Holiday season 2007 is looking to be one of the greatest in the history of videogames. Microsoft only showed a fraction of what we’ll be getting this year, but it is more than enough to make us excited. Halo 3, Ace Combat 6, Rock Band, Guitar Hero III, Splinter Cell Conviction, Mass Effect, BioShock, Project Gotham Racing 4, and even a new Viva Pinata party game in Viva Pinata: Party Animals among many other titles.
Disney Comes to Xbox Live Video Marketplace
In perhaps the biggest news of the evening (like I said, it was a pretty subdued press conference compared to years past), it was revealed that Disney will be bringing it’s movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax Films, and Hollywood Pictures to the Xbox Live Marketplace in high definition. This is significant because, previously, the only place to see these movies in HD was on Sony’s Blu-ray format. It is too bad this wasn’t an HD DVD announcement, but at least now we can watch these movies on our Xbox 360s anyway.
Halo 3 Special Edition Xbox 360 System
Microsoft also showed off a special edition green Halo 3 Xbox 360 system. It will come with a matching green wireless controller, 20GB hard drive, headset, play and charge kit, and exclusive Halo 3 gamer pics and themes. Also, (not announced or listed in Microsoft’s press release, but revealed on Bungie.net), the system will include HDMI. A price wasn’t announced, but it will hit store shelves in September.
New Xbox 360 Accessories
Remember that little keyboard thing that was shown a few months ago? Well, it is finally coming out. Available starting September 6th, the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit will hit store shelves for $29.99.
Also, there will be new colors of wireless controllers available in October, including pink, dark blue, and light blue.
Games For Windows
They also showed off a couple of new PC games in the Games for Windows line. Viva Pinata will hit PCs later this year, and hopefully people will actually play it this time. More importantly, Gears of War is heading to PCs this year and will work on both XP and Vista. It will include five new single player chapters along with some other nifty stuff. No word on whether said nifty stuff will be available for the Xbox 360 version.
Bottom Line
And that is pretty much it. Resident Evil 5 was shown, but it isn’t coming until 2008 and we didn’t see much anyway. A new Halo 3 single player trailer was shown. Most (if not all) of the trailers shown will be available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
It wasn’t a great press conference, and the impression I got from the people I was watching it with was that it was a disappointment, but you kind of have to put things in perspective. Due to the timing, smaller format, and general weirdness surrounding this E3, some announcements that could have made the show were revealed earlier. Or they were just out-and-out leaked early. Any other year, I think online play for Virtua Fighter 5 or Gears of War for PC would have been major announcements, but we already knew these things already. We didn’t see any new games, or anything surprising, but we did see a very impressive lineup. And, honestly, I kind of like seeing things that will be in my hands in mere months rather than getting all hyped up for something that is years away and probably won’t look like it does now.
