Microsoft E3 Conference Details
Monday, July 14th, 2008
The Microsoft E3 conference went down today. A list of big events during the conference:
Fallout 3: Exclusive DLC for Xbox 360 (In addition to PC)
Resident Evil 5: Online Co-op is included. Friday, March 13th 2009 release date
Fable 2: Release date October 2008. Online Co-op confirmed.
Gears of War 2: Ride a Brumak, 5-player co-op streaming enemy mode online, but story-mode apparently only 2 players. Release date November 7th
Xbox Dashboard Face Lift: Completely re-designed dashboard. Mii-like avatars. 8-player party system used to play games, chat, share photos, and share netflix (!) movies. Lots of clothing and accessory options. Apparently partially designed by Rare. Release date: Fall 2008
XBL Arcade/Primetime: 1 vs. 100 (Avatars, win real prizes, blah blah), Geometry Wars 2, Galaga Legions, Portal: Still Alive (Exclusive to Xbox 360. New Challenge mode, same single player game), South Park (Nothing really shown. Just that it was a South Park game), Uno Rush, Original Banjo Kazooie, Original Star Ocean, Primetime = Game shows like 1 vs 100
Netflix: Exclusive to Xbox 360. Netflix subscribers will get the option of streaming movies to their Xbox 360 for no additional fee. May be shared with people in your Live Party (See Xbox Dashboard Face Lift). Doubles the number of Xbox Live content pieces available.
Scene-It Box Office Smash: Sequel to succesful Scene-It game for 360. This time with Online play and downloadable content to expand the game with. The way it should have been done to begin with. Uses Avatars.
You’re in the Movies: Weird Xbox Vision Camera game. Act out scenes based on the mini-game’s criteria. Ala – Swat at bugs as they appear on your screen. Then when you and your friends get through a game, it takes those recorded scenes and makes them into a cheesy B-movie that had nothing to do with your mini-games. Hillarity ensues.
Banjo Kazooie/Viva Pinata: Showed a couple trailers. Still looks nice. Viva Pinata allows you to scan cards to bring in new Pinatas via the Xbox Vision camera.
Guitar Hero World Tour: REM track pack exclusive to the 360. Eagles is exclusive to Guitar Hero. Metallica is releasing some of their new songs on GHWT and GH3.
Lips: Microsoft’s answer to Playstation’s Singstar. Looks like mostly pop/hip hop. Duffy performed live, and didn’t seem to be able to follow her own song in the game. Mics pulsate with light, and are motion sensitive for bonus points when you dance. Also, you can hook up your MP3 players to sing along to "any song in your collection".
Rock Band 2: In addition to the previously announced backwards compatible DLC for RB2, the songs from the original game’s disc will ALSO be backwards compatible. So you can copy the game’s songs to your hard drive, and play them from there. Also, the official track list is out now. And apparently there will be a 20-song pack available for download for free at the game release. Supposedly songs that wouldn’t fit on the game. 104 or so songs total. Also, AC/DC is exclusive to Rock Band.
Last Remnant: Dated for November 20th, worldwide.
Final Fantasy XIII: Coming to Xbox 360 (In America only, perhaps) on the game’s release date. This is in addition to the PS3, not instead of.
Sorry if I missed anything. A /LOT/ happened today.
Read More for live updates.
1:42pm – XBLA gets exclusive Fallout 3 DLC. That’s pretty big.
1:46pm – Resident Evil 5 features online co-op. Could be cool. Looks a bit rough to me.
1:47pm – March 13th (Friday), 2009 Resident Evil 5 release date.
1:50pm – Epic. Fable 2 starts with you being crapped on by a bird. Online co-op confirmed. You can bring in any friend by walking up to glowing orbs in the game, and inviting the orbs. A bizarre. October release date.
1:55pm – Gears of War 2 trailer looks pretty awesome. And BTW, Cliffy B has the best name in the history of names.
2:01pm – You can ride a Brumak? Interesting. November 7th release date. No 4 player co-op (Stick with 2 players), but there is a 5 player co-op mode that involves taking on wave after wave of enemies.
2:04pm – Sweet. Took them 30 minutes to get to the circle jerk portion of the presentation. That’s an improvement. G4 claims a big announcement is coming at 2:08pm
2:07pm – NBC Universal is a new partner for content. Is that the big announcement? God I hope not.
2:09pm – Xbox Live guy is on now. We’ve had rumors of some big XBL news. Will we get some here?
2:10pm – Xbox 360 will be completely reinvented through software. Oh dear God. Avatars. Gag me. Still. This is huge news, for better or worse. The dashboard interface will completely change this year.
2:13pm – Your avatars will have cool clothes. I see ridiculous DLC for clothing.
2:17pm – 1 vs 100 … oh, yay. /sarcasm
2:19pm – Geometry Wars 2. Pretty cool looking.
2:21pm – Portal: Still Alive, exclusive to XBLA. Hell yeah.
2:23pm – SWEET! Netflix teaming with XBL. At no additional cost, you get to watch your streaming videos on XBL. AND, you can share you movies with your live party!
2:26pm – Banjo Kazooie trailer. Woo hoo. That game looks so fun. And viva Pinata 2
2:29pm – Original Banjo Kazooie on XBLA. And more Scene-It. Arg! I can’t keep up. Scene-It will have DLC this time. And play on live. The original had neither.
2:33pm – Some cheesy movie making game starring the vision camera. Weird.
2:42pm – Guitar Hero World Tour has an exclusive REM pack for the 360. Plus, the Eagles and someone else is exclusive to the Guitar Hero franchise.
2:44pm – Long rumored singing game called "Lips" is confirmed. Sing along to any song in your collection.
2:45pm – Duffy, singer of Mercy is singing Mercy, on Lips. Very bizarre. She keeps singing it different than the game has it :P
2:46pm – Now onto Rock Band 2. Talking about it’s limited exclusivity. This is a really long Press Conference.
2:53pm – Rock Band 2 will support Rock Band 1’s disc content! Sweet!
2:55pm – Square Enix president on stage now…Showed all the games we knew about.
3:00pm – Square president comes BACK on stage for a big announcement….Final Fantasy XIII!
3:06pm – That’s it folks. I have to say….best Microsoft Conference I can remember. HUGE stuff announced. Not all of it great, but all of it was huge.
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I am not going to post all the news from this conference on the site, because it would flood the site with articles that would never get discussed. But still, there was a FREAK TON of announcements today. This is the first time I’ve walked away from an E3 conference and said, “Wow….that was intense”. Kudos to Microsoft. The conference was clumsy at times with their casual games. But when they brought it, they brought it.
“Fallout 3: Exclusive DLC for Xbox 360″ – what does DLC mean? I’m very interested in any Fallout new.
Does it mean downloadable content? If so, as a PC user, I am Pissed.
OMG . . . Day 1 of E3 was amazing. Microsoft really brought the goods and I’m really interested to see how Sony plans to measure up. Did I understand it right when they said that Final Fantasy XIII was moving to XBox360 or that it will now be on both platforms. Either way, FFXIII looks awesome, as does GoW 2, Fallout 3, Fable 2. Also the partnership with Netflix and the new Live stuff coming this fall . . . it was excitement overload!
@Inigo: Sorry. I forgot to clarify that. That is Downloadable content, yes. However, the exclusive is amongst consoles only. PC users will still get the downloadable content.
@WonderJenn: I’m so glad that Microsoft went first. If Nintendo and Sony didn’t plan to bring it before, they definitely have to now. There is a lot of talk in the gaming world that Microsoft made no big announcements. I totally agree. They just completely changed directions, re-designed their entire User Interface, etc. Like I’ve said before. You can Love it. You can Hate it. But you can’t deny that it isn’t huge. Do I love it or hate it? A bit of both, I suppose. I’ll discuss that in more detail tomorrow for the E3 Discussion show.
Yes, again, sorry for not clarifying. FFXIII is not switching to 360. It is ALSO launching on 360.
Sony just lost a loyal customer.. Xbox has the best game selection (as well as having all my friends).. the only reason I was gonna save to buy a PS3 was due to FF… no more worries.. I’m very happy about this..
I wasn’t quite as excited by Microsoft’s conference as some of you guys. It seemed very schizophrenic to me. They start out with some very hardcore stuff, then they switch to the “we can be casual friendly too!” segment of the presentation, and then sort of went back to hardcore stuff for a while. With the exception of the Netflix news, I wasn’t really impressed by all the new dashboard stuff, including the avatars. It just seemed like a bunch of stuff that I personally would never use.
All the hardcore game stuff was really cool, like the Gears 2 stuff, and the Fallout 3 trailer and demo was freaking awesome. Although, I thought Fable 2 was….meh. They’re going to ahve to do a lot better than that to convince me that it is a better game than the first one (which actually wasn’t that good, IMHO). FXIII coming to 360 is big news too.
Still, the presentation was still executed fairly well, so Microsoft could have done a whole lot worse.
Here’s a link to the Rock Band 2 Song List.
Very exciting stuff.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/888/888781p1.html
The drum set looks amazing btw.
http://gizmodo.com/5024531/premium-rock-band-2-drum-kit-surfaces-badass-is-the-word-youre-looking-for
And the new guitar gets a “rosewood” fretboard and is three-color sunburst.
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14257567/rock-band-2-game-only-/images/rock-band-2-tba-20080629094114481.html
@Polygon: What is wrong with having Hardcore and casual games? I’d rather have that then to have them completely switch over to Hardcore. And honestly, they’ve always had a small selection of casual games. Remember Blinx? Also, they used to have a game, RC racers, etc. I don’t see a problem with that at all. Why exclude part of the customer base?
I agree with you on Fable too. The first one sucked. But the idea of it was awesome. And that’s what this one promises too. I really think the first one just ran out of time. This one got a lot of features from that original game. We’ll see.
I’m still not sold on the Avatars, but I’m all for a new dashboard, as long as it’s more functional. But you’ll hear more detail on my thoughts tomorrow.
@Mr Pointy: That’s not the standard drum set, BTW. That’s the Ion Drumset. But yeah, great songs. Even better since you get all your RB 1 songs + DLC.
I’m still not getting the Ion Drumset, but it looks cool (I just can’t afford more “instruments”). Yes the quotes are for a reason. They aren’t real. :)
The fact that Dream Theater is in the game would make me want to buy it. Kudos to Harmonix for putting them in. If anyone doesn’t know, DT has the best bass player, drummer, and guitar alive today pretty much. Something for everyone.
It really is awesome that you can play the RB1 songs using the RB2 disc and not having to go back and forth. I expected the DLC to be usable but not the RB1 disc. Amazing.
I’m still getting Guitar Hero WT but RB2 is at the top of my list.
Any news on if the GH3 Les Paul will still work for RB2? I have the RB1 guitar but it’s so inferior to the GH3 guitar.
@SaberJ: There’s nothing wrong with having both hardcore & casual games. I’m saying there’s a big jump in quality when it came to the presentation. The hardcore stuff looked great, but the casual things they showed just didn’t seem to be as high quality of stuff. I just think that Microsoft has yet to figure out how to do casual games consistently well, at least the ones that come on a disc. There’s quite a bit of cool stuff that you can download from the Arcade though.
@Polygon: When you say casual games, I assume you are talking about Lips, Scene-It, You’re in the Movies, Banjo Kazooie, and Viva Pinata. Lips looks as solid as a game like that can look. It’s pretty much Singstar, straight up. Singstar was pretty high quality, even if you don’t dig what they do (Pop music and R&B, for the most part). Lips raises that to the next level. Again, you might not dig what the next level is (Motion control + Open library of music), but still. I can’t see it being higher quality.
Scene It? I had to listen to people mock the original game for a long time. Even past it’s original release. But then people started getting it. What makes Scene-It special. It’s addictive party fun. Now people have started to get it. I’m still not thrilled about the goofiness approach as opposed to the original board game. But they did it, and it worked very well. The sequel adds three things to the original formula besides the obligatory additional content. 1> It adds downloadable content. The first one didn’t have it, and it totally should have. 2> It adds online play. Again, should have had it to begin with, but I can understand the problem with a timing based game and online play. 3> It adds Avatars. While I’m still not sold on those, the original Scene-It’s characters were goofy to begin with. The fact is, Scene-It is a great game, of at least as high a quality level as I’ve seen in other trivia games before it.
You’re in the movies looked retarded. I assume that’s what most people are talking about when they say that the stuff didn’t look to be high quality. But I haven’t played it. So I don’t really know. It looks like the type of game you can’t take too seriously. You just have to let loose at a party and embarrass yourself. But for the moment, I’ll give you that this game looks a little at the “Low Quality” end. Most of their (Read: Their one) vision camera games have been iffy so far.
Banjo Kazooie and Viva Pinata? I’m going to assume hear that when you said that their casual stuff looked low quality, that you completely forgot about these games. Because quite simply, the LOOK of these games puts any casual game I’ve ever seen to shame. Mario can’t do a game that LOOKS this good on the current system. Ratchet and Clank doesn’t even look this good, IMO. Rare makes some of the best looking cartoony characters. Kameo looked fantastic. It was a bore to play, but at least it looked good. Viva Pinata looked good and played good. It was a bit bizarre and not for everyone. But it was still very unique and of the utmost quality level. Banjo Kazooie was the game I was looking forward to the most. It is fantastic looking. The detail in that game really shines through, IMO. *drool*
Anyway, I just don’t really see the “Low quality casual games”. They are what they are. Casual games. To an extent, I think that all Casual games look low quality to an extent (Except the big platforming games ala Ratchet/Mario/Banjo). But just glancing at the conference and not knowing much about the titles (Or caring), I can see where a person would think it’s lower quality. But the fans of those series probably don’t think so.
@Mr. Pointy: I can’t see a reason why RB would not continue to support GH instruments. They made it clear that they feel that it should be an open standard, and supported them in the first game. Well, for 360, anyway. 360 has an open system on their controllers, apparently. You can’t lock-out access to them. If one game can use them, all games can use them. On the PS3, apparently that’s different. Which is why at least at launch at least the wireless controller for GH didn’t work for RB. I don’t know if they ever fixed that, or if it was anything beyond the wireless controller. But still.
The better question is whether or not Activision has gotten over themselves and will allow Rock Band instruments in Guitar Hero. Ultimately I don’t like the Rock Band instruments compared to the Guitar Hero stuff. But still. I should have that choice. With that said, Guitar Hero is dead to me. It would take a lot more than World Tour to bring me back to that franchise. It’s really a personal taste issue. But the franchise has nothing that I want anymore. And since I’m still challenged by Rock Band, the higher difficulty level is not something I appreciate either.
Woo hoo! I got a long reply. ;)
I didn’t really forget about Banjo Kazooie, but I don’t really think of it as a casual game, just like I don’t think of Mario as a casual game. I will agree that it looks really good though, both gameplay and graphics wise. I have never really played or seen Viva Pinata past a few videos, so I can’t really comment on it. I had forgotten that MS had shown it during the conference though.
Lips could be good if you like that sort of thing, but I was really turned off by the performer they had showing off the game. She just didn’t sing very well, and it made it tough to sit through. On a side note, I’ve played a little bit of SingStar, and it can be kind of fun. However, the most fun I had with SingStar was watching a couple of kids play it, dancing and jumping around so much they were pulling the mic out of the PS2. :D
The In The Movies thing could actually end up being kind of fun, but the way they presented it made it seem like a very poor ripoff of the EyeToy.
I have never played SceneIt, but I’m sure I would probably enjoy it as I really like to play trivia-based board games.
@Polygon: Of course you got a long response. You are the only person I’ve gotten to debate with me so far. ;)
Me and Scott actually had a similar discussion on the “Casual Game” market yesterday. The problem is that I really think there are two casual game markets. There is what is the “old” casual gamer, and the “new” casual gamer. And the introduction of the “new” casual gamer came along with the Wii. The new version is the moms, grandmothers, young children, and people that can’t even work their TVs right. They play games like Wii Sports, Wii Music, and perhaps even check the news and weather on their Wii. The old style of casual gamer by comparison looks downright geeky. These are the people that don’t consider themselves a gamer. But they still pick up the big titles, the platformers, etc. An important difference is that you may even see them following game news occasionally. But not often.
So yeah, I think there is a difference in the language there. I still think that things like Banjo and Viva Pinata could be considered in both categories of casual gamers. Especially with the younger market. But you are right, mostly it is outside of the grasp of the “new casual” market.
I definitely think that You’re in the Movies could be fun. Given the right situation. E3 is not that situation. It’s the type of game that doesn’t equate right to a presentation. People need to play it to get the charm of it.
You’ve never played Scene-It? Even the board game? What rock have you been living under?? (That comment was for Wayne, should he ever read this post) It is the definitive movie trivia game recently.