Microsofts press conference was the last of the big three. During the event MSFT outlined what they have coming down the pike for the 360, Vista, and….phones.
The presentation started off with an amazing real time, in game demo of Gears of War. The more you see this game in action its just exciting. The strange thing about this conference was the lack of real gameplay.
Microsoft showed a bunch of FMV Trailers for: Gears of War, Too Human, Lost Planet, Fable 2, and 99 Night, among others. While its nice to see what MSFT has cool games waiting in the wings something other than Gears of War and Viva Pinata would have been nice.
Speaking of Viva Pinata, an in game demo was shown and I have to say it looks very interesting. Players will create a garden who attract “life” and the gardens. The population builds up from there. I am hoping there will be more details during E3, but for now it looks like next gen Animal Crossing.
On the 360 Arcade side of things MSFT announced deals with Capcom, Namco, Midway and SEGA (could this mean Dreamcast games on the 360 Arcade?).
MSFT announced that the HD-DVD player for the 360 will be available this holiday season, but no price point was mentioned.
One of the more “scary” parts of this conference centered around the ideas behind “Live Anywhere”. Windows Vista will have full integration with Xbox Live. What this means is that while your playing a game on the 360 and a friend is “working” on a PC you can send an invite to them to play a game, chat over VOIP, etc.
Now where it gets scary is that there is limited functionality for this in present and upcoming windows Mobil devices. I am sure it will be cool, but there is a part of me bothered by the idea that MSFT can “see” me at home, on the road or at work.
Towards the end two small announcements were made. The first: Grand Theft Auto 4 will ship to the 360 Oct 16, 2007. Whats even cooler is that Rockstar will make future GTA episodes available via the Xbox Live marketplace.
Oh yeah then they showed a teaser for Halo 3, and there was no sign of the Arbitor, so there’s hope!