E3 2010 Day 1 Notes

By Dan Birlew | Posted June 14, 2010 in Industry Insider | 1 Comment »

By now I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but here’s everything Microsoft revealed in their pre-E3 press conference today:

The long awaited final product name is 'Kinect.'

The Xbox 360 voice and motion capture controller device formerly codenamed ‘Project Natal’ was officially announced today. It is called the Kinect and will arrive on November 14th with a retail price of $149.99. 15 compatible games will be available launch day:

Kinect Adventures (Microsoft Game Studios)
Kinectimals (Frontier Studio/Microsoft Game Studios)
Kinect Joy Ride (Big Park/Microsoft Game Studios)
Kinect Sports (Rare/Microsoft Game Studios)
Dance Central (MTV Games)
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved (Ubisoft)
EA Sports Active 2 (EA)
Deca Sports Freedom (Hudson)
Dance Masters (Konami)
Adrenalin Misfits (Konami)
Zumba Fitness (Majesco)
Sonic Free Riders (Sega)
The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout (THQ)
Motion Sports (Ubisoft)
Game Party: In Motion (Warner Bros.)

Look familiar? Yep.

The Kinect installs a new Kinect hub to the dashboard to make motion navigation with the Kinect easier. Frankly, it’s a bit close to the design of the Wii menu.

The New Kinect-Compatible 360

A newly designed Xbox has been in production and will be in stores this coming Friday (6/18/10). It is about 2/3rds the size of the previous model and includes a 250Gb harddrive, wireless-N, HDMI, and a new Kinect port that will be necessary to use the system, I suppose. It retails for $299.99 and has a glossy black finish. Older models are supposedly going to drop by $50 on Tuesday morning (6/15/10). Complete specs:

Touch Sensitive Buttons – turn the Xbox 360 on or off and eject a disc with the swipe of a finger
Whisper Quiet – Whether you’re playing a DVD disc or from the hard drive or navigating the dashboard, with the all-new and much quieter Xbox 360, the only noise you’ll hear is your own laughing, cheering and playing
Wi-Fi – Built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi for fast, easy connection to your friends and entertainment on Xbox LIVE.
Hard Drive – 250GB internal, swappable hard drive for even more storage. To access, remove the bottom panel by pushing the small tab toward the front of the console.
Kinect-ready – Custom Kinect port on the back of the console that directly hooks up to the Kinect sensor for controller-free fun.
USB Slots – Five USB ports, three in the back and two in the front.
Power Supply – Smaller and more efficient. Xbox 360 250GB and Xbox 360 Original power supplies are not interchangeable.
Wireless Controller – The award-winning Xbox 360 Wireless Controller matches the console in all black with color-matched thumbsticks and directional pad with a touch of gloss and chrome to complete the look.
Backward Compatible – Your favorite accessories and games will work with Xbox 360 250GB. Xbox 360 external hard drives and Memory Units are not compatible.

Microsoft immediately posted a new page with instructions on how to transfer your data from your old 360 to the new one using a USB stick. If the data size is too big for the Xbox cache on a USB stick then you’ll have to buy a transfer cable from Microsoft’s website for $19.

The Xbox 360 will be the first console to get Call of Duty: Black Ops and all relevant map packs and DLC, although Microsoft’s lead time over Sony wasn’t specified. One stage of the game was played, demonstrating helicopter flying.

Hideo Kojima took over the stage during Microsoft’s conference to show a game play trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Rising. The game is 360 exclusive and features Raiden (as he appears in MGS4) as the lead character. As a ninja, Raiden is capable of slicing up enemies six ways from Sunday, and can also bisect cars and scenery. No word on a release date has emerged:

Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade will feature a new Lara Croft multiplayer game as well as the interesting-looking Limbo. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair was also confirmed today. Several people can play together as various protagonists from the game, including Soma, Alucard and others. However it appears that many sprites from previous games are being reused in a side-scrolling 3D environment. We’ll have to wait and see if this one’s worth the points.

Halo Reach gameplay footage was one of the last trailers shown at the event:

After the show, several press members were told that Xbox Live is coming to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Russia and South Africa this holiday season.

EA and Ubisoft also had press conference events today. The only interesting items to come out of these was some Dead Space 2 footage and news that Crysis 2 will be in stereoscopic 3D on the 360, PS3 and PC. Gears of War maker Epic Games’ new title Bulletstorm hits the PS3 and Xbox 360 on Feb. 22, 2011, EA says. Otherwise it appears that the Medal of Honor reboot is going to wind up being another Battlefield game.

Tomorrow’s big event is Nintendo’s press conference, where hopefully they will have footage and/or a demo from the next Zelda Wii game. Otherwise… they could be in trouble.

Tags: announcements, Metal Gear Solid, preview, video games, Xbox