E3 kicks off with a yawn

July 11, 2007

Last night, Microsoft conducted a press event at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. I watched the event on G4 and streamed it live on bwana.tv. If you wish to see a detailed list of what was announced, visit xbox360fanboy for ample drooling and over-excitement. Overall, it was a yawner. The presentation itself was poorly done with lots of errors and awkward moments, and the announcements were mostly predictable and “ho-hum”. The only real surprise was the Disney partnership, since AppleTV is indirectly competing with the Xbox 360. I wonder if Steve Jobs knew about this, or was he consumed with the iPhone launch.

At any rate, some cool games were Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, and Bio Shock. Call of Duty 4 was clearly the best game visually which was surprising since Microsoft puts Halo 3 on a pedestal. Personally, I never was interested in Halo since I’ve pretty much seen it all before in games such as Tribes years ago. But hey, FPS fun is not always about innovation so I don’t blame people for getting into it with their friends. Oh yeah, there was an announcement regarding a new Halo edition 360 model. It got exactly 3 claps from the audience and a yawn from me. Let’s hope Nintendo and Sony do something more exciting today or this E3 will officially be a bust.