Microsoft has a knack for multimedia in every sense of the word including but not limited to movies, music, sports, and of course video games. Taking multimedia one step further, Xbox attempts to use all devices already in our hands.
If you own an Xbox you would probably thrive of the fact that it's filled with shooters. And there was no shortage of exotic shooters here. To be honest new shooters tend to take on a different ethnic group every iteration, but hey it's all good fun.
Microsoft's main game of the whole conference was of course the futuristic, in more ways that one, Halo 4. Though gameplay may not change a whole lot, as is true for most first person shooters, it's a disservice to not mention the highly updated graphics for the Xbox title. Considering the difference of the current iteration from the previous releases. Though long time fans of the franchise will appreciate the return of a beloved character, Master Chief, those possibly looking for a different experience as a whole may have to look elsewhere.
Fable is another notable franchise that made an appearance, albeit a short but sweet infomercial. Showcasing that the series has been slightly upgraded, those features were not tackled during the conference but sure looks promising for those who like to cast magics.
A new partnership between Xbox and Nike has also been formed. As a leading company in fitness and being able to track your statistics from everywhere, Nike has made a new fitness game for your Xbox, details and features have not been gone into but we pretty much get the idea. Integrating that into the already active Nike fitness tracker apps for your personal devices, aims to further that experience with interaction with other people igniting that competitive athletic factor in all of us.
Usher made a special guest appearance to promote his choreography for the new Dance Central 3. This is so far the best if not the only game capable of maximizing the potential of its Kinect. It's a bit of a let down to see Microsoft under-use its hardware, reducing it to mere novelties of voice operation. Microsoft claimed that Kinect was the future of gaming and that it didn't need to upgrade the system, but it fell short of that promise.
And on the note of the future of gaming, Microsoft did not announce its rumored new Xbox or Xbox 720. It did deny beforehand that they would not release new information of their new console, but to the public, it could have easily have been a elaborate double bluff. So for the meantime, Microsoft stuck to the games that it currently has.
And who can forget about the Gears Of War 3 announcement. As with Halo it is also an upgraded version of the game, it does pique our interest in the series. But with all eyes this year on how other companies would announce trump cards in the face of the Wii U, it's disappointing to think that Microsoft did not step up with something new and not merely an iteration of their existing exclusive brands.
In spite of the lack of new innovative games, Microsoft has brought a whole new way to experience the Xbox as a whole namely it new services such as new movies and channels such as NBA, ESPN, and Nickelodeon, from which you may purchase video content, an Xbox Music service that will deliver music to most any Microsoft device anytime anywhere, and it's newly announced Xbox SmartGlass that will allow you to use your existing Android, Apple, and Windows devices to expand your home entertainment.
Microsoft claims that the new Xbox SmartGlass service will allow developers access to an app inside your tablet, smartphone or laptop. It leaves many to think if this is a serious answer to the Wii U touchscreen or just a gimmick. The demo was you could see a map of the world of Game Of Thrones on your tablet as you watch it on your Xbox. Another demo was selecting a play on your tablet for use in a multiplayer game of Madden NFL.
Though the potential may be good, the burden of providing additional entertainment falls down onto the developer who may or may not create additional apps for their games for possibly no addition profit. Also juggling devices mid game may not prove effective but seeing additional info of movies and episodes just might and does seem like the best implementation of the feature.
Overall, Microsoft delivered a good performance but it does seem lackluster in respects to missing the opportunity of E3 to announce new games. It did pretty badly already last year considering the saturation of casual Kinect games. Now they have shadowed it even more despite it being one of its main selling points of Xbox. Instead of showing the world how Kinect can be use correctly, they relied on third parties to innovate. With not a whole lot to be excited for given E3 standards, we still have an amazing Halo and Gears of War coming up our way.
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