I haven't been this excited around E3 in a while. Sony knocked it out of the park this year. Virtually everything they could have done to beat Microsoft, they did. No DRM. The ability to play used games by just inserting the disc. Cheaper price point by $100. For a gamer, that's a no-brainer. Sony clearly catered more to gamers than Microsoft did. Sure, there aren't as many exclusives, but most of Microsoft's exclusives were laden with shooters. Nintendo is also showing a lot in terms of games. The big kicker for me is the addition of MegaMan in the new Super Smash Bros games. It's a big week in gaming and the plan is to reflect and comment on all this news in upcoming comic strips. I also have another project in the work with a friend of mine. We should have some stuff to show my the end of the month.
If you haven't heard, the Xbox One is always on. People just have to say, "Xbox, on" and the system turns itself on. That means that the system has to be listening all the time and the Kinect has to be connected in order for the system to work. It's easy to draw some parallels from other forms of media.
How all this will pan out has yet to be seen. Microsoft's Kinect is no longer just a sensor, soon it will be able to watch and listen to you. That's some creepy stuff. In the meantime, we'll just make fun of it and wait to see what actually happens.
Microsoft finally unveiled their new Xbox One early on Tuesday. If you want to take a look at the event, I'd recommend clicking here. The most important thing Microsoft addressed was the issue of the next Xbox being rumored to be always online. That is false! The system doesn't have to be connected to the internet for people to play games, but the option to always have the Xbox One always connected still exists. The other big thing is that each system comes bundled with a Kinect 2.0 inside the box. Some of the new features look pretty cool. For instance, the Kinect 2.0 can recognize depth and rotation so making a grabbing motion with your hands is recognizable and shown as a feature for returning to the home screen. Lag was a big issue addressed, and from the stage demo, switching between live TV input, internet, games and/or movies is as simple as just telling the Xbox to do so. It all looked seamless. Plus there is a picture-in-picture type feature so you can watch a movie and surf the web, though it looks like you need another device (smartphone or tablet) to do so. Perhaps the biggest news was the announcement of a live action Halo TV series that is going to be directed by Steven Spielberg. Yes, Steven Spielberg! That man is amazing and should be able to turn the world of Halo into a compelling TV series. Not much was shown in terms of actual games. There will be a new Madden, FIFA, UFC and NBA game all by EA Sports. They also teased the new Call of Duty: Ghosts by Infinity and a new Remedy (makers of Max Payne and Alan Wake) game called Quantum Break (though not much footage of the actual game is shown in the trailer). Gamers will have to wait until E3 for more game announcements, but Microsoft did promise a lot of exclusivity. Whether this is in terms of games, DLC or early releases has yet to be seen.
