Official E3 Rumors/Discussion/Chat Thread

[6souls]

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In the two years he's been the executive producer for Microsoft's E3 appearance, Aaron Greenberg's brought The Beatles on stage and tonight, Cirque du Soleil. He expects to be asked how he'll outdo that, and he doesn't have an answer.

"I'm eager to not have to try to one-up this next year, that's for sure," Aaron Greenberg told Kotaku yesterday, before Microsoft would stage the Project Natal-themed performance by Cirque du Soleil, that just now concluded in Los Angeles.

Greenberg agreed the back-to-back appearances of global superstar performers might create unreasonably escalating expectations for succeeding years. But he's not worried about trying to outdo this show, and certainly wasn't going to pass on Cirque du Soleil because of that fear.

"For us it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - when do you get to unveil to the world an experience that, we think, will be as transformative as Natal is? It's something you get once in your career, and this was the time to make sure we don't let this moment go, and really do it right."

Cirque du Soleil was in the discussion almost from the start, Greenberg said. Meetings and discussions inevitably brought up Le Cirque, or a Cirque-like performance in concept. "Don Mattrick [the head of Microsoft's interactive entertainment division] suggested we reach out to them," Greenberg said. "So we invited them and their top creative and technical teams to Seattle about five months ago."

Now, Microsoft is not a chicken-feed brand, but Cirque du Soleil does refuse plenty of corporate gigs, regardless of size, Greenberg noted. "They get approached by thousands of companies and generally say no to all of them," he said. "They told us, ‘We don't play video games, we're a brand about human performance.' We said, ‘Come spend a day with us, we'll show you what this is, we'll have you spend time with our top creators."

Greenberg said le Cirque's representatives "were blown away. They immediately went off into massive brainstorming mode." The circus took Natal technology back to Montreal, put together a concept, and returned to present it to the senior leadership. "In what was a four-month process, they built an event that's just massive in scale." Greenberg said.

Tonight's event was invitation-only and technology-free, so there are no photos or videos of it. There will be an encore production Monday night for the public (limited to 3,000 tickets), and it will air commercial-free Tuesday on MTV (3:30 p.m.) and Nickelodeon (9 p.m., both times U.S. Eastern and Pacific). It'll be up on Xbox Live on Wednesday, Greenberg said.

"The show, in its entirety, will not be seen until it's seen on TV," said Greenberg, who wasn't giving out any details about the show, nor even which celebrities would be making the red carpet appearance on Sunday.

But star power and pizzaz comprise only a small part of the message Microsoft's sending with Cirque du Soleil's Natal performance. The device is obviously meant to appeal to those who have played very few, if any, video games, and make a case for them not just on Microsoft's behalf, but on the industry's as well, Greenberg said.

"It's about getting people who have never played games before into this form of entertainment," he said. "There's never been any learning curve to watch a movie or listen to music or read a book. Everyone at all ages can do that. But gaming has a technology barrier, and if someone grew up knowing how to handle a 16-button controller, great. But our parents and grandparents who didn't, it's intimidating.

"Our form of entertainment, and we're biased, we believe it's the greatest art form in the world, and it's something a lot of people aren't experiencing today," Greenberg said. "We're hopeful this opens their eyes and introduces our industry to them."

http://kotaku.com/5562288/cirque-per...atal-but-games

[Qalbert]

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...6/kinfinal.jpg

[Shenrien]

It looks shiny, that's for sure, but like all things shiny it usually has a layer of shit underneath it

[Insanecyclone]

[Kaisha]

It looks shiny, that's for sure, but like all things shiny it usually has a lair of shit underneath it (wii)

And if it's anything like my PS3, shiny layer is a dust magnet.

I'm surprised though, I was expecting it to be more of a match-up for the 360 design, rather than just looking like its own thing.

[Shenrien]

And if it's anything like my PS3, shiny layer is a dust magnet.

I'm surprised though, I was expecting it to be more of a match-up for the 360 design, rather than just looking like its own thing.

I haven't noticed much dust on my PS3 ever really, but I think that's because it gets moved so much.

at least it isn't that huge, looking at gizmodo they have pics and its fairy small, about the size of two standard sized Xbox360 controllers side by side, as for the new model, it hardly looks slim at all, tho I do find their support for a longer base at the bottom for vertical stand support a nice feature, tho I wonder if its like the PS2 or PS3 where vertical standing causes the system to generate more heat.

[Guitarman]

3 cameras, two for the peripheral, one for employees to watch titties jiggle across the nation.

[Kaisha]

tho I wonder if its like the PS2 or PS3 where vertical standing causes the system to generate more heat.

The odd shape of the case lends to look like it was designed to be standing up, so I'm guessing it'll have vents on the top (perhaps HD is on the rear somewhere, or internal this time around) to help dissipate heat, that, or it'll generate more heat then it would sitting down. >.>

[Shenrien]

3 cameras, two for the peripheral, one for employees to watch titties jiggle across the nation.

This must be why it took so long for them to finish it up, that Milo application they showed last year was not simply just an innocent game, them eyes were giving direct feedback from the users tv back to their servers!

[GRT]

Maybe I'm just a lazy bastard, but I just can not fathom the appeal of a game that requires me to play with all four of my limbs.

[Atreides]

I think the xbox 360 redesign was just to make it harder to stack PS3s and dvd players on top of it.

Similarly how the fuck am I going to find room for my sensor bar and my natal and my move camera under/above my tv? It's gonna be like a 6 inch stack of peripherals lol

[Kaisha]

Maybe I'm just a lazy bastard, but I just can not fathom the appeal of a game that requires me to play with all four of my limbs.

Neither do all of us bedroom gamers who don't even have the floorspace for the cam to see below our waist.

[6souls]

at least it isn't that huge, looking at gizmodo they have pics and its fairy small, about the size of two standard sized Xbox360 controllers side by side

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...x_kinscale.jpg

Following tonight's Cirque du Soleil performance in Los Angeles, Microsoft gave us a first look at many of Kinect's first titles, most of which we'd never seen before.

Most promising may well be a Star Wars game, developed by Microsoft and Lucasarts, that features controller-free lightsaber duels, complete with force powers like "force push".

Kinect Sports, the most obvious clone of a Wii title, includes beach volleyball (which has Xbox Live multiplayer), bowling, hurdles, javelin and soccer.

Kinectamals, meanwhile, is looking a lot like the cross between EyePet and Nintendogs you already think it is, as we were shown a girl training her pet tiger, as well as directly interacting with it through things like being able to pet the kitty.

MTV's dance game is...a dance game, which in keeping with the Rock Band series' legacy is built upon the basics of dance and timing instead of simply waving your arms around. Though you will also be waving your arms around.

Also shown off was a video chat service, called...Video Chat, which uses the Natal camera to let you chat with other Xbox 360 users.

Perhaps the most interesting thing we saw all night, however, was the gesture-based control system for the Xbox 360's dashboard that Kinect allows. Your hand can move an on-screen cursor around (Kinect able to track your own hand's movements), while menus can also be traversed doing things like swiping your hands.

http://kotaku.com/5562532/our-first-...games-software

[Shenrien]

I think the xbox 360 redesign was just to make it harder to stack PS3s and dvd players on top of it.

Similarly how the fuck am I going to find room for my sensor bar and my natal and my move camera under/above my tv? It's gonna be like a 6 inch stack of peripherals lol

Spoiler: show

http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/ass...kinetica_4.jpghttp://cache-04.gawkerassets.com/ass...kinetica_7.jpg

It's not that big, and from what it appears, you can just set it to where the cameras will see you, unlike the Wii sensor bar that is just horrible in every conceivable way.

[Kaisha]

Wow, larger than I was picturing. I was thinking something not as tall as the PS Eye, and about double it's length, but I guess I was off by half of that. >.>

Well, as long as it doesn't have those LED lights on it that burn the retinas when you're up late gaming at night I'm ok with it.
(that's the only problem I ever had with the EyeToy & PS Eye, had to put tape over those damn LEDs)

[Tajin]

Well, as long as it doesn't have those LED lights on it that burn the retinas when you're up late gaming at night I'm ok with it.

heh, thought I was the only one with this problem; can't even stand led lights on laptop or mouse.

As for the Kinect I'm looking forward to the Cirque video more than the gadget >_>

[Atreides]

lol @ force push game

more like Starkiller's Force Training

edit: and the wii sensor bar does its job decently well, as long as it's positioned correctly and you're not sitting in some weird space. Honestly the Motionplus is worse, the major drawback being that you can't simply jerk your wrist in lieu of waggling like you can with just the wiimote, for a game like Red Steel you pretty much need to stand up and flail like an asshole. I hope that Move/Kinect are able to be tricked into letting lazy gamers such as myself control shit with just hands/fingers lol

[Shojin]

new xbox looks interesting. about time microsoft woke up and put in a decent sized hard drive and built in wifi. jfc only took you 4 years.

[Kaisha]

new xbox looks interesting. about time microsoft woke up and put in a decent sized hard drive and built in wifi. jfc only took you 4 years.

Woke up, or gave into consumer demand?

I'm pretty sure they were making a pretty penny off their overpriced HD & WiFi adapters. It makes me wonder if they're going to charge more than $299 for it, or phase out the Elites by selling them at the Arcade's price and have this new model replace it, like the Arcade did the Pro a couple years back.

[Kkel]

I was at the Natal reveal event tonight and it was pretty amazing. The Star Wars game was obviously incomplete, but man... it was impressive as hell. It was closer to Force Unleashed style Jedi action. Lots of crazy force powers and lightsaber combat.