I agree with that completely. Were people expecting MS to announce and demo some game to be available in a few months that no one had ever heard of? And a price cut always seems to be equated with an act of desperation, so that didn't seem likely to me. I thought they made a strong case for where they stand right now, and I thought they did a good job of trying to shift the focus away from how many consoles are being sold to how many games are coming out for and being bought for those consoles, where MS seems to have the lead.

BTW, the Halo 360 system comes with a 20 GB hard drive, so it appears to be the premium instead of the elite.

The listing on xbox.com for it says it has HDMI port.

The Halo one is confusing. I like the way it looks, but why give the HDMI but the small HDD. I have a Halo Xbox now and if I was to buy a 360 this one would tempt me.

I though MS had a good showing, but I think the problem perception wise was the lack of shockers. They showed us what we pretty much knew they had coming and its impressive, but not surprising.

I've seen floating bodies and other physics problems in just about every FPS/TPS I've played, no matter how high profile. It happens. Do I wish it didn't? Sure. However, as long as it happens infrequently, I can deal with it.

I know there wasn't much new, but I'm glad Microsoft decided to stick to what's going to be out by the end of the year, comdex style. Instead of showing games that are years away from release they're ramping up and reminding us that our wallets are going to take a beating this Christmas. All 3 are guilty of overhype previously with some offenders worse than others. The biggest (worst) I can think of right now are Twilight Princess, Fable, and Killzone.

It's kind of nice I think.

No MGS? :P

G4 HAS ME PISSED OFF...

what the hell.....they said commercial free yet we get these extra long commercials.....

i kept reading at the bottom of g4 about the 65nm chip set... was there a press release on this?

Basically. I mean why not? It is clear MS doesn't know how to play the E3 game. They have always just gone the safe route. Never any huge surprises, GTAIV excluded of course. With them holding a steady lead on Sony I, personally, thought they would be more bold and put a few nails in Sony's coffin. A price drop on both the system and the HD drive should have happened. There is a $20 difference between MS's lead SKU and a PS3 with Blu-ray. That boggles my mind. Just look at how many DVDtalkers picked up a PS3 yesterday. I definitely think not dropping is going to hurt them.

What about the fact you have them touting they have sold 45 million arcade games and the Movie Marketplace is huge(doing so well they snagged Disney and are rolling it out in the rest of the world), and factor in all the ridiculously priced themes and gamerpics and other nonsensical content and all I can think is, why are we paying for Live anymore? They are obviously rolling in it from content alone. I don't think they can justify that cost much longer even if they have a handful of superior features to the Sony Network.

I agree that it is nice, but it is pretty boring as well. Since everything was pretty much a known quantity it didn't feel all that special. While ultimately, waiting for TP, Fable, and Killzone might have been disappointing, they sure as hell got everyone talking for months on end.

I just think people are disappointed because MS didn't deliver what we've grown to expect from an E3 press conference. I like that they showed what is coming soon, but it wouldn't have hurt to show a few far off projections as well (assuming they have something worth talking about).

I don't like Star Wars at all, but comparing Halo to it is kind of funny. Is Halo's story really that captivating? I liked playing the game plenty, but very little of that pleasure came from experiencing the story.

The SceneIt announcement doesn't seem lame to me. If it works, that'll be good. I like playing board games, but dealing with the set-up and pieces can be a pain in the ass. If the 360 keeps adding board games (both typical and german types) I think that's pretty cool. Hell, who would have thought Uno would work so well on there?

i liked the conference(from what i saw from the shitty G4 coverage)... they made it short and sweet with some surprises.... they emphasized alot that with the big 3 games being on their system this coming holiday, the only place you can play it is on XBOX 360... its that simple...

thats why they cant bring the price down yet and this holiday season will determine when they can bring the price down...

Updated: 37 minutes ago
SANTA MONICA, California - Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it will hold firm on pricing for its Xbox 360 game console, defying widespread expectations that it would respond to a price cut by rival Sony Corp. for the PlayStation 3.

(MSNBC.com is a Microsoft - NBC Universal joint venture.)

Instead, Microsoft voiced confidence that a slate of upcoming titles targeting both hardcore and casual gamers would be strong enough to give it the lion’s share of consumer dollars in the coming months.

“We have no desire, no need, to react to anything the competition has done,” Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Games Studios, said in an interview.

“We feel really great about the Xbox 360 momentum right now. Customers are voting with their wallets, it’s not just about console units. We feel great about how we’re doing.”

On Monday, Sony cut the price of the PlayStation 3, which competes against the Xbox 360, by $100, or 17 percent, in the United States in an effort to boost flagging sales.

That means the machine, which has a 60-gigabyte hard drive and Blu-ray high-definition DVD player, costs $500, or $20 more than the high-end Xbox 360 Elite that has a 120-gigabyte hard drive but no built-in high-definition DVD player.

Microsoft also has a “premium” Xbox 360 with a 20-gigabyte hard drive that sells for $400, and a “core” version with no hard drive that costs $300.

Sony’s cut also came days after Microsoft said the number of broken Xbox 360s was “unacceptable” and that it would book a charge of up to $1.15 billion for repairs and warranty extensions.

Millions shipped
Microsoft also said it had shipped 11.6 million consoles worldwide by the end of June, missing its target of 12 million.

In the United States, Microsoft has sold about 5.8 million consoles, compared to 2.8 million for Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Wii and 1.4 million for the PS3, according to data from NPD.

Kim said the decision not to cut prices was unrelated to Microsoft’s goal of making the Xbox business profitable in its 2008 fiscal year, which just started.

Since launching the original Xbox in late 2001, Microsoft has spent billions of dollars fighting Sony’s dominance in the industry yet has shown little, if any, profit.

“It’s really not about meeting the profitability goals. We feel very confident that we’ll meet the profit goals with our strategy that is already in place,” Kim said.

Kim pointed to a line-up of games coming out later this year, including Microsoft’s highly anticipated “Halo 3,” “Grand Theft Auto IV” from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and “Madden 08” football from Electronic Arts Inc.

“This year, that perfect storm arrives again,” Kim said. ”And the Xbox 360 is the only platform you’ll be able to play all three of those titles on.”

Later this year
Microsoft also hopes to attract more casual gamers with two new casual games for later this year. One is a multiplayer ”party game” based on its “Viva Pinata” franchise, and the other is based on the movie trivia board game “Scene It?”

Nintendo’s Wii has outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3 this year due to a design and price aimed at drawing in casual gamers.

Kim also said the Xbox Live online service, which allows players to compete online and download movies and games, had 7 million users and would expand to 10 million in one year. He said The Walt Disney Co. would start making some of its movies available on the service.

“Xbox Live continues to just be a huge boulder rolling downhill that is gathering momentum,” Kim said.
-----------------------

exactly...

They sure do have a lot of faith in this "perfect storm" of gaming.

And again touting the 7 million Live users, all downloading $content$, I'll ask again. Why are we still paying for Live?

i have no problem paying for live.. its worth every penny... its easy and fast...

I haven't/don't either, but at this point with the amount of content & number of users it should be self sustaining at this point. Especially since they've started releasing some sales figures.

Yeah, but once Sony has some software to back their network up.. what will the value in paying for Live be?

i get what you are saying and hey, i want free things too

who knows... maybe soon they will bring the price down

Wow, lame!! I am so glad I didn't stay up and watch the whole thing. I turned it off after Reggie Bush was on.

Nothing at all exciting.

Personally i like there being some small economic barrier to entry to when jackasses get banned it has some teeth. No just freely creating a new account. I actually would be happy if any of the "free" trial Gold accounts could only play with one another and not be thrown into my pool since that is where a good deal of the griefing used to come from.

From my experiences on Live, that never really helped much.

That's true. I always forget about that aspect.

How much Live have you really played Pixy?

It also depends a good deal on the games you play online. When i played Phantom Dust (a very Japanese game) i had nothing but extremely polite competitors.

same thing with armored core 4



i think certain games attract a younger audience, which in turn means less maturity. I generally shut my mouth, unless someone is just acting like a fool, in which case I'll personally target that person until they get kicked, shut up, or leave by their own volition

Certain games I'll play online, others I won't.

You can forget about trying to play Gears of War. Way too many assholes.