Gaming Generations :: E3 2010: Microsoft Press Conference

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Posted by Oliver on June 14, 2010 at 09:04 PM

Microsoft kicked off E3 2010 in the traditional way today with its annual press conference, revealing all kinds of exciting new games, applications and hardware.

For El33tonline’s full report on the happenings and showings at the publisher’s event, head on down below:

The stage was set for what many were expecting to be an extraordinary Microsoft-hosted conference, filled to the brim with new looks at Kinect (Project Natal), known games (Fable III and Gears of War III amongst others) and perhaps even new games and hardware (a new Xbox 360), and Microsoft didn’t disappoint with their reveals.

The event began with an action-packed trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops, followed by Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia taking the stage to talk more about the game and show off some gameplay revealing a Vietnamese tunnel-rat level, followed by some footage in a HIND helicopter.

Microsoft’s Dan Mattrick then appeared on stage, announcing that all Call of Duty add-ons and map packs will appear first on Xbox 360, thanks to a three-year deal with Activision from now (2010) until 2012. “When you want to play Call of Duty over the next few years, you’ll want to play it on Xbox 360.” Apparently.

Following Mattrick espousing the goodness of Xbox 360, with titles such as Gears of War, Call of Duty and other blockbusters, Konami’s Hideo Kojima took to the stage to talk about Metal Gear Solid: Rising, followed by that game’s new producer, Shigenobu Matsyama, whom Kojima has ‘passed to torch’ to.

“MGS Rising is a sword action game unlike anything you’ve seen before,” says Matsyama, following the ideals of Zan-datsu, meaning to ‘cut and to take.’ Gameplay footage of Metal Gear Solid: Rising followed the pair’s appearance, revealing Metal Gear Solid protagonist Raiden effortlessly cutting up (and utterly destroying) an mech character.

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer walked on stage to talk about Xbox’s great year, followed by Epic’s Cliff Bleszinksi to show off Gears of War 3’s four-player cooperative mode, as well as showcase some of the neat new features in the game.

Peter Molyneux was next in line to make a stage presence, and to talk a bit more about Fable III, and to announce an October 26th release date for the epic next entry to the RPG franchise. A Fable III trailer then played to further demonstrate some of the game’s action sequences, ‘touch’-based gameplay and story.

A brand new, Xbox 360-exclusive game from Crytek was shown off next in the form of a trailer, revealing gladiatorial combat, and codenamed ‘Kingdoms.’

Phil Spencer came back on stage to talk some Halo.34 million halo games sold. 2.7 million in Reach beta. Biggest in history.

Marcus Lehto from Bungie arrived next to give a world premiere demo of Halo: Reach’s singleplayer campaign, which according to him is “the most ambitious game Bungie has ever created.”

As promised, only a taste of in-game footage was shown off, but it was all action-packed stuff, filled with both traditional Halo action (characters, vehicles and environments) and non-traditional Halo elements (music, armour powers used to destroy vehicles), with both vast outdoor areas and detailed indoor areas included. Look forward to it on September 14th.

It was then Microsoft’s Marc Whitten’s turn to show up on stage to talk about the newly unveiled Kinect motion-sensing, controller-free game technology for Xbox 360. After waving at the device’s camera to sign in to Xbox LIVE (the camera recognises him as him), a Kinect engineer, Ron Forbes, gave a demonstration of Kinect, using his hands to control an on-screen cursor to select in-menu items.

You can also browse through menus with speech. Forbes simply said ‘Zune’ and the dashboard zipped to the Zune menu. Pausing and playing movies can be controlled with voice, too, simply by saying ‘Pause’ and ‘Play.’

Whitten re-appeared on stage to talk about Microsoft’s ‘vision’ for entertainment, as Xbox LIVE is coming to Windows 7 phones, with friends, Avatar and Achievements.

Video Kinect was demonstrated with voice chat and party chat, as another engineer spoke with a row of her friends (which can be accomplished via either Xbox LIVE or MSN Messenger). Friend are also able to watch a movie together via the party system while chatting.

Next was the announcement that ESPN (sports service) was coming to Xbox 360, with over 3500 live and on-demand events available comprising college football, NCAA basketball, NBA basketball, MLB, soccer. This represent an exclusive partnership with Microsoft to bring ESPN programming to the Xbox, with all content available to Xbox LIVE Gold members at no additional cost.

Kudo Tsunoda was the next in Microsoft’s roulette of personalities to walk on stage, also to talk about Kinect, and his game, Kinectimals, demonstrating how you’re able to interact with your virtual pet cats – stroking of cats, body movement and different activities ensued.

Kinect Sports, the next game from legendary developer Rare, was demonstrated next with a track and field hurdles game, filled with lots of running and jumping by the participants, followed by a trailer to show off the rest of the Kinect Sports games (bowling, volleyball, table tennis, etc.).

Joyride, a racing game powered by Kinect, was next, with the announcement of five gameplay modes and a demo to show of the motion-based gameplay (steering with your hands, boosting by moving your hands forward, etc.).

Another Kinect game, Kinect Adventures, was shown off, which is filled with a collection of extreme sports activities like white-water rafting in River Rush, and board racing in Reflect Ridge, for a total of 20 mini-games.

A trailer for third-party Kinect games played out following these reveals, featuring looks at a fitness game called Your Shape: Fitness Evolved from Ubisoft. Your Shape is able to scan in players, and register any changes made to their appearance, with an example shown when Ubisoft’s Felicia Williams took off her sweater, which the game recognised, and made the adjustment to her in-game persona.

The game is also able to provide feedback on specific areas of your body as you complete different workout manoeuvres. Further demonstrations of Your Shape showed the coach’s workout.

Harmonix and MTV Games’ Dance Central was revealed by the developer’s Alex Rigopulos, which features 600 moves and ninety dance routines for players to physically dance along to. You’ll be able to learn routines one move at a time, and then string them together to perform like a pro.

Kinect will launch on November 4th in the US, accompanied by over 15 launch titles. A Star Wars Kinect game was also mentioned, which will be launching in 2011.

The Turn 10 (Forza series) developers were up next to demonstrate their current project, with full motion-controlled, controller-free gaming.

Then, the big one!

Don Mattick reappeared on stage to reveal the new Xbox 360 – a 10 to 20% smaller, 250 GB hard drive featuring, WiFi-built-in machine that launches today at a price of $299. Everyone in attendance at the press conference will received one of these new Xbox 360s…

And so Microsoft’s E3 2010 press conference was brought to a close.

SOURCE;http://www.el33tonline.com/past/2010/6/14/e3_2010_microsoft_press_conference/