E3 2008 Announcements (News Added 7/17)

[Shawn-XBA]

E3 is here, some big announcements today. Check them out:


Monday, July 14th:


Banjo-Kazooie Coming to XBLA (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9120.html)

60GB Xbox 360 Confirmed With 20GB Price Slash (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9119.html)

Fable 2 Co-Op Details (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9118.html)

Details Unveiled for Fall Dashboard Update (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9117.html)

Netflix Comes Exclusively to Xbox Live (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9116.html)

Xbox Live Sees Growth (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9115.html)

Rock Band 2 Complete Track List Revealed (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9114.html)

SEGA Announces Stormrise (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9113.html)

Gears of War 2 Release Date Announced (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9112.html)

Final Fantasy XIII Coming to Xbox 360 (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9111.html)

Fallout 3 DLC Announced (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9110.html)

Microsoft Confirms Lips for the Xbox 360 (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9109.html)

Resident Evil 5 Release Date Announced (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9108.html)

Microsoft Announces New Xbox Live Interface (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9106.html)

Too Human Demo on Live Now (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9107.html)


Tuesday, July 15th:


Something’s Brewing at Bungie (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9122.html)

Dead Space Release Date Moved Up (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9123.html)

Microsoft Press Conference Round-Up (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9124.html)

Soulcalibur IV Goes Gold (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9125.html)

Tales of Vesperia Demo Available on XBL (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9126.html)

Namco Announces Museum: Virtual Arcade (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9127.html)

Flock! Announced for XBLA (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9128.html)

Activision Announces Partnership with Metallica (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9129.html)


Wednesday, July 16th:


Bungie Gets Pulled From E3 (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9130.html)

Quantum of Solace (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9132.html)

Rock Band 2’s Big Challenge (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9133.html)

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows – New Details (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9134.html)

Ubisoft Unveils I Am Alive (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9135.html)

Lost Planet Movie Confirmed (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9136.html)

Bungie Making New Halo Title (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9137.html)

Activision Announces Singularity (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9138.html)


Thurday, July 17th:

Mercenaries 2 Updated Impressions (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9140.html)

NBA 2K9 First Look (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9141.html)

Fable 2 Main Story Only 12 Hours Long (http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/../news/9142.html)


I'll be updating throughout the week.

[Ainokeatoo]

HELL YEAH I can't wait for the new dashboard *swoons*

[Omen28]

Fallout 3 is going to be amazing. I have seen both demos, the one especially for G4 and the one at the press conference. I can't wait for this game, so far thats the biggest thing I'm looking forward to.

[SpaceGhost2K]

Well I have to do this somewhere, so it might as well be in this thread.

SPACEGHOST2K'S E3 2008 RECAP

Be warned, there are a lot of write-ups out there and a lot of press releases that were made about the content, so I'm not going to be going in order, or into details, or whatever. I'm going to write about the parts that made impressions on me, good and bad.

First, doors were supposed to open at 9:30 with the event at 10:30. The doors didn't open until about 10:00. First note to Microsoft - not letting peopel in when you say you're going to let them in is NOT the way to endear yourself to a crowd that you're trying very hard to impress.

We see some familiar faces: Trixie from Xbox Live, Mark Rein from Epic, etc. Cure girls in white tops with green rings on one hip. Lots of black clothing. :)

We snake around and get in. The entire West Hall, which used to house Sony AND Nintendo AND a whole bunch of other companies, has a bleacher setup right in the middle of this enormous room, shrouded in black drapes. It was actually sad, remembering how glorious the room used to be.

We grab a seat, and watch some video clips that are supposed to be people off the street interviewed with video game related questions. No one I talked to thought they were anything but actors.

Lights go down, Don Mattrick comes out. He talks about the heavy hitters coming out: Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, Fable 2 and Gears 2.

All five of them looked great.

Fallout 3 is being promoted as a funny, post-apocalypse, 100 hour game. I like Morrowind and Oblivion, and I like the huge world of Fallout, but I'm not sure I'm going to like the context of the game. I get to see it more tomorrow. It looked like the only thing "funny" is the marketing though. I didn't get it out of the game at all.

Resident Evil 5 has a great co-op mode where's not just two people going through side by side, but actually needing the other to get through the game. The character movement was super realistic and believable.

Fable 2 showed the great drop-in co-op function. You see images of all of your friends who are playing the game at the same time. You can walk up to one of them and click and they're in your game. I really felt like he was rushed through his presentation, like he was only there because he had to be.

Cliff Bleszinski showed a new level of Gears 2. It froze before he walked across a bridge, so they restarted the level. A couple of people thought that it was a recorded playthrough because the part he replayed looked identical, but I've seen other presentations of the same game (different level) that went the same way. It was pretty cool, especially their frustration with the sideways elevator.

Then we got the stats, with the Wii console sales right on their tail but still claiming victory. They're still clearly ahead in game sales and third party game sales though.

I don't remember the exact order of the rest of this stuff so I'll just go over it.

You know all those gamer pics and themes you bought with all those MS points? Garbage. As of fall. This fall, with the fall update, we get our own little people that we get to make look like us. They'll be everywhere, in place of your gamerpic, in "parties" that you can set up. These parties can chat together, travel across games together... and even watch movies together.

Which brings up the Netflix story. This is news that excited me. If you have Netflix, you can get your downloads through Live instead of your PC, and watch them on your tv... instead of your PC. For no extra charge. To clarify though, you have to have LIVE AND Netflix to get access to THOSE movies over LIVE. Better yet, if there are up to eight people in your "party", you can all watch the same movie over eight different consoles. I assume that means that only one person has to have Netflix, but that could be wrong. Just doesn't seem like much of a feature if you're all just streaming the same movie.

NBC and SciFi channel shows are coming to LIVE along with Universal movies.

They showed a short clip of Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise that showed how the live cam would work. They showed a short clip of Banjo Kazooie, which seems to be an attempt to pacify the people who keep saying it's not a platformer. Very little of the vehicle aspect was shown. They did mention that the original Banjo Kazooie would be released over LIVE Arcade - which keeps hope alive for Perfect Dark, even if it'll still be a cold day in hell before Goldeneye comes over.

LIPS was revealed as a karaoke game that allows you to use your own music from your Zune or iPod. Not sure where the lyrics will come from but it takes the vocals out for you. They brought singer Duffy up to sing one of her own songs. There are times you need to move the mic around for effect and points.

Then there was "You're In The Movies" or something like that. You play a bunch of mini games with the LIVE cam, and the Xbox cuts the videos of you and your friends into little "B" movies. It was kinds cute, but unless they've got 100 movies or more, it's going to get old FAST. The game comes with the cam.

Finally they brought out the Pres. of Square Enix, who showed Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean, The Last Remnant and finally, the biggest megaton of them all, Final Fantasy is coming to the Xbox 360. The importance of this can NOT be understated. This is HUGE and was really the only point in the entire press briefing that got a rise out of the crowd... and for that, I have to give the conference a "C" grade. I'm glad people get their party chat, the original Banjo news is bigger than new Banjo news, Netflix is huge, and FFXIII is monsterously huge.

I guess we know now why there was no Spring dashboard update. Why fix something yu're throwing away in six months?

I do have to say that Microsoft gave us some awesome swag on our way out the door.... an Xbox-branded laptop skin. Wha? Yeah, I said that, too. Not even an Xbox accessory, but a LAPTOP accessory. I mean, EA gave us a notebook and a 1 GB thumbdrive with their assets on it.

I haven't seen the biggest part of the show yet, which is the actual show floor, but this is what I've noticed: Stingy swag, minimal displays, developers doing their own things before and after E3 elsewhere (Microsoft's own Spring Showcase, LucasArts open house two weeks ago in SF for Force Unleashed, QuakeCon, etc.) I'm about to believe this really is the end of E3.

[Variation-XBA]

The FF news was absolutely HUGE, so I'm interested to see what Sony's BIG thing is.

I LOVE the new dashboard/avatars/party mode!

The new games coming this year is AWESOME

Fable co-op system in place is brilliant.

I really hope they don't screw us Canadians with the Netflix thing, but I don't see it launching for us anywhere near the same time (The Video marketplace was almost a year behind)

[cin84_12]

The new dash looks awful. I paid too much for pics and themes for this garbage. And what's up with the wannabe Miis? They looks childish. No thanks MS.

[wicked_d365]

:yikes: WOW. So far I'm in shock. I love the new dashboard, can't wait to see it in action. The avatars are a little cartoonish, but a nice add.
Can't wait for Gears 2, Rock Band 2, Dead Space, GH:World Tour, Mirrors Edge, RE:5, and Banjo, all look beautiful. Gonna have to start saving some money, gonna drop alot of coin this fall.

[JarkMan]

DARN YOU MICROSOFT they stole my idea with the red controller with black bottom DARN THEM!!! should have gotton that pattened

[cin84_12]

You know all those gamer pics and themes you bought with all those MS points? Garbage. As of fall. This fall, with the fall update, we get our own little people that we get to make look like us. They'll be everywhere, in place of your gamerpic, in "parties" that you can set up. These parties can chat together, travel across games together... and even watch movies together.


Yeah I'm really not happy about this. I've paid a lot for all my pics and themes and now they're obsolete. They should have told gamers that it was coming. How much money have they made off of themes and pics up until now? The new dash looks gross. I like the one I made. I hope there's an option to not update the dash and still be able to use Live. I really don't like any of the 'new' stuff they've come out with.

[Omen28]

:yikes: WOW. So far I'm in shock. I love the new dashboard, can't wait to see it in action. The avatars are a little cartoonish, but a nice add.
Can't wait for Gears 2, Rock Band 2, Dead Space, GH:World Tour, Mirrors Edge, RE:5, and Banjo, all look beautiful. Gonna have to start saving some money, gonna drop alot of coin this fall.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to get a job sooner than I thought cause of all these new games. But I want to see how they are going to let people burn games to their hard drive, cause if I could do that I wold just get my games from Gamefly and burn them on my console cause I have an elite. But I don't see why they would do that because you would have a lot of people doing what I would do, Then they wouldn't sell any, all the games are just going to be rented. So I want to see how they are going to do that. And I can't wait for all of what you said too.:cheers:

[Variation-XBA]

Yeah I'm really not happy about this. I've paid a lot for all my pics and themes and now they're obsolete. They should have told gamers that it was coming. How much money have they made off of themes and pics up until now?

You can still use your themes and gamerpics. You can have an avatar OR gamerpic that you own/bought, so they arnt going to waste, so loosen those panties.


But I want to see how they are going to let people burn games to their hard drive, cause if I could do that I wold just get my games from Gamefly and burn them on my console cause I have an elite. But I don't see why they would do that because you would have a lot of people doing what I would do, Then they wouldn't sell any, all the games are just going to be rented.

You still need the disc in your drive even if you install it onto your harddrive.


I paid too much for pics and themes for this garbage.

You can still use your themes and gamerpics. The avatars will be the suggestions, but you can still use any pics you have/bought.

[Omen28]

You still need the disc in your drive even if you install it onto your hard drive.

Then what's the point of burning it to your hard drive?

[Ry]

Then what's the point of burning it to your hard drive?

Faster loading times

[Omen28]

Faster loading times

Thats it? How much space would they take up?

[Ry]

Thats it? How much space would they take up?

No idea

[cin84_12]

You can still use your themes and gamerpics. You can have an avatar OR gamerpic that you own/bought, so they arnt going to waste, so loosen those panties.

Yeah but will the full dashboard redo be optional? It looks awful.

[SpaceGhost2K]

You can have the classic dashboard with your gamerpics or the new dashboard with the Avatars. As I now understand it.

Let's say you save a game on your HDD. You have to have the disc in the drive still. It spins the disc to verify that you have it and then you play the rest off the HDD. The disc drive is noisy and breaks. HDD's are quiet and rarely break. You would want to load every game on your HDD that gave you the option, and just uninstall the ones you aren't playing at the moment so they dont' eat your HDD space.

[Shawn-XBA]

Here's a few pics of the new dashboard with themes:

http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/2439/xlive1da3.jpg

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9034/xlive2it7.jpg

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/7581/xlive3hu1.jpg

I'm really looking forward to the new dashboard. The new party system is a huge addition, glad to see you can finally chat with more than just one friend. Primetime looks like its going to be a very cool addition. I really like the new look, looks like its going to be easier to navigate. I don't mind the addition of the avatars, however I would have liked for them to be a little less cartoony.

Now to talk about games, Fable 2 looks amazing. Can't wait till October, glad to hear it is finished. Gears of War 2 looks badass, 5-player co-op is going to be awesome. Resident Evil 5, love the co-op, glad to see both players have to work together to get through the game. Fallout 3 looks good, but I still need to see more before I decide to pick it up.

Never really been a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series so I can't say that I'm that excited for it, however I am glad to see Microsoft getting some PS3 exclusive titles. Now if only Metal Gear Solid would come to the 360, I'd be very happy.

[Enamelized420]

I like the new look of the dashboard as I think the Blade system was just very bland and pretty much boring even with themes. I would also have to agree having a party of up to 8 friends that can enjoy gaming together, watching a Movie or just chatting it up..
As Spacey mentioned I've understood that you can still keep the old blade system or upgrade to the new Dashboard which I think some are not ready for change and will keep the old look.

[wicked_d365]

I love the new features coming. Can't wait for the update. Like Enamalized said, the blades are boring. I use my own pics for wallpaper, but still boring.
I love the 1 vs. 100 idea. I like that show, thats gonna be a ton of fun. The new Uno looks sweet too.
The party thing is sweet too. We can all be linked together without a game, how sweet, and the Netflix thing, thats was icing on the cake. I gotta sign back up for it again now.
Microsoft has been doing very well with the 360, but I think with all this new content, along with the sweet lineup of games coming out, MS is going to blow the PS3 away. Sony has nothing left for themselves, what, Gran Tourismo, Motostorm, Resistance, and Infamous. :rofl: Their press conf was boring, offered nothing exciting, made me want a PS3 even less.

[cin84_12]

I'm worried about how the new dash/avatars will look on my POS television.

[SpaceGhost2K]

I have been running myself ragged for almost four months, and July isn't over yet.

- In April, I went to Seattle for the MVP Summit.
- In May, I drove to San Francisco for the Microsoft Spring Showcase.
- In June, I drove my family to LAX so they could fly back east.
- Also in June, I drove BACK to LAX to pick them up.
- In July, I drove again to San Francisco to see Star Wars: The Force Unleashed at the LucasArts studios.
- I drove to Pismo Beach for the Fourth of July.
- I drove to Los Angeles for E3.
- I drove to San Diego for the Video Games Live concert and Comic-Con.

During all of this driving, I made multiple trips to Visalia to see/pick up/drop off my kids.
I saw The Who perform at E3's Rock Band party.
I saw WALL-E twice.
I saw Batman The Dark Knight twice, once was the first showing at midnight on IMAX.
I just found out that a local game store needs a manager. Today was actually supposed to be the final round of interviews for the top three candidates, and I may have just snuck in under the wire. The man doing the interviews was another local manager, and his response to my resume was "I'll get this pushed through and I'll take care of you." Read into that whatever you want to, but with the bank basically not hiring right now, I'd jump on this in a heartbeat. Keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway, I suppose you want to know how any of that relates to the thread. Well, part of it does concern E3, and I came into this thread after having read Peter Moore's response to "Go big or go home."

Before we can "fix" E3, we have to know what the problems are.

1) There are certain attendees who are valuable because they're press/media/retail. These people have needs. Then there are other certain attendees who are valuable because of the hype generation. Not to be rude, but they're the "bottom feeders." They're necessary, but in a more indirect and immeasurable way than the other attendees. These people also have needs, but their needs are different than the needs of the others. Can one event meet the needs of two distinct groups of people?

2) At Comic-Con, there's a hundred different things to do: get stuff signed, have artists draw things for you, look at and buy comics, or toys, or shirts. Play games. Sit in on panel discussions. Watch videos. Look at people in costumes. But at E3, people really only want to do one thing: Play games. You can't have sixty thousand kiosks for sixty thousand attendees, so what happens? You end up with people staking out places in line where they spend a lot of time doing NOTHING, just so they can spend a little time doing SOMETHING.

3) People can only work so many hours per week, and how do you address both groups if you only have one set of workers?

4) People want to buy stuff at Comic-Con. People want swag (literally "stolen while at gig" but has come to mean any giveaway stuff) from E3.

5) People can get signatures at Comic-Con from just about anyone. People can NOT get Cliffy B's signature at E3, and unless they've got binoculars, they probably won't see him talking at the G4 booth, either.

---

It's my conclusion that the "regular gamers" don't care if they don't get behind closed doors, if the stuff they want to see isn't behind closed doors. Get my drift? There is business to be done behind closed doors that gamers don't give a damn about: purchasing, media interviews, marketing plans, etc. It's when the Halo Wars demo is only behind closed doors that they want to get back there.

One solution: put the stuff they want to see, out there where they can see it. THEN they're not in your way while you're doing the business you need to get done.

Gamers WILL accept that they're not going to get their hands on everything, but at the very least, you have to let them see it with their own two eyes.

-----

SO... here is my solution.

FIRST: Make it a five day event, Monday through Friday. Monday is dedicated to the press briefings of the Big Three only, while workers finish up the larger task of getting the show floor ready to go. Give the VIP's a chance to get in on their flights on Monday. Start Monday off with the MS briefing after noon, say from 1 to 2:30. Move to the Sony conference from 3:30 to 5. Break for dinner. Nintendo gets the evening slot from 7-8:30.

SECOND: Only show the good stuff during the conferences. There will be no third party conferences. There's no point. Anyone who attended the snorefest that was Capcom's "Lost Planet: The Movie" conference will agree with me. Anyone who attended UbiSoft's "Imagine" For Girls presentation will agree with me. And anyone who sat through that second act of the Microsoft conference will agree with me that that space would have been beter utilized by big title third party games, then minor title first party games. I mean, where was Mass Effect 2, or Halo Wars, KOTOR MMO which was anounced minutes AFTER E3, or Beyond Good and Evil 2? Or those other Bungie titles? GTA IV DLC?

Let the Big Three fill their 1.5 hours with the best stuff coming for their systems, and third party conferences will be even less necessary then they are right now.

THIRD: Go with more theaters and less play space. Limit the playable games to games that are near completion and can be put on multiple machines and given access to the masses. Leave the other games for presentations in mini-theaters that house enough people that you don't have to block out a whole afternoon to get into them.

FOURTH: Have liberal autograph times with the video game celebs. As hard as this might be to swallow, people WANT to get their games signed by Will Wright, Tim Schafer, Peter Molyneux, Cliffy B, Jade Redmond, Peter Moore, Shane Kim, Kojima-san, Itagaki-san, Sakaguchi-san, etc. LET THEM. Stop hiding them behind closed doors except for a quick trip to talk with Adam Sessler.

FIVE: Give stuff away. Make it part of the budget. Don't restrict it to VIP's. It doesn't have to be huge. Your marketing people are paid good money to have imaginations. Make them use them.

SIX: Have stuff to sell. Shirts. Game wallets. Faceplates. Skins. Cell phone thingies that blink. Go even bigger. Offer original game art. You know, that stuff that's going to get thrown away anyway. Run off a few extra color copies, get them signed by the team, and sell them. If nobody buys them, THEN throw them away. Or eBay them and fund Psychonauts 2 with it.

(Psst... having stuff to sell helps offset the enormous cost of the event. Who's idea was it to NEVER do this?)

SEVEN: Offer some reasonable food options. A 16 oz. bottle of water for $3.75? B.S. All that does is encourage people to LEAVE and the idea is to get them to STAY. Kentia Hall needs to be 1/4 space devotes to more food options and 1/4 LESS space devoted to garage-made PC games.

EIGHT: This should be higher on the list, but whatever. I'm not renumbering them. Close the doors except to VIP's from 8 AM to 12 PM, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. VIP's get the run of the place in the morning, with no "bottom feeders" getting in the way. Then in the afternoon, it's open to anyone who wants to pay $100 to get in, and the VIP's can do whatever they want to. This frees up the Cliffy B's to meet the "bottom feeders". Friday, 8 AM to 4 PM, open to the "bottom feeders" and show closes at 4.

----

WHAT WILL THIS DO? HOW WILL THIS HELP?

It will allow for one on one time with the VIP's to get business done with no distractions by the regular gamers

It will allow the common gamer to see game presentations just like the VIP's, meet celebs just like the VIP's, and get their hands on games just like the VIP's, but without stepping on the VIP's toes.

It will increase the amount of internet chatter about the games because more people were exposed to them.

It will allow for an extra source of income to offset the cost of the event.

It allows you to kill two bird at one event, without having to hold a Spring Showcase, Quake Con, Blizz Con, EA Days, etc.

Anyway... long post, just my two cents, and I just got a call back from the store guy so I have to go.