Microsoft E3 Round-up

Sure, the Final Fantasy XIII announcement was a well timed, perfectly executed kick to Sony’s bollocks, but what else did Microsoft have to show during their presentation?  Let’s see.

• Fallout 3 – Bethesda’s (Oblivion) massive third person adventure.  Was demoed, looked great, also coming to PS3, although the 360 version will get exclusive DLC.
• Resident Evil 5 – Again, demoed on 360 hardware, but also coming to PS3 – release date is March 13th, 2009.
• Fable 2 – The follow up to the Xbox’s cool action RPG is obviously 360 exclusive, and will land in October this year.  Again, gameplay was demoed.
• Gears of War 2 – Never really interested me, to be honest, although I did finish the original in co-op and had a fun time.  Obviously exclusive to 360, and looked stunning.
• Expansion of the Live-powered movie rental download service.  Something Sony have to announce tonight, and they have to have the partners signed up ready to go.
• New Avatar interface.  It’s like Home-lite, but it’s clearly a lot slicker and better looking, in our opinion.  There’ll be Avatar integration in games, too.  Live Party sounds good too.   Again, Sony needs to get Home out to the masses, and today.
• Various Live Arcade titles: a follow up to Geo Wars, new Galaga and what appears to be a semi-sequel to Portal.  We’re desperately hoping the PS3 will get this at some point (it’s exclusive for 2008) or we’re buying a 360.
• Netflix.  Say no more.
• Plenty of casual games: Banjo, Lips, Scene It! and the EyeCreate-like You’re In The Movies.  Rock Band 2 will be out first on the 360, again.
• And then, of course, Square Enix, with stacks of JRPG support for the 360, including the bastion of the PS3: Final Fantasy XIII.  Everyone we’ve spoken to since had no idea this was happening.

And that’s that.  Regardless of your fanboy leanings, this was a good show, nothing really new but lots of exclusives, which is what we think will be driving sales this generation.  As we’ve said before, Sony, over to you.