Microsoft brought out the big guns to start off their conference, beginning with a live action trailer for the highly anticipated Halo 4. The trailer showcased a new enemy type attacking both you and the covenant forces. When Master Chief manages to take out the beast, Cortana identifies its dropped weaponry as forerunner tech. Also, Cortana also seems to be getting a little...unstable.
Ubisoft also brought the return of Sam Fisher in the new Splinter Cell: Blacklist. The trailer sees Fisher at the Iran-Iraq border, where he has to interrogate the Blacklist leader. The trailer showed Sam's target elimination system, which was reminiscent of the quick draw system seen in Red Dead Redemption. Ubisoft promises Blacklist will ship in spring of next year.
Xbox entertainment promised to go beyond console, to phones, tablets, and puts a much higher emphasis on their Kinect voice activation system. Two games they picked to demonstrate this were the new FIFA, and Madden NFL. In FIFA, Kinect would allow you to make substitutions and play commands on the fly without using menu. And watch your temper, because the referees can penalize you for your reaction to their calls.
For Madden, Microsoft brought out hall of fame quarterback Joe Montana to demo the feature. He was able to relive his time as a quarterback and call out plays to individual players, call out a hike, and an audible. Madden is said to be out August 28th, and is said to be the "biggest investment in franchise history."
Other games seeing the limelight were Fable: the Journey (out for the holiday season this year), Gears of War: Judgement (2013), Forza Horizon (Oct. 23), twisted pixel's Lococycle, South Park: the Stick of Truth, Dance Central 3, Matter, Ascend: New Gods, Tomb Raider, Wreckateer, Resident Evil 6.
Check out John's article for something a little more in-depth.
Microsoft also showed some new tech, and a few other surprises for Kinect. Head of marketing and strategy Yusuf Mehdi announced the use of Kinect to browse through movies by genre via bing. The system will be available in 12 more countries, and in multiple languages. 4 more providers will be added to the service - nickelodeon, paramount, machinima, and Univision.
Medhi also announced that sports coverage is being broadened. You'll soon be able to watch hockey and basketball games as both the NBA and NHL are coming to Xbox.
Xbox Music is also being added. Users will soon have access to over 30 million different tracks, which they'll be able to access from their Xbox360, windows tablets, and windows smartphones.
Head of Xbox Live Marc Whitten introduced Xbox Smart Glass, which promises to help immerse you into the movies, tv shows, and games you watch and play on the Xbox by involving your smartphone and/or Windows tablets. Whitten used the feature to update a play in Madden, and accept a multiplayer invite in Halo 4.
He also promised that Kinect will soon be able to browse the web on your tv through internet explorer, and can be operated with your windows tablet or phone. Smart Glass should launch worldwide this fall.
Kinect is also jumping on the health bandwagon, announcing a partnership with Nike Plus to create Nike Plus Kinect Training, which will use the Nike Plus system to keep you in shape. And keeping with the idea of cross platform involvement, the system will remind you by phone if you're due for a workout.
Xbox closed their conference with a trailer for the much anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. We'll make trailers and additional information available as soon as we can.
Still nothing about the new Xbox unfortunately, and several games were not mentioned on either. Maybe they'll let something "slip" as E3 continues this week...