Today kicked off the biggest week of the year for the video game industry. Today kicked off the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2010. E3 as it is known, is a gathering of the industry’s biggest and best where they show off and talk about the future plans of their companies and introduce the new hardware, games, and DLC the companies will be releasing in the near future. Each major company holds its own press conference, in which they do exactly what is stated above, and with the competition that exists between “The Big 3” (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) to be the best in the industry, these press conferences have become the place to prove that they are the best and show you why you should buy their console.

The first company to take the stage at the Los Angelis Convention Center was Microsoft. At E3 last year, their focus was on the casual gamer, and with the announcement of Project Natal, this years E3 was highly anticipated by Xbox owners both casual and hardcore, to see if they would be able to actually follow through with the technology of Natal, which seemed very sketchy to many, and still be able to provide the core games that keep the diehards on xbox live for hours on end. After watching the live coverage of the press conference, I can assure anyone who had any doubts, they were able to deliver.

For the hardcore gamers, the press conference held demos of Call of Duty: Black Ops and a 4 player co-op campaign demo of Gears of War 3. Both games looked phenomenal, surprisingly with Gears 3 looking better despite still being in early development and having a release date of April 2011, while COD: Black Ops will be released this year on November 9th. Although, the coolest part of either demo was when it showed you get to fly a helicopter in Black Ops. A noteworthy announcement that accompanied the Black Ops demo was a 3 year deal between Microsoft and Activision which states that all DLC for the franchise will be released on the 360 before any other platform. In addition to the demos, trailors for Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Fable III, and Halo Reach had the hardcore fans on the edge of their seats. Rising will bring a whole new look and feel to the MGS series whenever it hits stores (A release date was not announced),while Halo Reach and Fable III will bring new stories, weapons, and game modes to these 2 series that we know and love when they hit stores in September and October respectively.

For the casual gamers, Project Natal, or should I say Kinect as it is now being called, was all that was really shown. However, just about everything you could want to know about it, other than its price, was shown, demoed, explained, or talked about. Some of the coolest features that were shown for the piece of hardware that will release on November 4th are the new way of signing in and moving through the menus as well as video Kinect. In order to sign in, all you have to do is wave at the sensor. In order to select anything from a menu, all you have to do is say xbox followed by whatever you want to access. For example, “xbox zune” would take you to the zune menu. This voice feature also works while watching movies as well. If you have to go to the bathroom, all you have to do is say “xbox pause” and your movie will pause. Video Kinect is a feature that works just kind of like a webcam, allowing you to see and talk to friends who are also using either Video Kinect or Windows Live Messenger.

The press conference also revealed some the launch games for Kinect. These include Kinectimals, Kinect Sports, Kinect Joy Ride, Kinect Adventures, Your Shape Fitness Revealed, and Dance Central. Each of these games was demoed and looked really cool. The Kinect software appeared to work flawlessly with them as well. There will also be 9 more games available at launch, making a total of 15 launch titles for Kinect. In addition to the games demoed, there were videos for 2 other games coming to Kinect in 2011. A titleless Star Wars game and Forza Motersport, which each allow for a lot of creativity when combining them with Kinect.

Aside from the games and Kinect, Microsoft also took the opportunity to unveil some new partnerships. The first partnership announced was one with Crytek with plans of a 360 exclusive shooter. Many people speculate that this partnership could also lead to the God of War series (PS3 exclusive) being brought to the 360. The second and most noteworthy partnership announced was one with ESPN. This partnership will bring xbox live gold members over 3500 live and on-demand sporting events each year, all for free. They even brought out Josh Elliot and Trey Wingo, anchors of Sportcenter, to demo the new service.
Despite all of the great games and technology of Kinect being shown, the biggest announcement of Microsofts press conference came at the end. After much speculation for previous weeks, the new xbox console was unveiled. It is sleeker and smaller than previous models, has a 250gb HD, and built in Wifi. This new console will be available THIS WEEK for $299. The current Elite model received a price cut to $249 and the arcade model received a price cut to $149.

So now that you have heard about all the new awesomeness coming from Microsoft this year, you probably are starting to wonder how you are going to be able to pay for all of these great games, the new 360, and Kinect. Join CashCrate today and start earning the extra money now, so you can get all of these great games on release day.

If you missed Microsoft’s press conference and would like to see it and all the awesome demos and footage that was unveiled, you can watch it in its entirety at http://www.gametrailers.com/e3/livefeed/microsoft

And after you watch it I would encourage you to comment and let me know what you thought about the games, kinect, and other hot topics from the Microsoft press conference at E3 2010.

Be sure check back tomorrow for more Spotlight coverage of E3 2010.

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