E3 2009 Preview: A Look At Microsoft and the Xbox 360

Posted by Jereme Puik

The Electronic Entertainment Expo is one of the biggest events of the year for the gaming press and gamers in general. This is the time of the year where developers from across the nation and even from across the waters arrive to let us know about their upcoming games. New announcements are made for new games as well as hardware announcements make their presence felt at the show. The big 3, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all put on their respective conferences to let us in on the current status of their consoles and company with sales numbers, who’s beating who in what department and what upcoming titles they’ll be publishing for the summer and beyond. You can’t forget the show floor itself and with so many games hitting this summer as well as the fall, we’ll try to break down for you here at Game Plasma with the best unbiased coverage we can offer. Here we’ll take a look at what we can anticipate for this years show, console wise as well as the games.

E3 2009 Anticipation: Microsoft and the Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 has grown over the last few of years since its launch in 2005. The fatal Red Ring of Death is still an issue that Microsoft continues to find answers for, however, the system as a whole is seeing its future realized and its potential reached. It was the first system to launch in this “next-generation” and Microsoft has fully transformed Xbox Live into a premiere service. You may think you know Xbox, but everyday something new is on the horizon, what can we expect out of Microsoft at this year’s E3? Quite a lot; and you may not even know it.

The Hardware: Xbox 360

Any updates to the system? Before E3 began rolling closer around the corner 2 new bundles appeared giving gamers their choice of what kind of bundle they wanted to get. The Red Resident Evil 5 Elite bundle proved that the Jasper units were in place and would help the 360 live longer. Secondly you have a normal Elite bundle with Halo 3 and Fable 2 available for free out of the box which made it harder to decide which bundle was actually worth it. Will there be any more bundles announced at E3? One can only speculate at this point. So, what’s the next reasonable step for the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live?

Speculation: To fully combine Games for Windows and Xbox Live one would think Microsoft would head into the world of the mmo. Can you imagine the likes of a game like World of Warcraft, or Starcraft making its way to Xbox Live? Back in 2007 at the GDC, Joystiq posted a rumor going around that Mistwalker Founder Hironobu Sakaguchi was working on an MMO that was 50% MMO and 50% RPG; obviously combining that means it’s a mmorpg, at least according to their source at Total Video Games. While at the time, one would think it was just talk being spread around at the conference, especially considering that nothing has popped up about it recently? It has seems to have since died with nothing coming to life about the rumor since then. With the newly revitalized E3, one would think this would be the perfect opportunity for Microsoft to take charge in its online service that’s not about appealing to the casual crowd. It was certainly being a surprise that if this subject actually came to life.

Speculation: Recently, in the last couple of months, photos leaked showcasing a motion sensor bar being used for some reason, which you can find over at Engadget. It would more then likely takes Microsoft over the edge in terms of what the Xbox 360 already offers for the gaming audience. That is if this was true of course. You can check out the image that was leaked here and decide for yourself whether it’s real or not. E3 would be the perfect time to announce something like this considering the implications it would have on both Sony and Nintendo. Sony seems to have died down on support for their “Eye Toy” and if Microsoft can manage to make this announcement, it would surely be a backbreaker for them in the long run and actually harness third-party support with the peripheral.

Speculation: Rumors had been flying around for the last year or so that Microsoft was considering entering the handheld race with Sony and Nintendo and churn out handheld gaming device. MS certainly hasn’t debunked the rumor as far as a few sources are concerned. What has developed recently in the news however are rumors that the Zune could get an update allowing it to play games and receive an increase in size capacity with greater functionality with the Xbox 360. These rumors go all the way back to 2005 when Microsoft filed a patent for a "multi-component gaming system". One could think of many things that could possibly work with that phrase. You can check out some info about what went down with these rumors here.

There is plenty to think about when June 1^st rolls around and at 10:30 Am, Microsoft will take the stage and give us their all.

Anticipation: The Games

The games are what E3 has always been about and with this years show; it has an even greater anticipation placed upon itself with the summer and fall releases. Here we’re taking a look at what Microsoft should be revealing something with regards to its own third party and first party exclusives. My estimation for E3 would be that Microsoft will probably announce another full line up of Arcade titles for the summer and a confirmed date for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Outside of that here’s one Arcade title that we’ll be keeping an eye on.

Xbox Live Arcade

1 vs. 100: We’ve heard very little information about the title since its reveal and with the interesting concept it has we believe Microsoft will definitely not forget about this. 1 vs. 100 takes the use of your avatars and brings them together in one big game show competing for all sorts of prizes with real hosts no less. The beta is going on right now for Canada and a date for the US has yet to be revealed. Hopefully we won’t be waiting too much longer to get our hands on this game show and start winning us some prizes that include everything from Microsoft points to a home theater system. At E3 I believe we’ll finally here a solid release date for the game that could be either Late Summer or during the fall rush.

Primetime: Primetime is something that Microsoft announced at E3 2008. We haven’t heard anything about it since other then the game, 1 vs. 100 being featured. The channel itself hasn’t been mentioned in the press much and is one of the things that Microsoft seems to be tight lipped about as well. The Primetime channel is Microsoft’s idea of Nick@Night, giving you family-fun scheduled games that you can all enjoy. The service has since been delayed with no word yet on when it will go Live. I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft was able to announce a firm release date for the service as well as other games for it to take advantage of its offerings.

Most Anticipated Games

Halo: ODST: Halo ODST is one game we haven’t heard much about since its debut teaser trailers a few months ago. Will it be at the show? One can only speculate, Microsoft is being tight lipped about its games, and will more then likely wait till the conference itself to show us what they’ll have in store for the fall. One thing to remember, it’s all made by original core Bungie team. After the unfortunate fallout with Bungie and Microsoft, you could look at Halo ODST and say that this is Bungie’s going away gift to the Halo fans in a way. When all is said and done, how could you not have a Halo title of this caliber at the show? We’re speculating that we will see a demo reveal/release date all confirmed and set up by Bungie, and to top it off, a new trailer just to hold us over.

Alan Wake: Alan Wake is a title that hasn’t had much press attached to. You could say that Alan Wake is Microsoft’s answer to Heavy Rain considering the magnitude of its stature both story wise and gameplay wise. As a matter of fact, if you want to believe this or not we haven’t heard much concrete news on Alan Wake since late last year, in terms of gameplay trailers and previews. Developed by Remedy Entertainment, you would think there would’ve been gameplay trailers or teasers by now. I would lean to believe that at E3 we will possibly see more concrete info on Alan Wake, possible release date reveal for release either in the fall or early 2010. The surprise here would be to see a live demo during the conference as a tease.

Mass Effect 2: Best known for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, developer Bioware made an impact on the RPG genre when Mass Effect released onto the public. It added a whole new dimension to role playing games and added the drama and story you could hope for in a sci-fi epic. While it may not be the next Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect effectively drives on its own road. The story is a mystery here especially with the teaser trailer giving away a possible shocker to the audience. With new developer diaries Bioware is planning on bridging your decisions made in Mass Effect to the sequel, making sure the story is consistent and that whatever you do in the game actually matters in the long run in this trilogy.

Gears of War 3: We haven’t heard anything at all regarding Epic Games’ infamous franchise. Gears of War 3 would be a big reveal for Microsoft if the game was indeed in early development. Gears of War 2 were only released last November, so it would be viable to think that we would possibly see a teaser trailer. Why won’t it show? Possibly because the game is too early in development to give the public any reason to get excited about it. Though, at last years E3 they did show a teaser for Gears of War 2 that was simple and easy to get everyone talking about it. I wouldn’t put it past Epic Games to try, but one has to look at the realistic side of things of course. The downside of this is that Epic Games is currently working on DLC content for 2 and is already releasing a new map pack sometime in June, so it would be a surprise to hear anything about Gears of War 3.

And there you have it, a comprehensive look at the most anticipated items of what Microsoft could possibly have in store for this year’s E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Next up, we’ll be taking a look at Sony and the Playstation 3 and what they could possibly have cooking up. Stay tuned to Game Plasma for more as we cover E3 2009.