I just finished watching the Microsoft press conference from E3 2010. Honestly, I was most impressed with their stage setup. I really like the big screens. But that’s just because I’m into things like that. On to the actual content.
Besides demoing the new versions of the same old Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Halo franchises, the whole conference was based on Kinect. Kinect was previously known as Project Natal and it is Microsoft’s answer to the Nintendo Wii. Basically, the system is a motion sensing camera that allows game play very similar to the Wii motion control stuff without having to actually hold a controller. They showed demos of a kid petting a tiger (which is a little weird) for the Kinectimals (horrible title) game. Some other demos included a dancing game from Harmonix and an exercise game from UbiSoft. All in all, the press conference was a little boring and seemed a little bit long to me.
The most impressive actual announcement, however, was the new Xbox 360 Slim. It has the same core components of the Xbox360, with a smaller, sleeker case design. It is supposedly quieter, although that will need to be confirmed over the next few days as people actually use them. It has a 250GB hard drive and built in 802.11N wireless networking. The price is the same as the current Elite model, at $299 MSRP. There was no announcement about a new arcade version, so I assume that line will be going away.
Here are some pictures of the new console, courtesy of @MajorNelson:
Also, interesting to note… At the time of this post, the xbox.com hardware site still reflected the old system. I guess they aren’t quite on the ball.
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