Kinect needed that killer game.

Yeah, ending the whole thing by bribing every journalist in the room was a genious move... Not. They should have told them they'd get free Xbox before it started so they'd actually clap when they wanted them to

BTW I showed my mom the Kinect stuff. She said that is stupid, you would look dumb doing it. I showed her the fitness game and she said I can do that while watching an instructor on TV or actually going to the gym. She liked the dancing though.

That was a great conference, I loved it. Gears of War 3 looked AMAZING as did Black Ops, Halo Reach, and Fable III. I was quite impressed with the Kinect showing especially with the dance game and exercise game. The menu functions and video chat looked pretty slick. I even found the other games like river rush to look quite fun. I'm definitely picking this thing up in Nov. Love the 360 Slim especially with a 250 GB HDD. I may have to pick one up in a few weeks.

Halo Reach was the only thing shown that I want. 

The conference started off excellent, its exactly how a conference should flow. Game after game, minimal talk, just show the goods. Call of Duty looked impressive but when has it not, it was a bit of more of the same. The exclusivity deal is a good grab by MS and I predicted one. MGS was for me the highlight of the conference, the game looked INCREDIBLE. Can't wait to see more. Gears 3 was very very very impressive. Halo Reach was stunning, finally Halo graphically looks great and the space stuff blew me away. The Fable 3 trailer was ok, it  needed a gameplay demo, I thought it would use Kinect. They had that gladiator trailer that means nothing.

So while the games were impressive there were so few. They showed 3 exclusives (not counting the life action one which is nothing but a name), thats it 3 games. Thats the big 360 lineup this year, 3 exclusive games. Where was Crackdown 2? Plus its all games we knew about.

Then the conference went into a major funk with the Live and Kinect stuff. Talking to it was cool. Moving your hand to access a menu is neat though its more like moving a cursor with your hand, not exactly the Minority Report like movement I was expecting. I love ESPN so I enjoyed that part of the conference. It was totally useless but enjoyable. The video chat was painful, it had acting from a RE game.

Finally came the Kinect games. I will admit kinectimals will be great for the kids. The track and field game, um I played that over 20 years ago. I had Track and Field on the NES with a foot pad, same thing. The adventure games could be a decent party game. The exercise game is ok. The dancing to me has the best potential to sell well. It looks like it would be a great party game, it looks like it actually monitors your movements so its not garbage like Just Dance.

Forza on Kinect, I dont know I cant get over the pretend to hold a wheel thing. How do you brake, your foot I guess, they never really showed that. The coolest thing was the virtual tour of the Ferrari. Most of what I liked about Kinect was not about gaming, it was about cool interactive tech like menu surfing and crap. It feels like something you see at Disney World at Epcot, at innovations where you get to try out these stupid games that are fun for a while. They did not show one hint of how this could work with the games we play.

There was that Star Wars game which looked like something from FMV days of the Sega CD, wtf. The lag from hitting an enemy and the animation starting was noticeable. It was like you play through a movie, not a game.

And in the end MS gives away free 360's to people that don't need them , yay. I do like the look of the new Xbox and its great that its coming out so soon. The price is of course $300 cause all these companies will do anything they can to never go lower than $300.

Overall it started off perfectly but ended pretty badly. Exactly like last year. I give the conference a C.

I liked Rebel Assault II, heh...

The footage was off but I don't think it will be FMV-like in the end. It will just be this, with a Star Wars skin:

And I guess doing some thrusting motion or whatever to move forward, if that's gonna be manual and not automatic. Maybe some force powers. But they should be making this with a Star Wars skin:

Well overall I think I liked what I saw. I'm not into shooter so COD and Halo meant nothing to me.  But I did think MGS: Rising looked pretty amazing. I'm not a fan of the series, but this looked different enough to make me drool a little bit.

The Kinnect features did get me interested though moreso for the social and non-gaming aspects of it. It sort of made me realize that I've gotten extremely casual in recent years (though I suppose my interest in Wii Party already proved that).  No question that Microsoft has done a great job turning the 360 into a great home entertainment center and after the ESPN segment, chatting, than I ever have been in a 360. The dance game is cheesey, but I could see it being fun. The fitness and other mini-games looked weak so unless they sell for around $20 a pop I wouldn't touch them.

So overall I'd say MS did a good job. I'm now more interested in owning a 360 than I ever have before. Especially after seeing the new black version of the system.  However, I'm not jumping just yet. As cool as I thought Kinnect was, I can't really see myself dropping $450 on a new console and the accessory. Even bundled together I can't see it selling for less than $400 and that's going to keep the casual in me from taking over and saying "get this system!!!"