It’s the first day of E3, and we’re about to head over to the Microsoft Press Conference. We’ll begin liveblogging from 10:30 am PST on, so check back shortly for our immediate, firsthand response to Microsoft’s big Xbox 360 announcements.

10:24 am: The press conference is about to begin! We’ve taken our seats– the place is packed, and they’re showing us Xbox ads and interviews with “people on the street” who look like no gamers I’ve met. It’s kind of like the ads they show you before a movie starts. Jump in!

The West Hall of the LA Convention Center is bathed in green light, with three HD screens on stage left and a couch and coffee table set up on stage right. Emily points out that it gives the stage a talk-show like appearance.

10:29 am: Getting started for real now. Blasting techno music: JUMP! JUMP! Kriss kross is nowhere to be found. It’s like a rock concert, movie, and motivational seminar all rolled into one.

10:30 am: One of Microsoft’s Execs takes the stage. He says, how do we keep our hardcore fans and bring in new ones as well? Scene-It and Uno are part of the plan.

Fallout 3

10:35 am: Vintage clip: Crazy 50s family with a robot. Friends, your future may not be as certain as you think. Atomic blast occurs outside. It’s Fallout 3! Cartoon selling the vault. “Dating experiences in the vault may vary”. Repopulate our great country. Reserve your family’s spot today.

10:38 am: Live Fallout 3 demo. What a great way to kick off this conference! Takes place in DC, 2277. You can play in first or third person. A robot playing patriotic music (Yankee Doodle?) flies by, apparently to maintain belief in the destroyed US Government. Pip Boy comes up– showing off some cool abilities. One ability lets you receive radio transmissions.

Ad is running on a TV set against a colorful, charred landscape. And there’s the guy from Vault 101. Todd Howard, of Bethesda takes the stage.

It’s the first half of a new trailer, debuts in a few hours on XBL.

10:40: Fallout 3 has a Very typical FPS style– blurs when you’re hit, and Bioshock-style you can hack turrets and security systems. Zapping baddies, and if you use a shotgun, the gib in a bloody fashion.

10:42 am: The Brotherhood has taken up in the Pentagon. The Enclave, the remnants of the government. Todd launches a mini-nuke from a shoulder rocket. Nice mini-mushroom cloud, and that’s the end of this demo. Oh, and Todd loves XBL marketplace– lots of “substantial” DLC for Fallout 3. Horse armor 2?

Resident Evil 5

10:43 am: June Takeuchi from Capcom takes the stage to show off his game, Resident Evil 5! Through a translator, he announces we’re going to see the first playable demo of RE5. Without any further ado, here we go. Chris is standing in a doorway with his pistol drawn. Looks much like RE4. A LOT like RE4. Perhaps this is intentional? Maybe showing off the new stuff later. The zombies all seem to be white, or at least multiracial. Chad predicted this one.

Gasp! Online co-op for RE5! Chris and Sheva do a tandem leap across a broken bridge, much like the Leon/Ashley cooperation in RE4. Also, it seems you can change weapons without going to the menu screen. Chris is now sniping with a bolt rifle. Sheva is using an AK. Items appear when enemies fall, just like RE4, complete with colorful light to indicate what they are. One of the African zombies is wielding a massive wrench. Sheva shoots a lock so Chris can go through.

Here’s a tougher enemy– a variation on the chainsaw/bag headed dude. They need to work together to take it down… but not here. They’re out of time. Oh, both Jun and his translator are wearing Umbrella Corporation jackets. Awesome! News: RE5 will be out Friday the 13, March 2009. Not releasing on a Tuesday? Oh well.

Fable 2

10:48 am: Peter Molyneux takes the stage. “Fable 2 is finished.” Light applause. Shows off a new trailer. Pretty CG. Seems very WoW.

The new Fable 2 trailer shows some good looking streets, buildings, and human figures– all CG. A piece of bird crap lands on a non-CG, in-game character– you. You start as a little kid (either gender). Your character grows up from a child to a “full blown hero” (Peter’s words). Peter has one more innovation: the dog. He’s your companion, best friend, yadda yadda. But that’s not what he wants to show us.

We can play co-op over Live– with a twist. Your friends are playing single player games, and you can invite them into yours from inside the game.

Fable 2 will let you get drunk at the bar, chat up people, get married. Let’s meet Molyneux’s fake wife. She has “strange tastes”. Uh oh. His abode is poor, but he has a young son and “beautiful” (chesty, pigtailed, thick) wife. His co-op buddy is belching, and she is laughing, clearly she finds it funny. Their enthusiasm and love for you is going up (indicated by number like +24). Fable 2 is coming out in October of this year.

Gears of War 2

10:54 am: New Gears of War 2 trailer. Creepy Vincent Price style voice over. Marcus is using a Locust as a shield. And running. Trailer ends. Logo up. Ladies and gentlemen, Cliffy B.

Cliffy B is going to take us through multiplayer co-op, playing as Marcus and Dom. Crumbling buildings on fire, typical Gears assets like wrecked cars. Lots of pretty smoke effects. Whoops, it crashed. Let’s reset that…

We start again. Marcus runs across a fallen crane and starts to fight the Locust. He takes a Locust as a shield by pressing the A button when he gets close to a fallen badguy. One of the Locusts is swinging a big medieval mace. Why bring a mace to a gun fight? Hey, there’s some kind of big new spider-walker. Looks pretty neat. Marcus takes it out with the Hammer of Dawn.

Bitchin’! Here’s a new weapon- a sweet flame thrower. All the flame effects look pretty nice. Locusts are scaling the cliffside rooftop where Marcus is standing, using grappling hooks. You can shoot the hooks to knock them off. The roof starts to crumble and collapses– all in real time. Transition to a new area. A faster version of the Locust is running circles around Marcus and Dom. Now a Brumak enters the scene. Looks like you can finally fight it on your 360. Marcus wields a mega chain gun (think Doom) and wipes it out, triggering a cutscene that Cliffy skips.

Now Marcus is in a sideways elevator, complete with funny elevator music. He gets out, and there’s the Brumak– kind of like in God of War, how the bosses are visible as you approach them. “Let’s get over there and finish it off– or we could ride it”. “If they can ride ‘em, so can we.” New announcement: Horde mode. 5 player coop, where you take on waves of Locusts. November 7 2008 release date.

XBL Movies

11:03 am: Microsoft’s Senior VP of Xbox takes the stage again. Sold more than PS3 this year, blah blah… zzz… Will sell more consoles this cycle. Undisputed leader– but I bet Sony and Nintendo would dispute it. A new member joins XBL every 5 seconds. One BILLION dollars spent on XBL. Cue the Dr Evil pinky smirk. This must be the infomercial part of the press conference.

A third of all paid downloads in the US come from XBL. NBC and Universal will be joining Office. That means the Office, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes. USA and Sci Fi channel are part of the NBC deal.

New movies coming: Scorpion King, Fast and the Furious, Bourne Supremacy, 12 Monkeys, American Pie… lots of classics.

MGM and Constantin films will be available starting today. More content is coming. There you have it– fueling growth, giving more choices, blah blah. How do we bring in more people to Xbox 360?

John Schappert, VP of Live takes the stage.

New Interface and Avatars

11:10 am: Here’s an announcement… a new system update. What is it? Brand new interface? Yep… looks like Windows Vista. Welcome to the new Xbox experience. No applause, then nervous applause, then pity applause. Wow. “Creating a new Xbox through the magic of software.”

Hey look– avatars! They look a lot like Miis! For a “market leader” they sure are taking their cues from Nintendo. Wow, a red shirt turns green! Thrilling! I think people here are disappointed. Emily says: “Do not want”. Developer video: titles can include avatars. They like the idea. We don’t.

11:15 am: “Avatars are just the beginning”– we sure hope so. He says, the new Xbox will be easier to discover stuff. The community channel has avatars, instead of just a friends list. When they sign on, you can see them. New feature: Live Party, and hang out and chat with your friends’ avatars. You can also stream photos to people in your party.

Another new feature: Xbox Live Primetime. This will let you create game shows for you and your friends. For example, 1 vs 100. You can play from the stage or the crowd. Win real prizes!

New Games channel– and a new Uno game, Uno Rush. One person in the crowd: “Whoo!”. This Uno uses new Avatars. They went from a party to the game quickly.

Xbox Live Arcade

11:19 am: New version of Geometry Wars coming next month– Geometry Wars 2 has co-op, different enemy types. You can see the whole screen during co-op. No applause… seems pretty by the numbers. Due next month.

New Galaga update– Galaga Legions. Same team at Namco that made Pac-Man World Championship Edition. Similar style– exclusive to XBLA, will be available next month.

11:21 am: GladOs introduces Portal: Still Alive, with new, more challenging levels. And it’s coming out this year to Xbox Live Arcade. Sweet! Hearty applause.

One more 2009 XBL game: South Park. 10 second trailer! No gameplay shown at all– just Cartman’s voice. We have no idea what the actual game will be.

11:22 am: Here are some XNA games. They all look like free web apps. Xbox Live Community Games will launch in the fall as part of the “new Xbox Live experience”.

Netflix

11:23 am: Microsoft announced Netflix service. If you’re a Live member, you can double the amount of video content. If you have XBL, you don’t need a Netflix account (after playing back the audio from the conference, it appears that you will need a Netflix account). And you can share these with your friends, to watch them together online. Emily: “That’s totally cool.”

11:25 am: Shane Kim takes the stage. He talks about big franchises: Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider, Call of Duty. First GTA4 DLC “promises to be another huge event for Xbox 360 and XBL”.

Banjo Kazooie 3

New Rare game– Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. Here’s a trailer– cartoony, as expected. Some kind of witch is watching B-K create a funky flying machine. Now we see gameplay video– land, air, and sea vehicle creation.

Next up: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. Polar and Desert regions. 100+ varieties of pinatas. Buy a card, scan it with your camera, get a new pinata.

Box Office Smash and You’re In The Movies

Now, a new game: Scene-It: Box Office Smash. First retail game to feature avatars.

Codemasters is bringing a new Xbox 360 game where you can make your own movie. “You’re in the Movies”. Wow, this is pretty interesting. You act out in front of the camera, and it puts your image into a CG-type clip– here one of the demoers is pretending to be a clown, running against a bungee. The next “actor” is swatting imaginary wasps, which are added in later. The camera seems to recognize when you hit one.

The next actor is dancing in a goofy disco scene. This actually looks like a fun party game.

When you’re done goofing off, you star in your own movie trailer. Here we see Cold Blooded, a 50s horror movie about a giant lizard. The actors are all running, screaming from the monster. Pretty well edited.

You’re in the Movies includes an XBL camera. You can also share these movies online.

Guitar Hero: World Tour

11:38 am: Kua Huang of Red Octane is talking about Guitar Hero: World Tour. Drum kit with cymbals, and a guitar with a “touch-slide”. “Most master tracks from the best bands.” New music studio will let people make and share music. When “GH Tunes” launches, it will distribute songs by aspiring artists.

Two announcements: GHWT will give XBox owners 3 tracks from a new REM album. Also, Van Halen and The Eagles will join METALLICA on Guitar Hero– and not on Rock Band. Death Magnetic will be available as DLC at the same time as the new album. First for GH3 in September.

Lips

11:43 am: New karaoke game for Xbox 360. Flashing microphones. You can plug in your Zune to get new music. The game is called: Lips.

Lips is the first game that lets you sing from your own music collection (can’t you sing along to music without the game?) Lips has new light-up mics that are also motion sensitive, so you can use it as a tambourine. Here’s Duffy, in real life on stage, singing “Mercy”. She’s not using the Lips microphone– this is a real one.

This is an impromptu concert, but it’s a little off. For one, she’s singing in front of a screen playing the karaoke version of song, so there’s a bit of an echo. Also, she’s not actually playing the game– it just looks that way.

Rock Band 2

11:49 am: Now we’re talking Rock Band, continuing the music games theme. RB2 will be coming out on Xbox 360 first. Harmonix’s rep takes the stage. Announcement: Rock Band 2 disc soundtrack: it’s so small we can’t see it. The Go-Go’s, Beck, Disturbed… we can see a couple songs. 87 tracks.

Noteworthy tracks: Axl Rose’s “Shackler’s Revenge”, from Chinese Democracy. Bob Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue. AC/DC will appear exclusively in Rock Band 2– not in Guitar Hero. “Let there be rock” is the track. Metallica’s in here too– ok, so that one’s not a GH exclusive.

20 bonus songs will be available for free, so that’s over 100 songs included with the game. All of the old songs you downloaded will work on RB2. Plus, you can play your RB1 disc songs as well. 500 songs available by the end of the year. More than any other music game ever– up yours, GH!

Final Fantasy 13

11:54 am: President of Square Enix takes the stage. Star Ocean, Infinite Undiscovery, Last Remnant. Emily is psyched. Infinite Undiscovery is an XBox exclusive. Star Ocean will be on Marketplace exclusively.

New footage of Last Remnant. Looks like, well, Final Fantasy 12. Not very much shown– just a couple creatures, a couple bad-looking guys, and some magical spells. Coming 11/20/08.

12:02 pm: Holy shit: Final Fantasy 13 will be on Xbox! This new trailer shows a good deal of CG.

This trailer is unspeakably awesome– tons of characters, action, and a bit of what appears to be battle gameplay. The character models are great. The music is impressive– I’m liking this part a lot. The crowd goes wild.

Lots of enthusiasm for this title.

Well, that’s the big climax. Pretty damn good. No Bungie/Halo announcements, here at least. OK, people are clearing out. We’ll clean up this post a little so it’s a bit more legible. Check back later for all the live breaking news from E3.

Make sure to check back with us tomorrow for our Nintendo (9:00 am PST) and Sony (11:30 am PST) liveblog sessions.

Tags: E3 08, Microsoft, press conference

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