Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: Microsoft E3 2007 press conference ...

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Microsoft E3 2007 press conference ...

A lot of stuff came out of tonight's E3 press conference from Microsoft.

You can catch live blogs over at Kotaku.com and Joystiq.com, and I'm sure more coherent summaries and analyses are on the way soon.

After frustrating efforts to get online, with Xbox.com / G4 (never connected); Gamespot.com (never advanced past commercial); and GameTap (un-usable audio and video) all striking out, 1Up.com came through (after a several repeated efforts).

And, honestly, I'm amazingly stoked that Golden Axe from SEGA is downloadable right now from Xbox Live Arcade (remember my XBLA list?). And I am amazingly pissed my Xbox is still in a service center somewhere in Southern Texas.

Anyway, Naruta is an exclusive to the 360, which was a surprise, and the video shown has got me hyped for the game.

And some live gameplay of Call of Duty 4 (prefaced with an unfortunately unintended double entendre) looks more stealthish than previous entries. But the big news is there's going to be an Xbox 360 exclusive beta. Go to www.charlieoscardelta.com/ for details. The site is traffic (carpet) bombed right now, so good luck. And there are not details yet.

On the other surprise, big-guns exclusives front, it sounds like the new Splinter Cell is hitting the 360 first, and possibly by a big spread. On the Grand Theft Auto front, there will be two new episodes for GTA IV exclusive to the 360 in spring 2008 (though this has been discussed before).

It sounded like they said Virtua Fighter 5 is only online on Xbox 360. That's surprising to me, so I need to verify.

I'm curious as to whether Capcom's 360 / zombie love is going to make Resident Evil 5 an at least timed exclusive (it's the one game shown tonight that's post this holiday season).

Assassin's Creed look and plays stunningly. It was showcased by Ubisoft producer Jade Raymond, who (while also stunning) makes me want to slap game geeks and tell them to grow up. But I'm the sure the game will rock. Y'know, because she's pretty.

And despite the Rah-rah, Games for Windows has been struggling, and creating kiosks and store fronts is a far cry from creating market share. But the announcement of new partners (SEGA, Eidos, etc.) gives the efforts wings, but nowhere near as much as the (badly kept secret) announcement of Gears of War for Windows Live (XP and Vista), which will include 5 new single player chapters, and new multiplayer maps (and at least one new gametype). No word on crossplay between Windows and Xbox 360.

People, of course, want Halo news. And we got a few of neat versions of it.

First, there was the unexpected live action short from Neill Blomkamp, with props from Studio Weta. Think a teaser trailer that hints at a "we're-taking-on-the-Deathstar" army preparation.

Second, in addition to Halo 3, September will see the release of a Halo 3-themed Xbox 360 and related accessories. How much trouble will I get in if I buy that one? Y'know, after I buy one of the 100 Simpsons limited editions off of eBay? (I think the green and the yellow will go nicely together.)

Then there was new Halo 3 campaign video and gameplay. It looks like the Arbiter is back, but is he playable (I'm OK with "no"; make him an AI squadmate, if you must)? And was that Brute wearing a jetpack before he got sniped? Can I do that (wear and jetpack; and probably get sniped)? Please?

E3 is a weird beast, and even weirder in its stripped down, more industry-internal focused state. But some of the big announcements seem to have been lightly received, which has got to be maddening for Microsoft.

Take, for example, that Disney (all studios -- Miramax, etc.) are making their films available in Hi-Def on Xbox Live Marketplace as of right now. Content is King, and if Sony isn't soiling themselves right now, it's probably because they hired someone to do it for them (I don't know what that means, either). But they have a huge library as well (especially from the MGM acquisition), so if they can get out from behind the eight ball, and the E3 PlayStation Service outage heralds something big (and not just a big screw up), they could be fine.

The second huge announcement is Games for Windows functionality will be built into the Unreal Engine 3 technology. That's right, now it's even easier for devs to make their code work on that platform, when they use the middleware that everyone and they're grandma is using (I mean that in a good way).

That's the brief skinny. Fallout should be hitting soon, and it's only 10.5 hours to Nintendo's press conference, and 12.5 until Sony's.

Labels: announcements, E3 2007, Microsoft, previews, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Live