Xbox Conference recap - E3 2010

Much like in previous years, Microsoft and Xbox was the first company to kick off E3 2010 proceedings. Things got underway on Sunday, with the premier of Project Natal (now Kinect). The event was hosted by Cirque de Soleil, who put on a great show. The next morning, the lineup of familiar faces was back, at a different venue. As everyone filled the theater, things got underway just 30 minutes past schedule – a much better result than the previous night’s >1 hour delay.

In an interesting decision, the conference kicked off with a new Call of Duty: Black Ops trailer. Following, the audience was given a live gameplay demonstration of two levels from the game – one taking place in tunnels underground, the other in a lush jungle. The underground level was short and focused on player reaction times more than anything. The second level was much more expansive. After storming a military camp, the main character and his comrade steal an enemy helicopter and fly up the river to give enemies a taste of their own rockets. It is an on-rails mission, with the player in control of the weapons while AI is flying the helicopter. Things blew up loudly, in a sea of explosions and fire. At the end of the demo, the helicopter you are riding was shot down, but that’s where it stopped.

Don Mattrick then took the stage, and announced that a multi-year agreement has been signed by Microsoft and Activision to bring all DLC and expansions to future Call of Duty titles on Xbox 360 first. Until 2012, all extra content will arrive on Xbox before anywhere else. Don continued the presentation by inviting Hideo Kojima on stage to introduce a new Metal Gear Solid: Rising announcement. The trailer followed, which showcased the game’s focus on cutting things with deadly accuracy. From cutting humans to watermelons, the game’s mechanics seemed very fluid, accurate and visually impressive.

Next up, Cliff Bleszinski took the stage to much applause from the audience. A live gameplay demo for Gears of War 3 was shown. The combat seemed familiar to previous Gears titles, and the visuals have remained about at the same level. The demo presented the audience with the new morphing enemy type, as well as the new Beserker. Peter Molyneux then took the stage for a short introduction to Fable 3, along with a new trailer. Lastly, a partnership between Microsoft and Crytek was announced, revealing a short live-action trailer for an Xbox exclusive game titled Project Kingdoms.

The press conference went on to announce tons of new motion-controlled titles that are coming this year to correspond with the launch of Kinect. However, the most impressive part of the device presentation was the voice-enabled control. Saying things like “Xbox – play movie” and watch it happen on screen is quite amazing, perhaps even more so than the motion tracking ability of the device. The camera that’s built-in allows for seamless video chat and ability to share content without losing the video feed. The device will ship on November 4th in North America, along with 15 launch titles.

On the network side of things, Microsoft highlighted their continued support of online features of LIVE. The major new announcement was made in regards to ESPN becoming available free of charge to Gold members. In an exclusive partnership with Microsoft, ESPN will bring hundreds of its live and on-demand broadcasts to all users of the service. This adds yet another massive feature to an already lengthy list of LIVE services, from Facebook to Twitter and Netflix.

Saving the best for last, and doing a darn good job to ensure that the news did not leak early, Microsoft has announced a new model of the Xbox 360. Featuring a larger hard drive, built in WiFi, and priced at the same level as the current model, the audience was amazed to hear that the unit was shipping to retailers today, and will be in stores by the end of the week. In addition, everyone that was at the conference will be receiving the device in the mail. Now that’s good marketing.