The Microsoft press event took place in a part of the L.A. Convention Centers' West Hall, in former days one of the two main halls of the E3. Don Mattrick, formerly of EA and since July 2007 boss of everything Xbox, Games for Windows and Live, started by saying that Xbox is the greatest, best, most successful et cetera. He cited four top titles that alone would represent over a half-billion Dollars in sales: Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2. Not surprisingly, all these titles (and some more) where featured in the press conference.

FALLOUT 3 PRESENTATION

Fatboy in Fallout 3: before, while detonating, and after...
Bethesda’s Todd Howard took the stage and played a live demo. We could see the PIP, some sniping, the use of grenades, including an EMP grenade. Then, there was the Fat Boy, a sort of atomic rocket launcher. In the demo, Todd used it to bring down a helicopter, demonstrating the effect the shock wave of the tactical atomic weapon has on the environment (car wrecks and other stuff). We saw an old Personal Computer Todd claimed you can hack, and a lot of furniture and little boxes and stuff – we’re talking about a detailed, "interactive" game world, here. Todd said that there are more than 100 hours of gameplay in Fallout 3, that you can move from the outskirts right to the center of Washington DC. He also mentioned downloadable content for Xbox 360 and Fallout 3.

RESIDENT EVIL 5

Resident Evil 5: Sheva and Chris can be played cooperatively.
Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi gave the first public playable demo of Resident Evil 5, which happens to be the first Resident Evil game on Xbox 360. The game is set in Africa, there are two characters (Sheva and Chris), who were both played live on-stage. They need to work together for solving some puzzles, opening a metal gate in the demo. We're not sure if it is politically correct to fight against African (black) zombies (we're quite sure that Japanese company Capcom hasn't thought about this issue for a single second), but after the demo we know that the graphics look frighteningly realistic. The release of the game is planned for March 13 2009 in Europe and the US (March 12 in Japan).

FABLE 2

A glimpse at the intro: Our young hero's head just made contact with a gift from a bird.
In what must have been the 1001st public presentation of Fable 2, Peter Molyneux did two astonishing things. First, he started by saying "Fable 2 is finished" and announced an October release. Second, he didn't show anything new (apart from a nice intro that includes bird droppings). Peter emphasized how easy it is to invite other people into your game, "by just pressing a button“, and that you can do this cooperative playing „from the first moment of the game to the last. You’ll want to invite people in because your world is unique, your hero’s unique." Then, he showed the auditorium his wife (in the game, of course), and we could see Sims-like captions over the heads of the characters (like "+10" or "funny").

GEARS OF WAR 2

Gears of War 2: more open ground, more destruction, more gore.
Another live demonstration was done by Epic's Cliff Bleszinski. He played part of a level (could have been two mixed together) of Gears of War 2. There was a crash early on, after which he immediately began the level anew, obviously, there must have been a backup Xbox. Brute-force hero Marcus can now grab enemies and use them as a shield, and the levels looked more open and less gray than in the first part. Cliff was using a flamethrower quite extensively, and part of the level was on fire. There was a telling scene in the background when the AI controlled comrade of Marcus chain-sawed an opponent into two halves. Scenes like this ensure that Gears of War 2 won't be available in Germany (although, as a Microsoft executive told us later on, "more copies of Gears of War were sold in Austria then there are Xbox consoles in Austria" – strongly hinting on, well, cross-border trading of the game with bloodthirsty German players). We could see Marcus ride an open elevator, after which he encountered an enormously big opponent (called Brumak). Cliff announced a new multiplayer mode where 5 human players fight against wave upon wave of locusts. The release date of Gears of War 2 is November 7 2008.

"XBOX 360 WILL HAVE MORE SOLD CONSOLES THAN PS3"

Don Mattrick is the worldwide boss of everything entertaining at Microsoft.
Don Mattrick returned to the stage and claimed that people will spend US$48 billion worldwide on computer and video games in 2008. He also claimed that in the current console life cycle (which many experts expect to last on until 2012), Xbox 360 would sell more consoles than PS3. He said that Xbox Live has climbed from 6 to 12 million users, "a new user joins Xbox Live every five seconds." Consumers, Mattrick went on, have spent more than US$ 1 billion on Xbox Live since the service started 3 years ago. He also claimed that the Xbox 360 is the biggest provider of HD video content in the world. TV shows and videos apparently account for more than one third of US revenues on Xbox Live. From today, Mattrick said, NBC/Universal (The Office, BattleStar Galactica, ...), Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Constantin Film are new partners of Xbox Live, and also the video rental service Netflix. US customers can even share their movies (via Netflix) with their friends. During a lunch with several Xbox executives following the press conference, they couldn't explain to us in detail how this is supposed to work, though (or maybe they didn't want to explain it).

NEW XBOX INTERFACE AND AVATARS IN FALL

A first look at the coming MyXbox feature (above) and the Community/Party channel (below).
Microsoft's John Shappert took the stage after that and announced an entirely new interface and dashboard for the Xbox coming this Fall. Included is a feature called MyXbox which collects all personal content like photos, videos and games in one place. The new interface (which will be downloaded via a standard update and will also be included in newly shipped Xbox 360s from beginning of 2009) has Avatars which strongly remind us of the Wii's Miis: Although they have legs and look more mature, they still have a somewhat cartoonish look. The Avatar system, which is designed by Rare, will be deeply integrated in the Xbox service. For example, there will be a Community channel where you can meet with up to 8 friends and share everything you do with them, including streaming your photos to them and discussing them at the same time. You can launch certain games with your party very quickly, this was demonstrated with UNO Rush. There will also be a channel called Xbox Live Primetime, where you can create your own TV/video game show. One example was "1vs100", where a "Live host" will let player win "real prices". Shappert went on to announce several downloadable games for Xbox Live Arcade (again, for Fall): Geometry Wars 2, Galaga Legions, South Park and, hear, hear, Portal Still Alive with "new levels and all the fun"). Also, the first Xbox Live Community games will be released in Fall.

VISION CAM MEETS PINATA

Shane Kim, head of business development, very briefly talked about downloadable content for GTA 4 without giving any details. He claimed that at the end of 2008, more than 1.000 Xbox 360 games will be available. In Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise you can scan Pinata cards (which apparently will be sold in specialty shops where you also would buy your trading cards) using the Xbox Vision camera so that they can appear in your game. It will be also possible to design your own Pinatas and print them as a card to share them with friends.

Scene it Boxoffice Smash is the successor of Scene it, the game will come with four "new, simple to use buzzers" and can be played globally. It will use the avatars discussed above. Another casual game is You're in the movies, where players are filmed by the Vision cam and inserted in the game – and idea which is as old as Sony's eyetoy. As in Sony's Kinetic series, gesturing wildly will let you play several mini games, for example hitting hornets that try to sting you. Also, there will be "movies" where players are pasted in.

You're in the movies: Don Mattrick is live-pasted into a mini game using the Vision cam.

THREE BIG MUSIC GAMES

Red Octane's Kai Huang announced Guitar Hero World Tour which will include a music studio that "lets people make and share music around the world." Metallica's new full length album will be downloadable content for Guitar Hero 3 in September and for Guitar Hero World Tour in the Fall.

Guitar Hero World Tour will feature a music editor; fans can share their own music with friends.

Keiichi Yano presented Lips, which is Microsoft's "cover version" of Sony's SingStar. But with some differences: For one, the microphones will be wireless and also include motion sensors. Secondly, players will be able (Microsoft says) to plug in their iPod or Zune into their Xbox 360 and sing along their own songs. This sounds intriguing, but an hour after the presentation, several Microsoft executives didn't want to (or couldn't) share with us how this is supposed to work. After this, a rather uncharismatic girl singer (Duffy) performed live to her own hit, singing "begging you for mercy" at least three dozen times. It was nice to see her in person in front of the big screen where her music video was played.

Sing-Starlet (we think: one-hit-wonder) Duffy performs live. We're begging you for mercy!

The last, but not least, music game announced was Rock Band 2. The game is supposed to have better instruments (especially drums that make less disturbing plastic "plop" sounds when hitting them) and feature "more than 80 tracks" from the 60s to the 2000s. Also, "20 bonus tracks will be downloadable for free" -- the count of the complete set list, as of today, is 82 songs including 9 bonus tracks. See our extra news soon for the complete track list! Rock Band 2 will be backward-compatible with Rock Band, so you instantly can play all the old songs. By the end of 2008, 500 songs are supposed to be available for Rock Band 2.

FINAL FANTASY XIII

Long time, no see: Now, a beautiful video introduced Final Fantasy XIII, stealing a formerly exclusive Sony franchise.

Square Enix' president Yoichi Wada gave a rather chilled presentation of three new games: Infinite Undiscovery (release is September 2 2008 in the USA, September 5 in Europe and Sep 11 in Asia), The Last Remnant (November 20 for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows) and Star Ocean: The Last Hope in Spring 2009. Then he left the stage, and Don Mattrick began to say his Goodbye-for-now-sentences. Then, Wada returned because he got "another announcement". A long, stylish, versatile, engaging video was shown, that could only be... Final Fantasy XIII, which for the first time for a title of the series will come out for Xbox 360, too. Because they are just so gorgeous, we have posted an additional news with more pictures from the FF XIII trailer.

After that, the presentation ended for good – the announcement-per-minute ratio has seldom been higher than in todays' one-and-a-half hours.