Official E3 Microsoft Conference Thread 2010

[Silent_Buddha]

What kind of killer apps are we talking about? In the casual world what they showed could be killer apps. Wii sports didnt look like a killer app until people tried it at the stores.

Imagine Natal's effect in a store. With Wii you either watched someone play it or had to pick up a controller and try it.

With Kinect, just walking by the X360 demo kiosk and you're already in the game without doing anything. That right there is going to be a strong pull for the casuals in Walmart or Sears or whatever.

The possibility is there to draw in people that might never have been interested in a game console before.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Nope

Im sure it is great but is it an improvement or just an alternative? I very much doubt it can rival a mouse when it comes to using only tiny hand/wrist movements? Sitting at work all day using a MS Surface is likely to be less efficient simply because of the large movements needed no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3garGwa63E&feature=player_embedded

Check that out, also shows use in a RTS. Lag is definitely a problem though, but it is something I dearly would love. Although it probably costs more than a new car.

Some things can be done far more intuitively and faster than a mouse. Simultaneous zoom and rotate for example. As well as multiple collaborative inputs. For precision you can use a stylus (like a Tablet or Slate PC) which has pinpoint accuracy just like a mouse.

It can work with Win7 also which means excellant handwritting recognition for text input from multiple people at the same.

It certainly can be a revolution from the mouse, but it is still too immature and expensive generally, although the new flood of Win7 Slates (seen at CompuTex) may accelerate the process.

Regards,
SB

 

[AzBat]

Zune Music coming to Xbox? Oooh. Hopefully it supports buying a la carte & Zune Pass. Video Kinect looked neat.

Update: Microsoft has now at least revealed a few more details, confirming that Zune Pass subscribers will have on-demand, instant streaming access to a full seven million tracks, and that the service will "seamlessly" integrate with the 16,000 music videos already available on Xbox Live -- if you own a video, it'll automatically start playing during the corresponding song.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/14/zune-music-heads-to-xbox-360/

Cool!

Tommy McClain

 

[rabidrabbit]

The leaks kind of diluted the MS conference.
It lacked surprises of the same calibre as previous years.
Still, a solid showing, though imo too much Kinetc and too little else of interest.

Personally, I wasn't that impressed by yet another fitness game, yet another dance game and yet another pet simulator.

The Ubisoft fitness game could be a hit, but if it shows your avatar fatter than you actually are, I think those GF's might not like it
Maybe if you took all your clothes off and shaved your hair, it could represent your shape and height more accurately

The Kinetimals looked good visually, but seems like it's gameplay is even more limited and scripted than Eye Pet's.

The dance game really needs more precise timing. Was the avatar mimicking your moves or are you just copying what the on screen character does, and given points how closely you match those moves?

Of non Kinetct games, Gears of War 3 and Halo:reach looked solid enough not to disappoint fans, but I'm not sure this will bring more fans to them.

Metal Gear: Rising ( I refuce to add the "Solid" as that's just WRONG!) looked good, if you can judge by such a short trailer. The cutting will lend itself well to motion controls, but can't help to think if some physical controls such as buttons and tactile feedback would make it better.

New Forza, well that was plain gimmicky. Imagine yourself playing a car sim without a wheel! The gesture based controls for exploring the car is nice, but again, if you're playing with a wheel, it'll soon become unnecessarily cumbersome if you need to get out from behind the wheel just to look at the car from different angles, when all that could be done easier and more comfortably with some controller, behind the wheel.

UI control with Kinetc. So the native xb360 UI is not controllable with gestures? You need to launch a separate Kinect UI to control music and videos?
Video chat... well, seen that, done that.
ESPN sure could be great if you're into sports. Looks like it'll be mostly a US thing though.

Imo, this was the most lame MS showing since, well, since they entered the consoles. If you're not into simplistic motion games, I don't see what there was to excite a core xbox360 audience.
Oh, yes, the xbox360 slim! That's good if after 5 years they finally manage to make a console that's manufactured to decent standards.

 

[AzBat]

Evidenty you have to have a TV/ISP provider that supports ESPN 3 in order to get ESPN on Xbox...

Check the affiliates list to see if you can get it...

http://espn.go.com/espn3/affList

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

Metal Gear: Rising ( I refuce to add the "Solid" as that's just WRONG!) looked good, if you can judge by such a short trailer. The cutting will lend itself well to motion controls, but can't help to think if some physical controls such as buttons and tactile feedback would make it better.

It's not a Kinect or motion controlled game. Mash the buttons as much as you like.

Tommy McClain

 

[rabidrabbit]

It's not a Kinect or motion controlled game. Mash the buttons as much as you like.

Tommy McClain

You sure? I think it will have motion controls, at least on PS3. They would be crazy not to take advantage of the Move.

 

[Tap In]

Upgradable Hard Drive
The internal 250GB hard drive is upgradable via a small user-accessible port. Opening the port will not require the use of tools. The new hard drive casing fits inside the console completely and is not compatible with existing consoles. Older hard drives are similarly incompatible with the new Xbox 360. The new hard drive casing's connector looks to be composed of standard SATA power and data ports, as opposed to the proprietary connector present on the original Xbox 360. Microsoft did not state what RPM the internal hard drive was running at.

Capacitive Touch Buttons
The new Xbox 360 250GB has touch capacitive power and disk eject buttons. Unlike many touch capacitive buttons, both are highly responsive and emit a slight beep when touched to signal that you actually pushed them. The disk eject button looks quite small but is easy to press

Gamespot

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Of the core games, MGS Rising looked really cool. Loved the cutting. Anybody know how they're doing that?

They're slicing with a plane which could also be used as UV projection to texture the newly created surfaces. How those are going to fit with what we expect to see, I have no clue about.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

But competition on the fps front is probably more on the PC side than on the 360 side - there's a good chance that at this stage of the cycle more and more fps fans on the 360 are going to go back to the PC until the next console generation.

I don't think so, people just won't give up the comforts of couches and matchmaking and online stats and such that are finessed to such levels on the consoles. Besides, only multiplatform titles are released on the PC, anyone willing to play Gears/Halo/KZ would not abandon their consoles.

Apart from that, its Gears and Halo that are the only exclusives here and they're going against Socom, Mag, Killzone, and who knows Resistance 3. Now I'm not saying that any of these are necessarily effective against the might of Gears and Halo, but on the other hand a multi-platform title like Call of Duty seems to become more important then either,

Socom and Mag are not even in the same league as Gears and Halo. Please don't try to fool yourself here, those MS franchises have been the most successful exclusives on the HD consoles in this generation and both games have demonstrated more then enough advancements to sell at least as well as their previous titles.

with the risk that Bungie loses some of its appeal now that it has gone multi-platform.

Halo loosing its appeal? After the biggest online beta on consoles ever?

To be honest, I'll admit that barely may be putting it a bit strong, but I do believe they are running a risk. There is no new blood coming, except the commissioned title from Crytek, which I think they're hoping to become the next Gears - however, that game has just started from what I can tell and is at least two years away.

The new Crytek game seems to be a 3rd persion action game, with all those big dudes wielding big axes and swords. God of Crysis or so

They don't need new blood IMHO, and launching a new FPS franchise with no obvious advantage over the existing giants wouldn't make sense anyway. If there's new hardware that offers new features then it'd be OK, but at this point I have serious doubts even about Crysis 2. They're just late to the game and can't really offer much - graphics aren't exceptional, the nanosuit isn't such a cool thing, and nothing else is really there.

 

[nightshade]

It's not a Kinect or motion controlled game. Mash the buttons as much as you like.

Tommy McClain

Well this looks as if it was done with a motion sensing equipment:
http://i46.tinypic.com/aymt5w.gif

 

[Arwin]

I don't think so, people just won't give up the comforts of couches and matchmaking and online stats and such that are finessed to such levels on the consoles. Besides, only multiplatform titles are released on the PC, anyone willing to play Gears/Halo/KZ would not abandon their consoles.

Or maybe just play those games on 360 and no other.

Socom and Mag are not even in the same league as Gears and Halo. Please don't try to fool yourself here, those MS franchises have been the most successful exclusives on the HD consoles in this generation and both games have demonstrated more then enough advancements to sell at least as well as their previous titles.

Sure, but that's partly because fps fanatics massively bought 360s in the first place, and/or were raised to like them because there were so many and its best exclusives were first person shooters. It could be that at some point people will say "hey, there's a lot more innovation going on 'on the other side'", so let's migrate. You may say it may not happen, but when Forza came out I've had tonnes of discussions with people arguing the opposite for PS2 owners going to cross over to the Xbox. I've definitely seen a few people swayed by the promise of MAG, even if I've also seen some people disappointed in its delivery.

Also, are you sure that Gears 2 did that much better than Gears one? Looking at the data, it says 5 million half a year after launch, which is 1 million behind the first game. I guess that a year later it's not unlikely that GoW2 has overtaken part 1, but if so I somewhat doubt it will be by much.

Halo loosing its appeal? After the biggest online beta on consoles ever?

Who knows? Bungie's left the exclusive fold. There's a lot of competition. I'm playing a little bit devil's advocate here, mind - it doesn't seem likely. But what if this iteration doesn't sell as much as the last? I've never before heard people on podcasts say that the beta left them cold and they found they were no longer interested in Halo. I honestly do actually believe that the jet packs and armor abilities will be enough to have Halo sell as well as 3 though, just for the multi-player, but Call of Duty is showing that Halo isn't almighty anymore, and eventually Call of Duty will be surpassed by something also.

The new Crytek game seems to be a 3rd persion action game, with all those big dudes wielding big axes and swords. God of Crysis or so

The interview said there might be third person sections and first person sections, nothing was set in stone at this point.

They don't need new blood IMHO, and launching a new FPS franchise with no obvious advantage over the existing giants wouldn't make sense anyway. If there's new hardware that offers new features then it'd be OK, but at this point I have serious doubts even about Crysis 2. They're just late to the game and can't really offer much - graphics aren't exceptional, the nanosuit isn't such a cool thing, and nothing else is really there.

You may be right, and I don't really believe that 360 will relinquish its fps stronghold very easily or soon, but if you look at the announcements, I can't help but feel they've barely done more than the minimum that they could have. Another Halo, another Gears, Call of Duty timed-exclusive DLC, and that's it. I guess that's what's prompted me to say barely - the exclusive DLC is all that takes it above the absolute minimum, imho.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Again, do you seriously expect them to start a new, exclusive shooter franchise that can't really have anything to offer beyond what the already established titles have? The competition would bleed it out before its release. People want their Gears and Halo, at least for one more round. Why wouldn't it be more then enough?

Do you expect Sony to do so? Start a new, platform exclusive shooter franchise this late into the generation, against their existing ones? Or is it just general ranting against MS?

 

[Arwin]

Again, do you seriously expect them to start a new, exclusive shooter franchise that can't really have anything to offer beyond what the already established titles have? The competition would bleed it out before its release. People want their Gears and Halo, at least for one more round. Why wouldn't it be more then enough?

Well, they could do something new. An MMO shooter, something like MAG, etc.

Do you expect Sony to do so? Start a new, platform exclusive shooter franchise this late into the generation, against their existing ones? Or is it just general ranting against MS?

They've been doing so so far throughout the generation. The only defense you could give here for Microsoft is that Sony has continuously tried to find something that could stand up against Halo and Gears, and so far seem to have failed, hence they keep trying.

 

[(((interference)))]

Forza 4 confirmed:

http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/109/1097731p1.html

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Catching up on bits and bobs here and there. Haven't time to watch the whole presentation end to end. I'm curious about the Metal Gear title. Just how much cutting can one do, as you could end up with an awful lot of geometry to worry about! "Your Shape" did look promising for that market. I do like seeing the raw data, the 'blob' person. Seeing the cardigan was quite amazing. I'm wondering how they're selecting just her. If depth based, that works in a nice, spacious stage setting, but I really need to see this thing working in a European living room to be convinced it won't have environment issues.

 

[Arwin]

Catching up on bits and bobs here and there. Haven't time to watch the whole presentation end to end. I'm curious about the Metal Gear title. Just how much cutting can one do, as you could end up with an awful lot of geometry to worry about! "Your Shape" did look promising for that market. I do like seeing the raw data, the 'blob' person. Seeing the cardigan was quite amazing. I'm wondering how they're selecting just her. If depth based, that works in a nice, spacious stage setting, but I really need to see this thing working in a European living room to be convinced it won't have environment issues.

Remember that Kinect is highly dependent on thermal imaging. She's likely the only human shaped body that also has the right heat signature. From there you focus on just everything that's attached to her.

 

[czekon]

Again, do you seriously expect them to start a new, exclusive shooter franchise that can't really have anything to offer beyond what the already established titles have? The competition would bleed it out before its release. People want their Gears and Halo, at least for one more round. Why wouldn't it be more then enough?

Do you expect Sony to do so? Start a new, platform exclusive shooter franchise this late into the generation, against their existing ones? Or is it just general ranting against MS?

really? i dont think its enough. Next gears, next halo, next cod....it gets boring, been there did that and so on. Where are new games?.
Halo 3 was a big succes cause there where nothing else there at that time. I dont think Reach will be as succesfull as H3 after mw/mw2 set the new standards for mp gameplay. After MS E3 i realized that its a good time to move to ps3. I have played all halo and gears and forza games and all biggest titles on x360 and there is nothing new to me. The next upcoming 2 years looks like more of the same i play from 3+ years now.
Ill wait for sony conference to see what they have to offer, as for now kinect is not enought to keep me intressted in x360.

 

[BRiT]

Every offense intended, but MW2 completely sucks at MP game play right now. Nearly every match has someone glitching/outright cheating in it right now. We're talking care packages dropping NUKES and people Elevatoring into positions impossible to get to or flat out geometry glitching to plant claymores from across the map or speed riot shielding. Also the game and map balance issues are huge. The sniper rifle/class is worthless, it's all about assault rifles and spray-and-pray style. They seriously need to fix the first issue before it'll be enjoyable again.

If Reach is even on the same level as the Beta, it will be a huge success.

 

[liolio]

I watched the live feed yesterday night, after a good night my impressions are lukewarm.
The feed was pretty entertaining to watch no matter some of the women demoing some Kinect games were really "trying too hard".
I've tough time deciding if the show was somehow missing or if they didn't take/had enough time to speak about what they have.

In regard to cores games for once Ms has advertised quiet some games supposed to come next year. Usually they pimp whatever coming from summer to fall.
This fall only has Halo Reach which will launch in autumn, and Fable3 that's it, the focus is really on Kinect for this fall.
Forza4, GeoW3, Crytech game won't launch this fall. I would have wanted to learn more about Crytech game at least. What is it a Hack&Slash something else? When? I would put my bet on fall 2011... sadly.
For the other games I fell like Ms is missing something fresher on top of it. I enjoyed GeoW and I'm willing to paly the third but it looks a lot like its predecessor, we will see if journalists are allowed hand on experience so soon but I feel like the game mechanic/dynamic start to show its age especially in regard to the action allowed to the character whether it's melee or cover. Still Four player coop sounds neat.

Then there the casual part with Kinect, some stuffs look neat but I can't really decide I guess it's something you have to experience by yourself for real to have proper opinion.
Still a bit shamefully I could see myself dancing, sporting in my living, the kind of things you don't want your friend to know Getting my wife to play more with me have me considering buying (if she actually enjoy it that's it...). Overall Ms did a good job I think dancing and fitness games have imho the killer apps potential if they manage to reach the intended audience (teenage girls to average aged women).

At last the slim, I was iffy about the thing when I saw leaks but it's actually pretty neat. But I start to really wonder about Ms strategy. They give up on pretty much juicy add-ons / accessories at the cost of no price cost. The strategy looks pretty much undefined, what about the arcade model? Every body wonder. Will they have a 199$ SKU? idem.
Nothing about Kinect price, I start to think that there is something rotten in the land of Microsoft ED division. The fact that Ms pretty much quit fighting Sony on price while they could have an easy upper hand is suspect. I think that MS execs want the xbox division to become the cash cow of the ED division. Profitability first, growing their shares in the "core" market seems their least priority. Still whatever shares gained now will only help them in the long run. I wonder about Kinect, I feel like they could ship the thing at quiet a cost. They looks like they think it's that great. I wonder. Not that it's bad but price is everything, they may convince quiet some costumer to buy it but they will go nowhere if they don't sell the thing to a consistent part of the +40 millions xbox owners they have.
All this have me thinking that mobility is the BIG focus of the ED division and whatever other activities of the ED division are locked on short term profitability (ie make money mostly in US).
Anyway we will see soon enough, they will speak of PC and Kinect too at some point I guess. But their overall strategy right now looks real up the air to me. I hope they won't waste the tech, it's great and more importantly their next rendition along with their next gen system is likely to be the "real Mc Coy". If Kinect somehow fails or underwhelm a relaunch will be tougher no matter how great is the thing.

I dunno if my opinion is shared but this conf left me with more question than answers about their mid-term strategy and overall positioning. Overall I'm sure Sony conf will be more interesting for cores gamers with more/fresher games whatever "Move" achieves or doesn't. My eyes are still set on Nintendo and the 3ds. A PSP2 would still win the show for me, as a powerful enough system could have me thinking about keeping a current gen console/