E3 2010 - Microsoft: New 360, Kinect & More

[YSSMAN]

E3 2010 - Microsoft: The New 360, Kinect & Much More

Just hours ago Microsoft wrapped up their press conference out in Los Angeles, the first of the 2010 E3 conference, which is expected to be one of the largest shows in its history. This year, the XBOX 360 rolls past its five year anniversary, and Microsoft is looking to keep their money train rolling with more of their massive first-party titles, big announcements on 360 exclusives, the new Kinetic (Project Natal) motion controller and... Updated hardware.


Some of the big highlights:

Kinetic is Going to be EVERYWHERE​

Microsoft was careful not to announce how much the new motion controller will be, but they were happy to point out that it will radically change the way in which we interact with our XBOX 360's. There will be full Minority Report-like control of the dashboard, with instant recognition of users and voice control. If there was ever a way in which to make me sound like even more of a Trek nerd, telling my computer to do something, this is it. Other things like video chat will be included, and it will work across multiple Microsoft platforms as well.

Kinetic Kinect will launch on November 4th for an undisclosed sum, and will have fifteen titles specifically designed for it ready at launch. Things like Ubsisofts YourShape look to take the fitness games to a whole new level, Turn 10 is looking to integrate the software to work as a steering wheel and head-sensing option, as well as having an interactive showroom to fiddle with the car. Otherwise, most of the other games are typical Nintendo Wii/Sony Move style motion control games.

ESPN Joins with XBOX Live​

This introduction was completely unexpected, as the rumor had been that Hulu was getting an XBOX Live release. Still, you are going to be able to access ESPN content over Live which will match interactive features with live content across the Live network. Most of it will be in High Definition and will include a wide variety of sports, including NCAA football and basketball, NBA and MLB games, along with "soccer" (presumably MLS and some EPL events).

As usual, Kinect will be at the center stage and will continue to offer full voice control and motion control of the content as it plays on your screen. That means you can call up replays instantly, interact with your friends with different bits of trivia, and take sides in some matches while letting everyone else know. Microsoft did not mention a launch date for the service, but it would be safe to assume that it would come near the Kinect launch time. Best of all, its included for free with your XBOX Live Gold membership.

We've Got Exclusives, Baby​

Right off the bat, Microsoft got down to business announcing that all of the upcoming Activision Call of Duty titles will not only have exclusive DLC content available on the 360 first, but the titles themselves will be exclusively available first on 360 in 2010, 2011 and 2012. This apparently includes Call of Duty: Black Ops in that mix. Of course some of that might not be as important given that most of the Call of Duty guys have left Infinity Ward, but these are still some of the biggest titles industry-wide. Money hats are being given out by Microsoft, apparently.

Hideo Koijima showed off the new Metal Gear Solid: Rising, demonstrating a new "Cut and Take" philosophy that has you slicing and dicing your way through the game as Raiden with his fancy new suit from Metal Gear 4. Things look pretty crazy, however there was no mention of a release date for the game.

Then, the old standbys were trotted out. We saw our first glimpse of the new Gears of War III which appeared to be plenty intense (I haven't touched it since the first game), as well as the hotly anticipated Halo: Reach which will have most of the standard Halo nonsense... BUT WITH SPACE COMBAT (!!!).

Otherwise, Microsoft didn't show a lot in the way of games. Which is somewhat strange. Hmmm.

New Hardware - THIS WEEK, SRSLY​

Microsoft, at the very end of the conference, surprised few by showing off their new/updated hardware which had leaked the day before. Then, they proceeded to surprise everyone by announcing that they were shipping TODAY and that they'd be in stores by the end of the week. How much? The same $299 you expect to pay for the current Elite system.

So, what's new? Well, its smaller, lighter and more quiet by the system that has preceded it. The new 360 will have 8.02.11 b/g/n WiFi built-in, along with a standard 250 GB HDD to store everything you would ever want. System cooling has been dramatically changed, requiring one fewer fan, giving the system a new "Whisper-Quiet" title from Microsoft (I'll have to see it to believe it). Otherwise, everything is almost all the same. New switches, more USB ports, and so on. You better like it, because this is it. The old 360 is dead. Party.

 

[Daverytimes]

Gotta say am disappointed with Microsoft and their E3 showing, nothing really surprising and the lack of proper first party games made it worse. anyways, is not like i expected much from them anyway, but with the way things ended in their conference my best bet will be to say that they have lost this E3, SONY FTW.

 

[eSZee]

I'm watching the recording now and I gotta say, an hour into it and I've yet to see anything interesting, besides black ops.
The 3 years COD exclusivity is nice, I guess, but doesn't interest me.
Skiiiiiiitles!

 

[YSSMAN]

It sounds like Microsoft will be riding on third party publishers for most of their games this year, aside from what they are doing with Kinect and so on. Halo will sell like gangbusters, as will Gears of War, and they'll go from there.

Of course, more news tends to slip out later into the conference. We'll see what happens.

 

[LaBounti]

My favorite part and the only part that got my sitting up from my prone position was Tre Wingo and his Buckeye banter, I love OSU!!!

I'm happy to see MS Future proofing the hardware, doing away with the old ext. HDD standard, 5 usb ports and adding Wi-Fi. Finally they have a modern system aside from the power brick.

I think im the only one that found it funny that the Xbox360 Arcade systems will be discounted into extinction like the pro system But they made it seem like it was a deal. So this will be the second time in gaming history that a console will go up in in price after reduction once they are sold out. (xbox went from $149 to $179 by including a $20 game).

 

[Moglet]

I love that new 360, I'm already thinking about trading my console in for one just for the noise reduction!

Kinect is looking interesting but not something I'd ever consider buying. I'm hoping to have a go on it fairly soon though after my girlfriend let slip that they have one for testing at work.

 

[Joey D]

I think the Kinect is stupid, I don't want motion controlling games...ever. I play video games to sit on my ass and be lazy, not move around. It's probably why I never play my Wii any more, I didn't like the idea of moving to game. It'll probably be overpriced and gimmicky too....but it will more than likely sell like hot cakes.

The 360 Slim though is awesome. It's everything the 360 should have been all along. I would really consider buying one if I still played console games for any real amount of time. It's even a really neat looking design, but why in god's name did they make it piano black? Manufactures should be banned from making anything in piano black since all it's going to do is get uber dusty and show a gazillion finger prints.

 

[LaBounti]

Its ok Joey, that thing cleary was only intended for fitness games and cute little girls. OMG I will never get the name "Skittles" out of my head.

Pass for me.

 

[NissanSkylineN1]

How much smaller is the new 360? Also, if you pay $300 for a 250 GB, and $400 for a 250 GB PS3, wouldn't you save money if you buy the PS3 for 2 years thanks to $60 per year XBL?

 

[LaBounti]

You can count on Sony countering this with a new price and a bigger drive, BUT you can easily upgrade the HDD to your liking since day 1. And lets not forget PS3 will always have a Blu-ray drive. So with that said 120GB PS3 is still a better option(over the 250).

 

[YSSMAN]

How much smaller is the new 360? Also, if you pay $300 for a 250 GB, and $400 for a 250 GB PS3, wouldn't you save money if you buy the PS3 for 2 years thanks to $60 per year XBL?

Depends on how you want to look at it. In my opinion, Microsoft still has a stronger title catalog and a much better online experience. The $50 a year for LIVE (works out to $4 a month) is well worth it IMO, especially now that they are adding the ESPN functionality along with the current integration with Windows Media Center and so on. There have been rumors of a Hulu add-on for some time, and should those ever turn out to be true, at least in the US anyway, it completely negates any need for a cable subscription. At my house, that's a lot of cash per month.

Otherwise, its all personal preferences.

 

[RACECAR]

Meh, nothing really impressive in my eyes other then MGS Rising. However, nothing will top what I heard during the Gears Of War 3 demo. "Did we fry that B:censored:?"

 

[Terronium-12]

Meh, nothing really impressive in my eyes other then MGS Rising. However, nothing will top what I heard during the Gears Of War 3 demo. "Did we fry that B:censored:?"

Really, you didn't find Future Soldier to be mind-numbingly awesome?

 

[RACECAR]

Really, you didn't find Future Soldier to be mind-numbingly awesome?

Was that the one with the snow and the soldiers with the invisble camoflage armor? I kinda lost track with alot of the games but now that you mention it, that was pretty impressive.

 

[LaBounti]

Microsoft still has a stronger title catalog

To me the 360 games are like bread and butter, they have the fanbase and they will keep feeding them the same, over and over and over again. Where with PS3, the new ip games dont cater to a fanbase. In fact the fanbase can be pretty low, but the games are still amazing.

MGS Rising did make me swear a few time when i saw that soldier get diced up, man that was brutal.

 

[RACECAR]

MGS Rising did make me swear a few time when i saw that soldier get diced up, man that was brutal.

Yeah, that was insane. And then at the end, in usual random Kojima fashion, they show Raidan slicing Watermelons

 

[CodeRedR51]

Money hats are being given out by Microsoft, apparently.

I don't play the Call of Duty games, but this just down right pisses me off.

 

[RACECAR]

I'm watching the recording now and I gotta say, an hour into it and I've yet to see anything interesting, besides black ops.
The 3 years COD exclusivity is nice, I guess, but doesn't interest me.
Skiiiiiiitles!

I just saw that and looked like this the entire time I was watching it

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

Kinetic will launch on November 4th for an undisclosed sum, and will have fifteen titles specifically designed for it ready at launch. Things like Ubsisofts YourShape look to take the fitness games to a whole new level, Turn 10 is looking to integrate the software to work as a steering wheel and head-sensing option, as well as having an interactive showroom to fiddle with the car. Otherwise, most of the other games are typical Nintendo Wii/Sony Move style motion control games.

"KINECT" (like yourself, I suspect many people are going to get very confused over the name) looked interesting, but I tend to agree with what the E3 commentators, Adam Sessler, Morgan Webb, and Kevin Pereira, said on G4:

By the name of it I'm not a big fan of that. It's a very strange name that they gave it, but I have to say that there are two things that are standing out. It's not jumping out at me that there is something that much different than what the Wii has and the fact that the games themselves seem to look very familiar to what we have seen on the Wii there seems to be a a paucity of imagination. And more importantly, what has always worked for Nintendo, there is just a charm that they understand. Those Miis are kind of charming and get you to smile and it carries the simplistic gameplay. Where as here these avatars are just kind of big headed and scary.

They are neither adult nor are they childish. They try to skate that fine line between them, and what happens is that they don't succeed on either level. Playing with your avatar, awkwardly pubescent virtual representations of ourselves, isn't going to be very satisfying.

I was actually really frustrated by this press conference, and upset by it. They gave us what we wanted at the very beginning and then they did Yoga for the rest of the time. Then Lollipop showed up to video chat with her friend.

You know I said, look if you missed the Microsoft press conference you can just fire up your DVR and see the Wii conference from 2008, and the Twitter-verse exploded because they seemed to believe it is magical and revolutionary like everything Apple does, but it's Microsoft in this case.

I look at it and go listen, it may have implications down the road, but the applications that were shown off today seemed like carbon copies of things we have already done on Nintendo's console. (which in themselves were similar to things we could do using the PlayStation Eye Toy years ago)

Right off the bat, Microsoft got down to business announcing that all of the upcoming Activision Call of Duty titles will not only have exclusive DLC content available on the 360 first, but the titles themselves will be exclusively available first on 360 in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

If that's what they announced it was apparently a mistake (are you sure that's what they said?):

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 recently saw its map packs get an early release on the 360 [one month]. That will be the standard approach for all "Call of Duty" content in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Starting with the release of 'Black Ops' on November 9, all 'Call of Duty' add-ons and map packs will launch first on Xbox 360.

(source)

I don't believe there was any mention of any COD titles being exclusive to 360 or being released for the 360 first, and even the add-ons will only be "exclusive" for one month. So I don't suspect this is going to be a big issue even among die hard COD fans.

Otherwise, Microsoft didn't show a lot in the way of games. Which is somewhat strange. Hmmm.

You left out Fable III which is likely going to be a great game!

So, what's new? Well, its smaller, lighter and more quiet by the system that has preceded it. The new 360 will have 8.02.11 b/g/n WiFi built-in, along with a standard 250 GB HDD to store everything you would ever want. System cooling has been dramatically changed, requiring one fewer fan, giving the system a new "Whisper-Quiet" title from Microsoft (I'll have to see it to believe it). Otherwise, everything is almost all the same. New switches, more USB ports, and so on. You better like it, because this is it. The old 360 is dead. Party.

I like the new design (although as Fat PS3 owners learned, glossy black cases are a dust and fingerprint magnet), and the beefed up features are long over due. Although I'm definitely concerned that they are using an integrated CPU/GPU processor.

While they mentioned that the new 360 will finally have a swappable HDD, they didn't mention if it will support 3rd party HDD like the PS3 always has, instead of just the way over priced MS branded HDDs. Considering Microsoft used to charge $200 for a 120GB drive, I'd hate to think how much they might charge for a 500GB HDD - which for anyone downloading a lot of content, especially videos, may need depending on how many hours worth of videos they download and want to keep.

 

[Moglet]

While they mentioned that the new 360 will finally have a swappable HDD, they didn't mention if it will support 3rd party HDD like the PS3 always has, instead of just the way over priced MS branded HDDs. Considering Microsoft used to charge $200 for a 120GB drive, I'd hate to think how much they might charge for a 500GB HDD - which for anyone downloading a lot of content, especially videos, may need depending on how many hours worth of videos they download and want to keep.

I've been told that this one won't support 3rd party HDD. It's not been confirmed I don't think but that's what was apparently keyed in the spec when the motherboard was leaked. Bad move, Microsoft. 👎

 

[RACECAR]

Somehow, I can't say I'm surprised if they don't allow for third party HDDs. When it comes to their console, they are just like Apple with their exclusivity.

 

[Terronium-12]

Well, technically it probably will support 3rd party hard drives (whether official or not) you'll just have to extract the compatibility files.

Is it a pain in tush? Well, yeah.

 

[chromatic9]

Be careful not to move the 360 when its on.

 

[Terronium-12]

Be careful not to move the 360 when its on.

Well, that's always been a caution. Did the guy think the disc was floating in mid-air or something...there is a tray under it, y'know?

 

[RACECAR]

Be careful not to move the 360 when its on.

Oh dear, are you kidding me?

 

[Moglet]

Oh dear, are you kidding me?

No, and it's not a big issue really is it? There are plenty of warnings about it on the console and in the booklet, and why would you ever need to move it while the disc is spinning?!

 

[RACECAR]

No, and it's not a big issue really is it? There are plenty of warnings about it on the console and in the booklet, and why would you ever need to move it while the disc is spinning?!

Thats pretty much why I said that.

 

[FoolKiller]

No, and it's not a big issue really is it? There are plenty of warnings about it on the console and in the booklet, and why would you ever need to move it while the disc is spinning?!

I think the bigger issue now is that Microsoft just introduced a peripheral that encourages children to dance and flail about in the vicinity of the 360. I can see Kinectimals and whatever that game show looking game were being repurchased a few times.

 

[Moglet]

I think the bigger issue now is that Microsoft just introduced a peripheral that encourages children to dance and flail about in the vicinity of the 360. I can see Kinectimals and whatever that game show looking game were being repurchased a few times.

But that would apply to any console, not just the new 360, surely?

 

[FoolKiller]

But that would apply to any console, not just the new 360, surely?

I have moved my PS3 with a disc in drive (forgot it was there) with no ill effects. The 360 is the only one I know of that has had complaints about it destroying discs.