Alright so Microsoft had their humble little press conference this morning and the following quiet announcements whispered by...oh wait did I say humble and quiet? I mean a loud and bombastic explosion of game videos and new stuff, and yes, unfortunately they are still trying to push the Kinect on us. Does anyone really like it? Anyway, hit the jump and I'll fill you in on all the news.
First of course, they had to come out strong with some Halo 4 , which I'm sure got somebody really jazzed. It showed new enemies and weapons, and that Master Chief now has the ability to switch out visors to an infrared one just like Samus could do in Metroid Prime 10 years ago. So there was that.
You know, since the thing's over I'm not going to go in any chronological order and just give you some highlights. Here's a trailer for the new Gears of War (that I posted about the other day).
There was some cool tech news too, they announced a new feature called Xbox SmartGlass (no, not SmartAss). SmartGlass lets your tablet or phone (on iOS, Android, or that one that Microsoft does that nobody uses) communicate with your Xbox and offer a variety of new features and experiences. You can do stuff like start watching a movie on your iPad and then push it to your Xbox to finish it on your TV (you know, even though you can already do that with Netflix, but whatever). Or use your tablet a controller do draw out plays in the new Madden, stuff like that. Here's some video:
So if you're the kind of person who gets excited about drawing lines during your foot sportsball, you can do that! If you're into looking at more than one screen while you try to watch your favorite shows it'll do that too, as shown in a bit where they had Game of Thrones on and the tablet had a map and stuff on it. This stuff is kind of cool, I guess, but I can remember using my laptop to do the same thing during AMC's The Walking Dead season finale-- and do we really need to be multi-tasking two devices at once while enjoying our favorite shows? Are we that ADD these days?
They announced a thing called Xbox Music too. Here's a vid:
Didn't the Xbox already have a music marketplace? You know, the Zune Marketplace? Everybody loved that right, so this is bound to be good, huh? No, it's pointless and I don't understand why anybody would want to use it when there's already fifty million other places you can already get your music like iTunes. Why would I want to do it on a game console and why do I have to sync it to my tablet when I can already sync it to my computer that has infinitely more storage space on it? Who thought this was a good idea? They're also adding all kinds of new content from all sorts of different content providers to your Xbox Dashboard. Here's the list from a press release:
· Your home for sports. Microsoft announced more must-have sports experiences and content coming to Xbox this year, further establishing it as the home for sports fans everywhere.
o NBA Game Time with NBA.com League Pass Broadband (U.S.) and NBA League Pass (outside of the U.S.). Fans who subscribe to NBA.com League Pass Broadband will have access to hundreds of out of market live games (blackout restrictions apply in the U.S. and some international markets), plus highlights from around the league and up to the minute stats of your favorite players.
o NHL GameCenter LIVE™ (Worldwide except Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden). Hockey fans will be able to enjoy every moment of the live action as it happens on the ice, with live games (out-of-market and blackout restrictions apply), more in-game interactivity, and replays and highlights on demand any time.
o ESPN (U.S.). Later this year fans will enjoy 24/7 live programming through WatchESPN from ESPN Networks – ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3 and ESPN U. All the favorites, including “SportsCenter,” “SportsNation,” “The Mike and Mike Show,” as well as ESPN’s coverage of the NFL, MLB and the NBA, will be live on Xbox.
Xbox also announced regional sports provider SPORT1 coming later this year to Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
· More TV and entertainment. Today, Microsoft announced more than 35 new content partners launching on Xbox over the next 12 months, including:
- Absolute Radio –U.K.
- Ameba TV – Canada, U.S.
- BreakMedia – Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa, U.K., U.S.
- Comedy Central Stand Up – U.S.
- Comoyo – Denmark, Norway, Sweden
- Corus Entertainment’s Franklin the Turtle – Canada
- GameSpot TV – Australia, Canada, U.K., U.S.
- Headweb – Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden
- Indie Flix – U.S.
- Machinima – All Xbox LIVE markets
- Napster – Germany, U.K.
- Nickelodeon – U.S.
- Paramount Movies – U.S.
- Picturebox – U.K.
- Quickflix – Australia, New Zealand
- Rakuten ShowTime – Japan
- Revision3 – Canada, U.K., U.S.
- Rhapsody – U.S.
- RTL XL – Netherlands
- Slacker Radio – Canada, U.S.
- SnagFilms – U.S.
- Terra (Sunday TV) – Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico
- The AOL On Network – Australia, Canada, Netherlands, U.K., U.S.
- The Weather Channel – U.S.
- The Whistle – U.S.
- TOU.TV – Canada
- TV3 – Spain
- Twitch TV – U.S.
- Univision – U.S.
- Wuaki – Spain
- Youzee – Spain
So that's a lot of stuff, right? If watching TV or listen to radio on your Xbox is your thing, there it is. In other news they are adding Internet Explorer to Xbox too, so you can surf the internets on your tv like both the PS3 and Wii have been able to do for like forever and nobody uses.
Man I'm getting a little to negative here, but I'm honestly having a hard time finding things to get excited about. Let me throw a bunch of new game trailers at you.
Forza! Drive some cars! Wheeeee!
Ascend: New Gods, courtesy of the guys that brought you Toy Soldiers. Looks kinda neat.
Fable: The Journey, that Fable Kincect thing they showed us last year!
New Tomb Raider! This looks really good. Lara Croft with a bow? More like Katniss Croft.
Hey! South Park! This looks phenomenal and I can't wait. Matt and Trey actually came out and talked about this for a bit, which was probably the highlight of the conference. Good stuff.
Then they closed with Call of Duty Black Ops 2, which I'm sure got every gamer bro in the house mega excited. Honestly, it does look more interesting than previous installments in the franchise due to its near-future setting-- but I don't have a lot of faith that it's going to play any different than the others before it. It will probably be a quasi-future coat of paint on the same ol' Calloditty experience.
Basically, there wasn't a ton to get excited about really, unless you are a fan of those core shooters like Halo and Call of Duty. The new tech wasn't all that impressive, and I personally only found a couple of the games worth getting excited about.
If I was going to rate Microsoft's E3 performance this year (and I guess I will) it'd be a flat C. There wasn't anything ground-breakingly amazing, but nothing horridly lame either. Let's hope for more cool stuff from the other two, because this particular conference isn't going to be a terribly memorable one.
[videos via Joystiq]
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