The new Xbox 360 and Kinect– Yeah, your going to want to read on.

Microsoft has kicked off E3 today with their pre-event keynote and wow is this insane. A whole bunch was announced including new info on games like Call Of Duty Black Ops, Halo Reach and of course Kinect (formerly Project Natal) PLUS a new design for the 360– so what you waiting for, hit the more link and get to it.

Games

First let’s start with a couple of the new games showed off today.

Call of Duty: Black Ops– Treyarch and Activision showed off the new game in the amazing series today, and wow it makes Modern Warfare 2 seem like child’s play. The graphics look even better, gameplay is insane as usual, and the story line is traditional Call of Duty greatness. I mean you actually are flying a helicopter and trying to kill enemy combatants while avoiding fire. Microsoft also announced a new deal with Activision that all new Call of Duty add-ons (like new maps) will come to the 360 first.

Halo Reach– Wow. That’s it– Wow. Microsoft and Bungie have made yet another Halo that just as Black Ops made Modern Warfare 2 seem easy, Halo Reach goes right up there in that new league of what I call “super games.” Graphics insane, story unreal, fighting so intense it makes you wanna actually duck and cover (and there are knife kills!). Amazing, plain and simple.

Gears of War 3–The first footage of the next game in the series was shown, including the first actual gameplay. What’s really great is the all new 4 player co-op mode, which should make for some intense group fighting, and unlike  other co-op games, this keeps everyone following the (main character). Now this could make things tough for when your not in front of whoever is player one, but it definitely seems cool and I like the unique approach. Graphics wise this too looks beast, with the fighting looking as real as fighting giant multi-armed monsters could look.  There also is a new mode called “Beast,” though they’re keeping quiet on what’s new there until later this week.

ESPN!

Yes, the rumors were true– ESPN is coming to the 360! Over 3500 lives events will be shown over 360, including MLB, NBA, college basketball and football, as well as shows like SportsCenter and other on demand titles– with most being in HD. They showed it off using Kinect to control replays using commands like “Xbox Replay” as well as new features like in game trivia and polls to make live games even better. As a huge sports fan myself, this is perfect. This is all available for free to all Xbox Live  Gold members.

Pic from Kotaku

Kinect

Now let’s go on to the big guy– Kinect. Obviously Microsoft had a lot to share on their new baby, and it all looks great. First off– price and release. Microsoft announced that Kinect will be available starting November 4th, with GameStop showing pre-orders going for $149.99. Now Microsoft didn’t confirm the price, but considering Microsoft views this as a new system instead of just a new controller (which I completely agree with), this price does make sense. It would have been awesome though if it was that rumored $84…

Anyways, there’s a new Dashboard to allow you to do everything– play games, check Facebook, video chat, watch movies and listen to music (thanks to Netflix, Last.fm and Zune)– with no buttons, and it couldn’t be simpler. For the really lazy among us, you can even use voice commands like “Xbox Pause” and “Xbox Play”– honestly, this is unbelievable. Doing things like controlling a movie and even scrolling seem like it was meant to be like this from the start. Microsoft also has brought Zune Music to the Xbox, and its great for parties where you wanna use your Xbox as a media center.

Video Kinect– This is video chatting right from the 360– to people who either are on Xbox Live or Windows Live Messenger, so you can chat even from TV to computer. There is also Bing integration to share things on the screen, like watch a movie together. The camera also senses where you are in the room so that you don’t have constantly re-adjust the camera when you move. (Pic via Engadget)

A bunch of new Kinect games were shown off:

• Kinectimals– Where you raise a virtual pet– albeit here much more life-like than all prior variations of these types of games thanks to Kinect’s cameras and voice features

• Kinect Sports–  As seen in the Kinect pic above, Kinect Sports is kinda like Wii Sports with games like Soccer, Bowling Ping Pong, Track– though unlike Wii Sports you can grow your character into a “sports god” in game modes or play online over Xbox Live)

• Kinect Joy Ride–  A more casual racing game, that while no Need for Speed, should be great for some fun racing.
• Kinect Adventures– A bunch of cool simple games like Wii Play, great for the casual gamer or for playing with family and friends. It even takes pictures of you playing so you can upload to Facebook and other sites)
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved– From Ubisoft, it’s a Wii Fit like game that looks to offer some real intense workouts though again, unlike Wii Fit, without having to be on aboard), were shown off, and the easiest way to describe this is like the Wii with much better graphics and with no need to carry anything with you.It offers Yoga.
• Dance Central– From Harmonix, Dance Central is like Dance Dance Revolution, just with crazy graphics and again no need for any mat on the floor (getting the theme here?).
• Star Wars– Coming next year, not much beyond a gameplay video was shown here– but wow, video gaming is now on a whole new level.

• Froza Motorsport– Another racing game, though this one more intense then Joy Ride, offering intense racing with extremely life like driving controls and realistic graphics. And while you won’t be really sitting in that Ferrari or Maybach, this is probably the closest thing most of us will get.

New Xbox 360

As we wrote in the previous post– a nicer, smaller, quieter, and sleeker redesign for the Xbox 360 that offers some much wanted new features like built in WiFi with support for the latest and greatest wireless N (again– FINALLY!), touch sensitive power (on/off) and eject buttons– meaning they’re more like the PS3 in that you are not pressing a physical button unlike the old 360, 5 USB ports (with an additional one for Kinect), HDMI,   and that 250 GB hard drive. All this available online today and in stores this week at $299.99 (the same price as the Elite was). And as with all prior Xbox 360s, this will be fully compatible with Kinect.

So there you have it. Everything you need to know from Microsoft’s E3 keynote. This is just the start of what looks to be an awesome E3, and we’ll make sure you get all the info you wanna know so keep checking back. So Xbox 360 users– what you think of these announcements? You going to get a Kinect? You digging the new look?

On day 1 of E3, Microsoft began the video game bonanza with some opening shots. And by shots, I mean cannons. Or nukes may be the right word. Some seriously cool stuff was announced, and there was a lot of it: games, NXE updates, and some insanely cool new hardware. So bear with me as I try and cover some of it. (The best is at the end of it.)

Games: Microsoft showed off a ridiculous amount of games here. So here’s a brief rundown.

The Beatles: Rock Band gameplay

• The Beatles: Rock Band – The first gameplay of the game was shown off, with guest appearances from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Yeah.. they had the REAL Beatles THERE. Looks like an improved Rock Band, but with Beatles songs. Also being added is support for 3 mics, and custom, Beatles instruments (time to clear out that living room again…) There will be 45 Beatles songs included, with some more exclusive, Xbox 360-only songs available for download.

The Tony Hawk Ride board

• Tony Hawk RIDE -Pretty cool, using a motion sensitive skateboard controller which was shown off by Tony Hawk himself, and apparently, it’s pretty much like riding a real skateboard. And one more massive chunk of plastic to fill up your living room.
• Forza 3 – Update to the popular racing game, with even MORE cars and more realistic gameplay. Seems like you actually can crash this time around.
• Halo 3: OSDT – More gameplay footage shown, release date announced: September 22. We’re looking forward to this one, as it should be interesting to see Halo from the perspective of someone other than the Chief.

New Halo announced!!!!

Above: EVERYTHING we know about Halo: Reach.

• Called Halo: Reach. Umm… thats all we really know. Coming out in 2010, with multiplayer beta included included in OSDT. Seems to be taking place during the Battle of Reach, as prequel to the series. Oh, and it has been confirmed as a 1st Person Shooter. Excellent.

Metal Gear Solid Rising

• Metal Gear Solid Rising – New Metal Gear Solid, but for 360! The once PlayStation only series is finally coming to the 360, and it will have Raiden in it! Again, not giving a whole lotta info here. Oh, and it’ll have “Lighting Bolt Action.”

Moving on to updates on the system itself.

New Xbox Experience (NXE) Updates

Being added to NXE is Twitter, and Facebook integration — allowing you to access them from your Xbox — complete with avatar integration as well as the ability to challenge your friends to games and see if they can beat your scores. There were also minor updates to Netflix, a re-branding of the video store to be Zune Video, which will be full 1080p HD quality for all shows and movies, and the ability to stream Last.fm, the world’s largest online music catalog, straight to your 360, as well as to share with your friends.

There also was the announcement, that starting in August, you can download full 360 games straight from the Xbox Live Game Marketplace, to your 360, a similar feature to the already existing functionality for the Xbox Classics.

Some fairly cool stuff. But Microsoft had one last major surprise for us – a new motion controller called Project Natal. So what is Natal?

Project Natal. Awesomeness, Reinvented.

If you remember, we mentioned in our E3 rumors post that Microsoft was rumored to be working on some major motion-sensing software. Well, its real, and to be honest – awesome. Basically, its one sensor bar that you put on/ in front of your TV, which very accurately tracks the motions of yours and others motions throughout a room. A fighting game? – punch out the enemies yourself. Baseball game? Smash a home run yourself, trusty bat in hand, out of your living room. NO controller needed! Just you…. and if this can be used to it’s potential by game developers, it could totally revolutionize the 360 as a gaming device.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tmr8VDqN8]

For all Xbox 360 E3 coverage, see their site here.

So that’s the round-up for Microsoft. Sony and Nintendo, as well as other assorted news on the way, but before we end, we’d like to know your thoughts on Microsoft’s announcements, particularly Natal, and if your not a 360 owner, you going to buy one now? Go on, we’re great listeners.

Apparently, Bungie (ya know, the Halo creators), announced today their new, game, which they had previously teased about a few weeks ago. The project, now known as Halo 3: Recon, has you playing the role of a UNSC Drop Trooper Recon Marine (I haven’t really been following the whole story element of the last three games– I just point and shoot at aliens), which, in regular-people terms, means you play the role of a space paratrooper who runs around and shoots stuff– as opposed to Halo 3 where you’re running around as Master Chief and, well, also shooting stuff.

All kidding aside, the game looks awesome. Interestingly enough, its being published not as the new campaign expansion to the current Halo 3, which is expected to come in early January and bring loads of stuff to existing Halo 3 owners, but as its own standalone game, including regular Halo 3 multiplayer modes and features, in addition to the new campaign mode. So its more of a second Halo 3 game then a Halo 3 expansion or Halo 4. The bad news? Fall 2009, folks. Its gonna be a long year…….

What this means for you: Well duh. New Halo. All the “Halo-ey” goodness we’ve come to love in the previous games. just, um, newer.

Even though Halo didn’t make an official appearance at E3 last week (though it was supposed to on Wednesday, but got scrapped at the last minute), doesn’t mean some info on the future of the series didn’t come out. For all you curious on what is next for Master Chief and one of the top video game series’s ever- Click the More link.

• More Info on the Upcoming Halo Wars- For those of you who haven’t heard of Halo Wars yet, it is the upcoming Halo game that takes place right before the first Halo game begins. This version of the game though is different, as unlike in the other three Halo games, you will not be playing as Master Chief (the main Halo character), but will rather be controlling either the Spartan (Human) army or the Covenant (Evil Alien) army. You also will no longer be doing the actual fighting, and will be more of a general (albeit here with much more control) in charge of instructing your forces and leading them into battle, setting up camps and building vehicles, and then later calling them into battle when needed. This is a whole new style for the series, and that is probably due to the change in makers of the game- from Microsoft and Bungie, to now Microsoft and a company called Ensemble Studios. You can expect Halo Wars to come in the early part of next year.

Pic of Halo Wars in action

• More Rumors on a “Halo 4″- We mentioned the scrapped Bungie announcement in the intro, but the fact that there even was one led a lot of people (including myself) to believe that perhaps we’d see another version of the AWESOME game. Well, MTV further gave fuel to that fire, when a Microsoft exec. said in an interview with MTV that Bungie was indeed developing another Halo game. What type of game this will be (is it something similar to the Halo Wars game, to the previous three Halo games, something entirely new altogether- perhaps the highly anticipated Halo Chronicles game), and when we’ll actually see it, is anyone’s guess. Though lets hope it’s soon

We know that this info isn’t much, but hey Halo is Halo right? What you guys think about this new Halo news, and what are your guesses on that rumored “Halo 4″? Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

Info from Joystiq.com and MTV’s Multiplayer Blog