Gamescom 2009 : MS/Lionhead's Fable III Conference*

[Shifty Geezer]

This is the thread to discuss Microsoft's conference at the European GamesCom event held in Cologne, Germany. The conference is being held tomorrow from 9:00 BST, 1:30 am PST. It isn't going to be as big a deal as Sony's event, but there may be some unveilings or news. If anyone has links to live feeds, let me know and I'll add them.

Eurogamer text feed

 

[Arwin]

Haha, even here MS has easily managed to keep expectations much lower than Sony's.

They have a conference. It's Europe. It's also GDC related. I'm expecting stuff! Looks like we'll get a new SKU or different structure of SKUs at least, maybe Indie games, Video store stuff, Sky deals stuff, who knows even the Netflix equivalent for Europe. They may show more Natal too. Like for the PS3 I'm not saying all these things will happen, but we'll get to see stuff.

 

[obonicus]

Molyneux has something coming, Lionhead even had that Che teaser.

 

[liolio]

I don't expect much , as usual they will push the games coming this fall.
They are likely to show some natal stuffs, I expected them to have more journalists hand on experience with the prototype.
Anything related to price in Europe or change in SKU will wait imo

 

[phenix]

If no price cut they may lose the holiday season badly. As bad as Sony lost it last year.

 

[Arwin]

They may have found enough sources of revenue through Arcade, Indy Games, full game downloads and so on to make Live cheaper or even free. That's at least their fallback scenario. They are quickly reaching the point where they'll not be able to compete successfully in terms of hardware - the difference in cost between DVD and BD, as well as onboard wireless, will just be too small, and Sony is just better at hardware.

 

[silhouette]

They will announce the official price increase in UK

Honestly, either they do not have much to announce, or they can keep things under wraps a lot better than Sony.

 

[Zaphod]

*tumbleweeds*

I'm guessing they'll hold off making any formal announcements about the (probable) changes to the SKU lineup until the PS3 Slim buzz dies off a little.

 

[nightshade]

The whole conf. got wrapped after just one topic, Fable 3....a bit disappointing

 

[liolio]

If no price cut they may lose the holiday season badly. As bad as Sony lost it last year.

???
Where in US I don't think so and in Europe they still have a almost official 100 euros advantage if you consider that it's been two years in a row that Ms offers a 40 euros rebate during Christmas. I wouldn't not be surprised if they make the 200 euros price point definite somewhere between now and this fall in Europe.
It's not about winning but money, I think that MS can go away as it is in US (minus their SKU revamp) and be pretty much on par with Sony. In Europe (real Europe) Ms leads by around 1 million units and the trend is better for Ms than Sony, price cut may revert things and Sony may even ended up selling more. Anyway Ms won't be that hurt if Sony catch up or pass them. In this climate and in regard to actual sales, it would be quiet an accomplishment if Sony end up with a 1millions lead and in regard to user base 1 millions users difference out of 12/13 millions is peanut.
My point is no matter what Ms does or doesn't they can live with being outsold by Sony for some months even if it's in US+ Europe. It happens already when the ps3 price first dropped. Point is that Ms lead in the price war, they have no intensive to react quickly but at some point will.

 

[liolio]

The whole conf. got wrapped after just one topic, Fable 3....a bit disappointing

Worse than I expected indeed they didn't even do they usaul big titles push for this fall.

 

[Pugger]

Microsoft made the press abundantly aware this was not a full scale MS confrence but a presentation by MGS/Lionhead games studio's. Eurogamer have highlighted this fact on their website for days as they had the exclusive to Fable 3. And by the way the ideas raised in Fable 3 are far more interesting than much that has gone on at Gamescon. As for a price drop for the 360, TGS is a month away.

 

[Arwin]

Wow, ok, Microsoft is not getting good marks for Europe I have to say. And Shifty was right after all.

 

[liolio]

Wow, ok, Microsoft is not getting good marks for Europe I have to say. And Shifty was right after all.

At least they are not completely reaping us in regard to exchange rate/currencies.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

???
Where in US I don't think so and in Europe they still have a almost official 100 euros advantage if you consider that it's been two years in a row that Ms offers a 40 euros rebate during Christmas. I wouldn't not be surprised if they make the 200 euros price point definite somewhere between now and this fall in Europe.
It's not about winning but money, I think that MS can go away as it is in US (minus their SKU revamp) and be pretty much on par with Sony. In Europe (real Europe) Ms leads by around 1 million units and the trend is better for Ms than Sony, price cut may revert things and Sony may even ended up selling more. Anyway Ms won't be that hurt if Sony catch up or pass them. In this climate and in regard to actual sales, it would be quiet an accomplishment if Sony end up with a 1millions lead and in regard to user base 1 millions users difference out of 12/13 millions is peanut.
My point is no matter what Ms does or doesn't they can live with being outsold by Sony for some months even if it's in US+ Europe. It happens already when the ps3 price first dropped. Point is that Ms lead in the price war, they have no intensive to react quickly but at some point will.

Is there another Europe that I don't know about? What is up with this "real Europe" stuff? Isn't MS only counting 5 countries out of all of Europe to say they have a 1 million unit lead in Europe?

 

[Nesh]

So the whole conference was about the next Fable sequel? A series that many of us including me arent interested in?

 

[Florin]

Is there another Europe that I don't know about? What is up with this "real Europe" stuff? Isn't MS only counting 5 countries out of all of Europe to say they have a 1 million unit lead in Europe?

Good question. And is France a part of real Europe?

 

[Rangers]

Is there another Europe that I don't know about? What is up with this "real Europe" stuff? Isn't MS only counting 5 countries out of all of Europe to say they have a 1 million unit lead in Europe?

I think he means non-middle east and a few other non-europe pal territories that Sony sometimes is said to lump into Europe sales (I'm unsure of the validity of such claims)

 

[liolio]

I think he means non-middle east and a few other non-europe pal territories that Sony sometimes is said to lump into Europe sales (I'm unsure of the validity of such claims)

Indeed, not too mention that we had this data (the million lead) by exterior datas (not not manufacturers mouths).
As for the France being in Europe?? I'm not sure I understand... or want to comment...
Anyway last data we had is that Sony leads here by ~100 000 units.

 

[Pugger]

So the whole conference was about the next Fable sequel? A series that many of us including me arent interested in?

Yes. But then again I'm not interested in sales charts and a new cheaper PS3 as I already have one. MS did not have a conference at Gamecom, MGS/Lionhead studios did. Further as Fable 2 has sold 3 million or so copies I assume "many" people will be interested in the sequel.