E3 2009: Microsoft

[admin]

Tis the season for gamers to be jolly as E3 '09 is in full swing. This week Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all had their big press releases bragging about themselves, their games, their upcoming peripherals, and basically trying to convince all of us that their console is the best. This is a summary of what Microsoft revealed.


Discuss "E3 2009: Microsoft" here. Read the article.

[GlocksRock]

I'm really excited about the new Halo games, and the Project Natal, I think that even though this tech is in it's infancy, it has lots of promise, and by the time the next gen consoles are out, this type of thing will be standard, and much more polished. I just hate that there are more and more periphials for all the games, and I don't want to have to buy a new gadget for every new game I get. But I am excited about the Tony Hawk: Ride game, as I used to be an avid skater.

[MinusTheBear]

I am looking forward to Crackdown 2. The first one was so fun and was very underrated IMO. I will also pay attention to FF, and I am glad more Halo games are comming out. I hope they will be an improvement over Halo 3 which was a little dissapointing. Sony losing exclusive rights to Metal is not a big shock. I love Tony Hawk games but not into peripherals, that would keep me from buying the game. I just want to play it with my standard xbox controller.

I like the innovation from Microsoft in regards to project natal and if exuceted properly can be the Wii/nintendo killer in time. Backwards compatibility is a huge advantage. I still wouldn't buy it, not my style. I am just hoping Microsofts new console that surpasses the 360 uses a standard controller for the majority of its games.

[Djizasse]

Forza 3 is expected to arrive in October 27th I'm drooling over this.
More info here.

I'll wait to see what developers will do with Project Natal.

[FirstReflection]

Xbox360's strength is Xbox Live! And thankfully, Microsoft seems to recognize this. They are WAY out in front of Sony's online attempts and Nintendo's non-existent online presence, but it's starting to look as though the Xbox is just turning into a Media PC while the actual Windows Media Centre is basically dying a slow death.

The bulk of the games are the same stuff that has made Xbox360 successful, so I can't blame them at all there. But they obviously did the same thing as Sony when they looked over at Nintendo raking in the cash and said, "hmmm...wethinks we'd like us some of that!"

Project Natal is just that: a project. Were they hoping that people would see it and stop buying Wiis while they wait for this thing to come out? Or were they trying to calm all the hardcore gamers (who don't want Wiis in the first place) by telling them, "don't worry...we'll have motion controls too"? But I'll at least give them credit for coming at it from a different angle and NOT introducing a "wand".

The "Milo" video was a scripted farce - so don't worry about Skynet Milo any time soon. As to the voice commands and facial recognition? Yeah...good luck with that. We'll have reliable Blu-ray quality 1080p streaming before that stuff works! Watch in amazement as you scream repeatedly at your television, waving your arms frantically and then get booted out of your account because your face turned red and the facial recognition freaked out! Joy

What's funny is how everyone always thinks that "Minority Report" controls would be cool - until you actually think about it a realize that everything can be done faster and far more precisely with a mouse! Waving your arms and talking to control things seems wonderful until you scroll past things you want because the motion sensing is laggy and imprecise, the voice control fails to recognize commands and you get Gorilla Arm from trying to hold your arms in the air all the time to drive your invisible, intangible car steering wheel!

So go ahead and throw Natal into the Xbox720. Everyone will get a kick out of it for 24 hours and then go back to regular control, but it will certainly help to sell consoles and make for some great looking ads.

[MinusTheBear]

I like what Microsoft is doing right now if their vision is to keep Natal as a perpherial that can be used by itself as well as be implemented with the xbox 360 consoles games and hardware and the future xbox console. If they can do this I think Microsoft will be a force to be reckoned with.

[acacia987]

My big problem with netflix is the quality of the majority movies is really bad (its not my internet connection). The STARS ones in particular.

[Bluesmoke]

I'm really excited about the Splinter Cell game as well as the Valve side scroller game. Halo looks to be fun as well.