Strong franchises go a long way in the video game world. It is no surprise
then that perhaps the biggest unveilings and announcements at Microsoft’s
pre-E3 press conference involved the two juggernaut franchises of Halo and Grand
Theft Auto; specifically, the announcement that [i]Grand Theft Auto IV[/i]
is coming to the 360 first this October (no details yet), as well as some
first official information and a trailer for [i]Halo 3[/i]. Also revealed was
the next wave of Xbox 360 games (upwards of 27 new titles), some of which
include [i]Fable 2[/i], [i]Brothers in Arms 3: Hell’s Highway[/i], and the new
cyber-punk flavored [i]Shadowrun[/i] first-person shooter, in addition to new
games and updates coming to XBox Live Arcade (some of which will include online
play and all with updated HD graphics). However, software is not the whole
story of this event.
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Following hot on the heels of Nintendo’s press conference, Microsoft wasted
little time by jumping extensively into a preview of [i]Gears of War[/i],
showing some gameplay clips and stepping through parts of the actual game
on-stage. Microsoft VP Peter Moore took the stage from then on and throughout the
conference to discuss strategies, crunch numbers, and talk about Microsoft’s
future plans of cultural dominance. He divulged that video games are more
heavily influencing Microsoft’s agenda. Bill Gates, appearing later in the
conference, backed this up by speaking about the “Live Anywhere” system, which
will be embedded in the upcoming Windows Vista and even extend to mobile
phones. Basically, “Live Anywhere” is a system that allows players to access
and interact with content on XBox Live with either Windows Vista, XBox 360, or
phones with the Windows Mobile OS, via a unified interface.
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Concerning new hardware, an HD-DVD peripheral was shown, which is black and
looks like a smaller version of the 360 itself. For the poker fans out
there, there’s also a new webcam-like peripheral, the “Xbox Vision”, that will be
released, which allows for poker players to watch and study the faces of
their opponents. For those interested, no controllers with motion-sensing
capabilities were announced at this time however.
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The show of course ended with the unveiling of [i]Halo 3[/i], much to the
pleasure of the gathered crowd and thousands watching the live stream.
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Stay with forumwizard.net for more E3 details.