One of the rumblings that I heard was that this was a 2D version of Sony's "Home" system, but that isn't a bad thing.
Stafford then showed off the new queue list for downloading movies, which is very slick and clean. XBL is going to go through some changes, and I don't think anyone will mind them.
After this, there was some time spent on Singstar and "At The Movies", followed by Rock Band and Guitar Hero. At this point, Activision took over the stage.
Activision: Guitar Hero World Tour
Plenty of time was spent about how GH:WT is going to have over 80 songs and the expansion of downloading songs. There wasn't too much announced that was new, although REM's three songs being available is one nice thing.
Of course, Metallica was brought up, and it turns out that the new album, "Death Magnetic", will be available for download exclusively for GH:WT. Funny enough, there was no mention to Guitar Hero: Metallica. This speech was spent solely on GH:WT
Square Enix
Plenty of rumors were flying around about SE, although this started out pretty expectedly with three RPG titles being announced: Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and The Last Remnant. All three games will be released by Spring of next year.
Mattrick came back on briefly, only to be interrupted with one final Square Enix announcement.
At this point, a video was queued up on screen, and almost everyone immediately knew what this was.
Final Fantasy XIII, long rumored to be Sony's biggest title in the next year since MGS4, is now coming to Xbox 360. This is a huge win for Microsoft, getting one of the premier RPG franchises onto the 360.
All in all, MS delivered a solid performance. A lot of what we heard was just confirming rumors, but with the big announcement of FFXIII by Square Enix, the overall great look to Fallout 3 and Fable II, Microsoft has set the bar high for E3's other press conferences.
Bethesda - Fallout 3
Todd Howard started off the string of speakers for the MS Event. Simply put, he was speaking about one game: Fallout 3. He debuted a trailer that has since come out online and then unveiled the demo of the game itself.
Graphically, it looks stunning. Textures look smooth, framerates look pretty close to flawless, and this was just the general demo. I'll be able to give you a more in depth look later on as I have a hands on with this tomorrow.
Capcom: Resident Evil 5
Jun Takeuchi came out to debut a demo of Resident Evil 5. Unveiling the online aspect of the game for the first time, he showed how players back each other up while in-game.
Overall, this one looks almost as good as Fallout 3. The view that it uses is the same as Resident Evil 4, with the suspended camera over the shoulder. I really liked what I saw on the video itself, and I'm curious to see how they progress this one along.
Release date: March 13, 2009.
Fable II
Peter Molyneux then came out to show us one of the most anticipated games that Xbox gamers have been waiting for: Fable II.
The fact that this game allows you to go from a boy to a man as the timeline is impressive. So many little things, such as getting married, are just little niches along with the total package. I really like the interface that this game puts out, as its simplistic, yet very intuitive.
Fable II, in Peter's words, is finished. It's just a matter of time until it finally comes out.
Epic Games: Gears of War 2
Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director of Epic Games, took his turn at the microphone by showing off Gears of War 2.
Last year, Gears of War caught a lot of people off guard, becoming more than just a holdover until Halo 3 came out. Now, Epic wants to build off of that momentum with the sequel. Cliff made a mention of how anticipated it is ever since they announced it back at GDC.
The demo that Cliff shows off is actually a co-op mode where they are traversing a sinkhole. The demo shows much of what we loved from the first game. Some of the scenes almost threw me off as they looked a lot like concept video, but you realized that it was just a different view that you can access with the press of a button.
Gears still has that high-speed, in your face feel, especially when you get to running. The interface remains largely in tact, which is a good thing.
Mattrick
Back to Mattrick, who spent some time talking about the industry and how much it has exploded. Estimated sales for 2008 in the entire industry is 48 billion dollars, which will lead all markets in sales.
He moved on to show some numbers on how the 360 is leading in most categories of overall sales, showing that the 360 is alive and well...and leading the industry.
Mattrick spent more time talking about downloadable content, which seems to be the next major force to take on Blu-Ray.
After that, Mattrick handed it over to John Stafford, who is head of Xbox Live. One of the major rumors floating around was talking about the revamping of the Xbox Live Dashboard, and I have to say, it looks quite impressive. One of the rumblings that I heard was that this was a 2D version of Sony's "Home" system, but that isn't a bad thing.
Stafford then showed off the new queue list for downloading movies, which is very slick and clean. XBL is going to go through some changes, and I don't think anyone will mind them.
After this, there was some time spent on Singstar and "At The Movies", followed by Rock Band and Guitar Hero. At this point, Activision took over the stage.
Activision: Guitar Hero World Tour
Plenty of time was spent about how GH:WT is going to have over 80 songs and the expansion of downloading songs. There wasn't too much announced that was new, although REM's three songs being available is one nice thing.
Of course, Metallica was brought up, and it turns out that the new album, "Death Magnetic", will be available for download exclusively for GH:WT. Funny enough, there was no mention to Guitar Hero: Metallica. This speech was spent solely on GH:WT
Square Enix
Plenty of rumors were flying around about SE, although this started out pretty expectedly with three RPG titles being announced: Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and The Last Remnant. All three games will be released by Spring of next year.
Mattrick came back on briefly, only to be interrupted with one final Square Enix announcement.
At this point, a video was queued up on screen, and almost everyone immediately knew what this was.
Final Fantasy XIII, long rumored to be Sony's biggest title in the next year since MGS4, is now coming to Xbox 360. This is a huge win for Microsoft, getting one of the premier RPG franchises onto the 360.
All in all, MS delivered a solid performance. A lot of what we heard was just confirming rumors, but with the big announcement of FFXIII by Square Enix, the overall great look to Fallout 3 and Fable II, Microsoft has set the bar high for E3's other press conferences.
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