What's your impression of Microsoft's E3 Presentation?

[agbulls]

After sitting in vbender for about an hour and a half and discussing Microsoft's E3 press conference as it happened, I realized one thing: it was totally lackluster and boring.

Not any major announcements that we weren't already aware of and I have to watch Peter Moore play Rock Band? I'm looking forward to it like anyone, but not a good way to kick off the show in my opinion. However, the Halo Band was very cool. I think they were trying to take a page out of Nintendo's book and make everything seem more interactive by showing more on stage demos.

But the presentation givers were awful. Outside of Peter Moore and Cliffy B, these guys need to a personality. Who was the guy who introduced the Disney movies for XB Live? He was absolutely coma inducing and couldn't have sounded more robotic.

Top it off with NO price drop and an ugly as hell Halo Xbox and you have a show I'd grade a "D". I think I'm being generous. What do you guys think?

[ubersaurus]

The halo stuff was all pretty awesome-new trailer? Sweet. Halo 360? Bitchin. Halo Wars, nice.

I also liked the live arcade stuff, like Marathon Durandal and Space Giraffe. But it was a pretty good compilation of all the sweet stuff coming up for the machine. Not so good for much else, but man. That is quite the lineup.

[le geek]

Good presentation but I wanna price cut dammit! (goes to sulk in corner)

Cheers,
Ben

[segagamer4life]

A price drop would be nice, lets not forget E3 isn't over yet, M$ could still "Roll up it's proverbial sleeve" and announce, some price changes, that would/ could eclipse any "thunder" sony hopes to gain after their press conf.

[udisi]

Price Cut would be nice, but once again I'll say it. There's no reason for Microsoft to cut the price. IF...and that's IF... the PS3 starts to pick up and do anything at retail, then yeah Microsoft may drop the price, but as it stands they're still cheaper than PS3 and they're not really competing with the wii. The only other way you see a price drop is closer to the next system cycle when the parts become cheaper, but with microsoft taken the hit to extend the warrenties and such, they're not gonna drop the prices and take another hit.

[roushimsx]

Shane Kim sounded like a raging alcoholic. Every time the lights went out, I'm sure the bottle hit the lips.

Scene It sounds really tempting (I love Scene It), PGR4 looks awesome, Mass Effect is going to rock (oh Bioware, how I love you), and that Resident Evil 5 trailer was hotness. Hell, I was even impressed and entertained by the NCAA Football demo (complete with authentic couch football trash talk and concluded with a thug hug). Call of Duty 4 looked impressive, but considering it's coming from Infinity Ward, I'm not getting my hopes up. They might remember to include the AI this time, but we'll see.

Peter Moore is obnoxious and I really dislike hearing him speak. Hell, he looks like a villain from Flash Gordan.

The real stealer of the spotling was Neill Blomkamp's Halo: Arms Race video (http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=ethreeblowout). Good god, someone give that man $200 million post-haste. I loved Tetra Vaal (http://analogik.com/multimedia/video/tetra__vaal.mov) and Alive in Joburg (http://ia300227.us.archive.org/3/items/ALIVE_IN_JOBURG/Alive_in_Joburg_compr480.mov), but god damn was Arms Race awesome. I really can't wait to see him kick out a full length feature film.

[gepeto]

I downloaded the ncaa demo the other day and for the first time I can honestly say that I cannot notice a difference from last years. I was reading Ign's preview a few weeks ago and they went ga ga over it. Maybe I am missing something.

The one thing I noticed after was Last year e3 ea was one of the Big companies leading the I am not going to support the big e3 shows campaign anymore.

For the first time I think ea has run out of gas with original games. They seem to really have nothing to show besides madden and such.

Ubisoft at least had assasins creed. I think it goes to show that riding the sequal bandwagon will ultimately force a comeuppance.

I hope we will see more original games in the future. I am starting to see sequals more as budget titles. Even I am sad to say splinter cell.

I notice alot of people saying that bioshock is the spritual successor to system shock 2. I never got that from the video clips of the dude with the drill. I am curious to see how that one comes out. Thats a big claim ss2 was a great game.

[Soviet Conscript]

Peter Moore is obnoxious and I really dislike hearing him speak. Hell, he looks like a villain from Flash Gordan.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/9273/mingxm4.th.gif (http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mingxm4.gif)

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4674/peter20mooreub9.th.jpg (http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=peter20mooreub9.jpg)

[7th lutz]

I thought Microsoft did a fine presentation. They did have a couple surprises that I wasn't ready for like the next Viva Pinata game, and the some of the xbox live games they shown, along with their downloading movie anouncement. The movie downloading announcement could be a good move by Microsoft since Sony talked movies on their ps 3 system.

[agbulls]

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/9273/mingxm4.th.gif (http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mingxm4.gif)

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4674/peter20mooreub9.th.jpg (http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=peter20mooreub9.jpg)

It's absolutely uncanny!

[Anthony1]

Man, where do I begin? I'll try to take things in order of importance


1. No Price Drop - This was absolutely shocking for me. I'll admit that I was completely and totally off on this. I'm a bit amazed that they are going to leave the Elite $20 less than a 60 gig PS3. Very bad move in my opinion. I really thought a 50 dollar drop across all skus would be an absolute given, and I was hoping for the 100 dollar drop. Oh well.

2. No Wii-mote wand ripoff controller - Microsoft seems to admire what Nintendo has done to broaden the market, and I thought they would decide to basically rip off the wii-mote design and come out with a wand like accessory, and a few games designed to take full advantage of it.

3. No Metal Gear Solid 4 or FFXIII announcements - I know it would have been a huge long shot, but I really thought that maybe...just maybe... Peter Moore would show off another Tatoo and shock the gaming world.

4. No Banjo-Kazooie in 2007 - For some reason, I figured that Rare had been secretly working on Banjo-Kazooie for a long, long time, and that they would shock it at e3 and announce a late November release. Seems like Microsoft needs a huge kiddie type game to go against Ratchet and Clank on PS3. I guess we are looking at sometime in 2008.

5. No IPTV demo - Kinda suprised that they didn't show a single thing on IPTV.



Other things I thought were pretty funny.


1. Jade Raymond demoing Assassins Creed and seeing that body just floating in mid-air, among other various glitches.

2. The dead silence when Peter Moore showed off the Halo 3 360. Man, that was pretty damn embarassing. I wonder what was going on in his head when that happened.

3. The Reggie Bush and Microsoft Android thing. I could dedicate an entire thread to this. Man, this was so embarassing from many angles. First, both dudes were talking over each other. Neither guy would let the other guy finish a damn sentence. The fact that the Microsoft android dude instantly morphed into a slight ghetto talk, was very embarrasing. How many times did he say Bro? Man, that was so freaking scripted, and just so damn lame. And the funny thing is, I'm actually somewhat of a sporto, so I'm saying this, not being a typical nerd that can't stand sports. I actually like sports. I like Reggie Bush. I'm not your average white dude with no soul. Yet this was just so damn embarrasing....Plus, I might be a sporto, but I have a feeling that 95 percent of the live audience wasn't. At one point, you could see by the look on Reggie Bush's face that he was pretty shocked that there wasn't big applause or anything. Man, that was just so damn classic from a standpoint of complete awkwardness.

4. When the Resident Evil 5 clip first started, did anybody else think the same thing I did? Before I knew it was Resident Evil 5, for a second, I thought it was actually MGS4, and I was about to explode with glee, like some rabid MS fanboy, but then when I saw it was RE5, I calmed down a bit, but man, that game does look absolutely sweet. I love the idea with setting it in Africa. Kinda reminded me a tiny bit of Blood Diamond and Last King of Scottland, mixed with 28 weeks later, lol.

5. Burnout Paradise - Didn't see a single clip of this game? Does this mean Sony bought a 6th month window on it? Or is it just being delayed into 2008? Hmmm....

[diskoboy]

Alot of people have mentioned the dead silence when Moore pulled out the Halo 3 console....

IMO, I think it was a little unexpected. All of a sudden he turns around, hes holding it. And he said something like "By the way... This is the Limited Edition Halo 3 console, on sale in September.." then goes right back to talking about the game.

I heard a few gasps, but it was all so sudden, I think it threw everyone there, off. Kinda like a sucker punch that landed square in the nose.

It's like he didn't even care... It was almost like, "oh yeah, we forgot this because we didn't think it was that important"

And I missed the RE5 trailer, last night... :(

[walrusmonger]

I don't care about the games, since I suck at games and never beat more than 25% of what I buy, and I buy a lot... but I want that sexy ass green 360.

[Gentlegamer]

Peter Moore is obnoxious and I really dislike hearing him speak. Hell, he looks like a villain from Flash GordanDood! I knew he looked like someone! Ming the Merciless, that's it!

[Gentlegamer]

3. The Reggie Bush and Microsoft Android thing. I could dedicate an entire thread to this. Man, this was so embarassing from many angles. First, both dudes were talking over each other. Neither guy would let the other guy finish a damn sentence. The fact that the Microsoft android dude instantly morphed into a slight ghetto talk, was very embarrasing. How many times did he say Bro? Man, that was so freaking scripted, and just so damn lame. And the funny thing is, I'm actually somewhat of a sporto, so I'm saying this, not being a typical nerd that can't stand sports. I actually like sports. I like Reggie Bush. I'm not your average white dude with no soul. Yet this was just so damn embarrasing....Plus, I might be a sporto, but I have a feeling that 95 percent of the live audience wasn't. At one point, you could see by the look on Reggie Bush's face that he was pretty shocked that there wasn't big applause or anything. Man, that was just so damn classic from a standpoint of complete awkwardness.
Moore called him "brotha." I was waiting for Bush to go all "keeping it real" on him.

[RyanMurf]

I highly doubt Microsoft will make 100 dollar price cut. There sales are through the roof, making a price cut would be insane for them!

[8-bitNesMan]

I highly doubt Microsoft will make 100 dollar price cut. There sales are through the roof, making a price cut would be insane for them!

Wrong IMO. Making a price cut would be making a definitive statement that they actually want to win this round of the console wars.

[RyanMurf]

......They kinda already did??

[8-bitNesMan]

No. Nintendo is outselling Sony and Microsoft. Microsoft has the largest installed user base due to a one year head start. Microsoft is bleeding money in their games division due to the hit they take on each console sold and the $1.15 billion charge stemming from the red ring fiasco. With Nintendo leading in hardware sales here in the States and even more so in Japan, Microsoft needs to cut the price now. The more systems the move enables more game and microcontent sales down the road. And with Sony dropping their machine $100 it makes a price drop from Microsoft all the more necessary now. If Sony ever does put out or gain the rights to some exclusive must own killer apps, then Microsoft will have lost the ground it's gained in the last 2 years.

[RyanMurf]

Well when you say that nintendo is winning the console war so far I am kind of 50/50 on that statement. The only reason why it is selling so good isnt because it is a good system, it is selling because it is RARE! When people here the word RARE they think "let me get that!". So i can understand where the wii comes into play on this situation but after the wii is made at extreme quantities they wont sell barely any because there is no need to. This is why nintendo has been keeping them stored away somewhere because this approach is making them more money than if they were all out on the shelves! So in less words-Microsoft will win the console war in my opinion especially with the semi false ps3 price cut.

[8-bitNesMan]

Well when you say that nintendo is winning the console war so far I am kind of 50/50 on that statement. The only reason why it is selling so good isnt because it is a good system, it is selling because it is RARE! When people here the word RARE they think "let me get that!"

I do think that Nintendo is intentionally limiting retail supply to increase demand and keep their buzz rolling through this holiday season. But I disagree that the Wii is "RARE". In high demand, yes. Hard to find in stores, yes. But considering the millions that have already been sold since November it is not rare. I know it catches a lot of flack for using last gen hardware, but that doesn't make it a bad system. It's innovative, fun, and it appeals to a broadly diverse group of people. And regardless of their deceptive business practices, they are most definitely winning this time around. Don't get cause and effect confused. In other words, it's not selling because it's "RARE". It is hard to find because it is selling out every time a store gets a shipment in.

[RyanMurf]

Rare in regards that if you go to a store your chances of finding them there are slim to none but I understand what you are trying to say 100%