Microsoft E3 conference roundup
European date for Elite, Halo 3 Special Edition X360 and more.
E3 2007 began in earnest tonight, with Microsoft showing off an extensive Christmas line-up in Santa Monica, California, while making several large announcements concerning hardware and software.
Microsoft's corporate vice president of global marketing, Jeff Bell, confirmed a European date for Xbox 360 Elite of 24th August, but stopped short of announcing a price. In other hardware-related news, Peter Moore showed a new version of the 360 console - the "Halo 3 Special Edition" - to accompany the release of its software counterpart later this year.
Moore had previously described the event, held outdoors at the Santa Monica High School, as being one of firsts. "A few things are different about this year's show," he said, namely that the conference was being televised for the first time, and that all the games to be shown that evening were titles scheduled to be released this Christmas season. Only one game showed, it transpired, would be released next year, but you can forgive Moore breaking ranks for the likes of Resident Evil 5.
First up was EA's Rock Band, the Harmonix title that sees separate players take on instruments in an experience extrapolated from the highly successful Guitar Hero series. Moore managed to pause the game a couple of times but, to be fair to the man, played his plastic guitar and sang along like a trooper. The Strokes, Nirvana, Black Sabbath and the Who are all included in the game, he said, with "more bands later this week".
Moore moved quickly on to Viva Piñata: Party Animals, which is based on mini-games (more than 40 of them) and looked not a million miles away from Mario Party - but with piñata. "It'll keep your living room buzzing for hours on end," promised Peter, before plunging on into a lengthy video for BioWare's sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect. This looked hot, to say the least, showing epic scale space fights and beautifully realised facial animations and vehicles. "Your species needs to learn its place," said a nasty alien. Moore revealed the game will launch in November.

BioWare's epic Mass Effect. Confirmed for release in November.
Peter moved off into some numbers, claiming that two thirds of all next-gen third-party titles are sold for Xbox 360, and that more than USD 2.4 billion has been spent on Xbox 360 hardware and software since last November - more than Wii and PS3 combined.
"This holiday we're shifting into a higher gear," he said, talking up GTA and Halo by saying that Christmas 2004 was a "perfect storm" for gaming with San Andreas, Madden 05 and Halo 2 hitting side-by-side - and that the same conditions would occur this year with GTA IV, Madden 08 and Halo 3. Of course, "the only platform that you can play all these three franchises is on 360."
On with the video. Moore introduced a reel containing Project Gotham Racing 4, Dynasty Warriors Gundam, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Stranglehold, Guitar Hero III, Beautiful Katamari, Lost Odyssey. NBA Live 08, Mass Effect, Fatal Inertia, Medal of Honor Airborne, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, Air Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, NHL 08, Assassin's Creed, Spiderman Friend or Foe, The Simpsons Game, Splinter Cell Conviction, NASCAR 08, Eternal Sonata, Tony's Hawk Proving Ground, Crash of the Titans, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Valve's Orange Box, Bee Movie Game, Rock Band, and Naruto: Rise of a Ninja.

Blue Dragon. Another of Microsoft's first-party role-playing games attempting to make Xbox 360 the only option.
While that lot sank in, Moore took a break and Jeff Bell came out, announcing a party game called "Scene it?" featuring a new controller that looked extremely "similar" to Relentless' Buzz hardware for PlayStation 2. Scene it? the board game's sold 10 million copies worldwide, said Jeff, before talking up another exclusive, namely Ubisoft's next Naruto game. It's 360-only, said Bell, before showing a long video of Japanese-on-Japanese cartoon violence.
Sports were up next, and Bell wheeled out New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush for a game of Madden 08. All EA's sports games will play twice as fast this year compared to last year, said Bell, before launching into a figure-athon regarding Xbox Live.
Microsoft now has more than 7 million subscribers for the service, apparently, and expects more than 10 million by this time next year. More than 45 million games have been downloaded from Xbox Live Arcade and more than 100 games will be available by the end of this year.
A video showed Bomberman Live, Undertow, Hexic 2, Sonic the Hedgehog, War World, Sensible World of Soccer, Every Extend Extreme Extra, Geon, Wing Commander Arena, Feeding Frenzy 2 Shipwreck Showdown, Track and Field, Golden Axe, Minter's oddball shooter Space Giraffe, Puzzle Fighters, Tetris and lots of other stuff.
Sonic and Golden Axe are available now, said Bell. We weren't really listening at this point having been absorbed completely for 20 seconds by seeing the long jump bit in Track and Field.
Video Marketplace topped off the downloadable content section, with Canada and Europe to be added to the currently US-only service later this year. Disney films are currently being added, Bell announced, before showing off a reel of top movies, including Tarzan, Pooh's Heffalump Movie, Atlantis, Hercules, Emperor's New Groove, Armageddon, Sky High, Waterboy, Bad Company and Unbreakable.
Then came the Elite date for Europe. 24th August will see the black machine with its 120GB drive and HDMI output in the hands of Eurogamers. And that was that as far as Elite was concerned, with no price being announced. Interested parties please note: 24th August is the second day of Leipzig's Games Convention.
Shane 'corporate vice president and head of Microsoft Game Studios' Kim came out. "In each of the last two years, games published by Microsoft Game Studios average higher review scores than any other publisher in the videogames industry," he said, before bringing Brian Woodhouse and Craig Howard from Bizarre Creations onto the stage to talk through Project Gotham Racing 4 and its newly announced motorbikes. They showed the bike stuff playing for the first time, including new ways of getting kudos points by performing stunts while riding. Honda, Suzuki and Ducati are all signed up, they said, for licensed bikes, and more than 120 cars are to be included. You'll be able to buy it in September.

The nasty Brumak you'll actually be able to fight in the PC version of Gears of War.
Kim talked briefly about first-party RPGs Blue Dragon, Mass Effect and Lost Odyssey before confirming Viva Piñata and Gears of War for Windows. And you can't talk about Gears of War without dragging "CliffyB" out.
So they did. He played some of the new content that's exclusive to the Windows version of the now-revered action blaster, playing co-op against the Brumak monster from the 360 version you never got to fight. Five new chapters will be included in the PC version.
After talking through more PC titles - Thrillville, Bee Movie Game, BioShock, Crysis, Universe at War Earth Assault, Blacksite, World in Conflict, Age of Conan, Lost Planet, Kane & Lynch, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Zoo Tycoon 2, Juiced 2 and more - Moore came back on and introduced a lengthy movie of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. This looked, in a word, bloody amazing. That's two words. But it was good enough to warrant the extra word. Anyway.
The game showed a start in Prypiat, the worker town ruined by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and Mid-Eastern sections. As Tom put it in our Live Text updates, "The limited palette and detailed, grassy camo coupled with brilliant animation give it an incredibly coherent look." Take a look at CharlieOscarDelta.com for more.
Now for the obvious one, and something of an anticlimax. GTA IV was shown, but there was no new footage, the only videos being the two previously released to the Web. Moore's only flag-waving bit of information was that the footage was captured from 360 code. He talked about the exclusive downloadable chapters, both of which will be available next spring. "Where the GTA IV experience stops on other platforms, it continues on Xbox 360," he said.

A fresh look at Lionhead's Fable 2
There was more. Japanese partnerships were dwelled on briefly, and a very brief trailer was shown for Resident Evil 5, with the promise of a full video on Live on 26th July.
And then Jade Raymond came out. We love Jade. She's great. She showed the Jerusalem demo of Assassin's Creed with hero Altair jumping, hanging, stabbing and generally looking fantastic, fighting using timing and crashing through crowds. Lovely stuff.
Finally, Moore showed a new Halo 3 trailer after revealing a fancy new "Halo 3 Special Edition" Xbox 360 in Spartan green and gold, to release alongside the game in September. The trailer had Cortana, Master Chief, Covenant, Warthogs, dropships and mentalist-scale gun battles. There was even an enemy that filled the whole screen.
And that was that. Take a look at Tom's Live Text updates for more detail and be sure to watch Eurogamer later today for the Nintendo and Sony conferences, plus all the screenshots and movies from the show.
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Comments (61) Latest comment 5 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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Mind you, I suppose that's because Xbox 360 is out and established, and this year's E3 is just reporting 'business as usual'.
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With all the argument over exclusives, neither MS nor Sony really seem to have a huge bunch of them on the way, and alot of what I want to play is multi-platted.
Strange. I'd slowly come to believe the general forum hype that MS had a huge number of exclusives - compared to their competition. Guess I was wrong. Still, some good stuff to look forward to
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Perhaps Nintendo will announce some Wii games that are actually worth considering other than Wii Sports and Zelda?
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How are we supposed to buy them all?
These are the games I feel I have to buy:
Ace Combat
Halo 3
GTA IV
COD4
Mass Effect
Bioshock
Virtua Fighta 5
Pro Evo 5
Assasian Creed
Rock Band
PGR4
The Simpsons game
Cant they delay a couple?
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How many of the games shown at the Sony/Nintendo conferences will you actually get to play this year?
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/Shakes fist at lazygamer!
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Finally! There aren't nearly enough falconry games nowadays, imho.
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Good to see some diversification with Scene it and Party Animals. Scene it sounds interesting.... I loved Buzz on PS2.
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However I can console myself in the fact that as an owner of a 360 the rest of this year looks awesome for games I want to play. Mass Effect is the big game for me, and it just looks better and better. Roll on November!
But I think MS left the door open for Sony to steal the show. As long as Killzone 2's graphics look better than Gears of War the Sony fanboys won't care if everything Sony shows is for 2009/10 and onwards.
There always has to be some sort of post-mortem for E3 to ascertain a 'winner'. Unless Sony and Nintendo have nothing to show I don't think MS will come out on top.
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+1
Cracked me up... great start to my day
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My DS has been gathering dust the last half year and on PC I play Company of Heroes the most which is almost a year old.
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Did you mean "Middle-Eastern"?
Christ I'm such a pedant...
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I think Killzone alone is doing the trick atm.
And we haven't seen a video yet.
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Regardless it'll take more than one 'proper' next gen FPS to shift PS3s.
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Surprised there was no price drop, but they have enough slack in hand to do that when THEY want to and sales are healthy enough atm not to warrant it.
Bar Halo & Mass Effect all the other eye candy is available elsewhere, so some of it was like a joint advert for Sony. Not sure if that was so wise.
On the whole they held their own, just, but if either of the other two have some major announcements (Sony has one already with the price drop) it could become rather forgettable.
I'd give it a B-
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Are you dead inside?
I'm extremely upset, in tears almost, at the MS conference. The reason for this is that it's just reminded me of all the must have games that are being released for it over the coming months. I have neither the time or money to be able to buy/play all of the games I want.
The PS3 can't compete with the 360 this xmas, it'll be next year when most of it's big guns are rolled out.
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And video marketplace for Europe! Woo! Finally...
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I'm sure it will be a good year, for games and all that, but that's not really what E3 press conferences are about. They're about bombastic point-scoring in the console wars. Pulling rabbits out of hats, and the wool over people's eyes.
MS tried this 'honest' approach back in 2005, and had their entire year's PR scuppered by a prerendered demo of (ironically?) Killzone 2, until Sony cocked it up for themselves at E3 2006.
They had lots of good, new, surprising things last year, this year they've got nothing we didn't already know about (except some Viva Pinata minigames).
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Huh?
In what aspect can the PS3 not compete this Christmas?
Most of the stuff MS were flaunting were multiplatform, and Sony's first party ain't a slouch either.
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I wait with anticipation to see how the Sony conference will compare. If I'm honest I don't really care about the Wii one, as I at present have no intention of ever getting the console.
PS - plugmonkey, fantastic post. I laughed at my desk and had to swiftly disguise it as a cough
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GLOL.
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Where's Microsoft's God of War / Heavenly Sword, Ratchett, Lair, SingStar, EyeToy stuff, and so on? BioShock, Mass Effect and Halo aren't bad titles, and I think I could enjoy Forza 2, but they'll need a lot more Viva Pinatas.
And f u, Microsoft, for your ridiculous peripherals policy. I know you want to make money, but show us you can do that through content and innovation. We already know you can do it by monopolising markets, but that's not something I am ready to support. Do more in the sense of bringing original download stuff, and building out Live, and become the hot new place for innovative new stuff. Right now, you're not it.
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The KZ2 trailer was nice but the H3 trailer beat it hands down.
And Marathon people! Best game to be released in years to come! ;p
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Eternal Sonata
Blue Dragon
Lost Oydessy
The new Viva Pinata
Scene IT
Fable (GOW3 aint coming out this year either)
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So all of those games, quite a few of which are exclusive, which can be played on a £200 console does not score any points?
Yes there were no new announcements, but with a xmas line up like that was anyone seriously expecting any? Perhaps some pre-rendered footage of a game some 2 years away would have got people more excited..
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Eternal Sonata
Blue Dragon
Lost Oydessy
The new Viva Pinata
Scene IT
Fable (GOW3 aint coming out this year either)
Thanks - I thought for a minute that I was the only one who noticed this.
And for me, the line-up looks great. Like some of the other people here, I wish I had more money to buy a lot more of these titles than I probably will!
And when you think that (allegedly) these are going to be released in the next 5-6 months, I think its a pretty impressive line-up.
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Nope.
Perhaps some pre-rendered footage of a game some 2 years away would have got people more excited
Now you're getting the picture.
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Perhaps I'm just old fashioned like that...
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Few of the AAA titles Sony will show will be out in 07, and many will be mid/late 08 at best.
Big deal... Sony wins E3, but as a 360 gamer I win this Xmas!
Arguably the biggest title (or maybe most important) Sony will show is Killzone 2, a game coming in 08 and has been been getting a mixed response.
Sure, I'd have loved a massive announcement like MGS 4 on 360 or an exclusive Final Fantasy RPG, but they could be saving some news for the next X0 event; or maybe MS are just happy with where they are right now in the market. Lets not forget, regardless of RRoD and other woes they are currently the market leader this generation.
Also, I don't understand the whole 'Xbox360 only has shooters and racing games' whinge.
Right now I'm really enjoying Overlord and Carcasonne, and loved Viva Pinata, Dead Rising, and Command and Conquer 3. That may only be five titles, but could they be any further from shooters or racing? One is exclusive, and I don't see the other's on the PS3.
Chuck in a load of great XBLA titles and you have a phenomenal mix of game types out right now, and a line-up set to really expand THIS year.
If this E3 proves anything it's that MS has all the bases covered up until Xmas at least.
So what genres are we really talking about? What's missing?
There's no doubt I'll pick up a PS3, but right now it looks more likely that E3 '08 may be a better time to pick one up.
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I'm not sure there's enough there to really persuade anyone who (like me) hasn't already felt tempted to buy a 360 and is weighing up the pros and cons of a PS3 or 360 that they should choose Microsoft now. I mean, there are certainly some great games there, but they're mostly shooters and RPGs with a few me-too party games thrown in for good measure. Nothing that isn't do-able on a last-gen machine if you lowered the polygon count enough.
Anyone with a decent gaming PC seems to be able to rely on the vast bulk of the best 360 titles getting ported over sooner or later too.
Factor in continuing build quality concerns; noisy drives; the cost of a Live subscription (vs PS3's free equivalent) and the fact the Blu-ray seems to have just about won the hi-def format war and I'm thinking PS3 just maybe tips the scales...?
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