Microsoft's E3 Media Briefing 2012

[Barry the Nomad]

The full show:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYvQu00t75w[/youtube]

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Last year I believe we had three threads going in general gaming for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. So why no do the same this year?

Since MS is first up, I figured I'd make the thread. I also figure you all know how to google and have your preferred ways of watching the show. But one way to watch it is here:

http://www.xbox.com/e3

It starts Monday June 4th at 9:15am PDT. So in about 4 hours. w00t.

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What are all y'all's thoughts? I'm cautiously optimistic. I am really hoping for some XBOX 720 teases, and think Kinect will be downplayed or at least they'll focus less on the kiddie games. The Disney and Sesame Street stuff last year was a bit much. I'm hoping that the Fable Kinect game has some depth and ability to really explore an open world.

I foresee:
• Kicking off with Halo 4 (I think this has been confirmed as the first bit of the show)
• That XBOX Smart Glass will be mentioned
• Non-Kinect titles, some exclusive, most not exclusive but with some Kinect features
• Harry Potter Kinect and perhaps DBZ Kinect will be shown off
• XBOX 720 teases

Probably will be a step up from next year, but not the most amazing show of the year. Probably will end up being good but not great. PROVE ME WRONG, MS.

I'll be honest, I'm getting pretty burnt out on "lolz dudez lets make memes and animated gifs and lololz". Really, I just want to watch each show and not act like a shithead pointing out every "epic fail" and "omg derpy doo its motion kontrolzzz" moment.

[Alex Supersonic]

I predict Shenmue HD 

[MadeManG74]

Barry is no fun at all, half the fun of this is laughing at the bad stuff while getting hyped about good stuff.
I predict a lot of Kinect garbage, and some decent sequels to their established franchises. Maybe a still of some new IP.

In any event, I'll probably need to sleep through it, so I'll catch up in the morning.

[segaismysavior]

It'll take a lot for MS to impress me this year. If the only non-kiddie games they show off are shooters, then they've lost my attention.

[segaismysavior]

I think SmartGlass just phoned Nintendo and politely suggested they "suck it."

[Barry the Nomad]

Shows ending soon, overall, it wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing. I will say though, that it wasn't a failure like some will paint it out to be. For starters, I can't think of a single meme or animated gif that could come from this year's show. It was simply:

• Halo 4
• AAA Excusives
• AAA non-exclusives
• A couple Kinect titles, a few of which actually look good. None were at the level of Sesame Street or Disneyland
• XBLA exclusives, all of which looked good. South Park looked awesome, the Angry Birds rip off looked decent.
• Smart Glass, which looks cool. And like they said, if you have an XBOX and a smart device, you're set. Really don't see how people can call bullshit on this. Hopefully it has Wii U like possibilities. Imagine if Colonial Marines uses SmartGlass
• Sports sports sports - this wasn't for me, but it didn't suck. NBA and NHL are big deals for a lot of people
• Nike and Usher were the only negatives, and again, they didn't totally suck. One was integration with an existing service that some might enjoy using while Usher was an advert for a good Kinect series. Yes, Dance Central is a solid series. I said it.

However, no 720 tease? Maybe next year when Wii U is released.

I'd give the show a B

Not offensive, not awful, lots of good moments, poor ending. Overall it excited me as a current XBOX owner, but I can't see such a show bringing on new customers.

[MadeManG74]

EDIT: Can we just combine everything into one big E3 Thread? I don't think this site is active enough to warrant three different ones, and by having just one we can all talk about every game in the same place rather than 'Oh this is cool, but it's not MS related' and then having a new thread that will be buried. Then we can also compare things between the different platform holders easier.

Trying to catch up on some stuff before work:

South Park: looks legitimately great, like a great big tribute to the show. It seems to have captured the humour and a lot of the iconic characters and feel (Jesus with a machine gun, Captain Chaos, City Wok guy..). I'm actually optimistic about this one.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist: Hnnngggghhh, not sold on this just yet. I was honeslty hoping for something more of a return to the classic stealth that made the series big in the first place. I really enjoyed Conviction as well, but ultimately I found the previous games to be better. The good thing is, that playthrough looked like a 'flawless' run through the level, probably on easy as well. I'm sure that you'll really need to depend on stealth more in a lot of sections. The mark and execute looks like it's really brain-dead (and I guess it is), but in Conviction you really needed it to survive the harder difficulties. It's not the instant win button either since you usually can't get everyone at once and you need to melee kill to get access to it. Overall I think it'll be good. I know i'll end up getting it anyway, SC hasn't dissapointed me yet no matter the direction it's taken.

Halo 4: Yep, it's Halo alright. Looks pretty good, but why do they have real life actors for the intro, that looked crap.

Gears of War: Judgement: Lucky guess on the 'Gears of War: Subtitle' call. Teaser trailers are fun, be interesting to see what this turns out like.

Nyko Androd Pad Thingies: Will be cool for emulators on your phone.

End of Nations: Free to play? Just don't make it 'Pay to win' (looking at you Age of Empires Online)

Zeno Clash 2: FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES

[Barry the Nomad]

Not combining the threads. Why? I don't want to. Plus, it's just three threads, one for each console. It's not gonna kill anybody. Deal wit it. 

I'll admit, Halo 4 looked way cool and I'm not even into the games outside of the first one. South Park is sure to be an XBLA star, and a big seller. Can't see that failing.

[max_cady]

Okay, if I were to review this Microsoft E3 PressConf, I'll start with the score: C

It's an improvement over last year's showing. Child actors should be banned from these stage shows. PERIOD.
I was impressed with Halo 4's presentation. I never cared much about the Halo franchise until yesterday.

The graphics... Wow, very good for a 7-year old machine. Some of the Kinect games look OK-ish. I'm surprised at some of the exclusives. I was also impressed with ther new Splinter Cell, for a second there, I thought they were ripping off Metal Gear Solid 4.

Also loved the South Park announcement, but I am constantely reminded that Obsidian is working on this.


Why the C rating? Because of everything else that's not game-related per say.

Internet Explorer on 360? All they needed was a press release, not take up space for a showing.
Usher's dancing number? Not bad, but distracting and unnecessary.
Microsoft Glass? Don't know, don't care.
Focusing on US-only stuff with ESPN and a few on-demand apps that nobody cares about was also a huge low-point.

All that stuff made Kinect look good by comparison.

[MadeManG74]

Hooooooooly Shiiiiiiiiiiiet RE6 looks fucking outstanding. Fuck the haters, I can't wait for this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJWHN3qWdiw


Beyond: Two Souls looks really promising as well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFxAJ3eaaC8&feature=related

Just saw the NFS Game as well, that looks really fun.

[Aki-at]

Microsoft had one of the worst if not the worst E3 showing I have ever managed to endure myself through.

Ubisoft relatively had a solid showing thanks to Watch Dogs and of course Rayman Legends.

Sony? Well it was okay, nothing to be shown for Vita and wasted time on Wonderbook (Which will sell gangbusters thanks to Harry Potter FFFFFF) but GoW and The Last of Us were good shows. Even though I probably will not be getting either.

So far, E3 has not felt too special, hopefully some more announcements today changes that.

[MadeManG74]

From memory, most of the best stuff isnt in the conference anyway, since they focus on flogging their white elephants like kinect

[Barry the Nomad]

I actually think showing off Crimson Dragon and some Fable Journey would have been cool. Maybe a quick trailer for HP Kinect, since HP fans love them their wizard chess.

Very excited for LocoCycle from Twisted Pixel. Just a teaser, but they have yet to let me down, and it's exclusive which is good for MS.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvWJPschmnU[/youtube]