Official Microsoft Conference Thread

[Crazybone126]

So Aliens isn't on PC?

Of course Wii U isn't going to be the best looking version when there's a PC version as well. PC will ALWAYS look better than a console. No matter the console. I'll reiterate, you're seeing into things that aren't even there.

[BahnNZ]

If it was the best looking console version, they'd say. Measured praise for a current generation console. One who's main selling point has just evaporated. When Wii U comes out with ad campaigns saying "Now you can play games on your TV using as tablet", people will look up from their Smartglass and say:"So what?"


Read this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...?newsfeed=true

For some the fight is already over. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said the "addressable market" for the Wii U is only half of the market size that existed for the Wii. Since that launch, Apple has sold 67m iPads and is expected to sell north of 116m iPhones this year. Add to that the host of other tablets and smartphones snapping at Apple's heels.

Gaming dominates the apps charts for iPad and its rivals. "Once they moved on, they are not likely to come back," Pachter told a marketing summit in San Francisco earlier this year.

Something is certainly hurting Nintendo. In April the company announced its first ever operating loss, with a deficit of ¥37.3bn, or $460m. Sales had slid hard, the company said. Nintendo had expected to sell 13m Wii consoles and ended up selling 9.8m. Sales of its new handheld device – the 3DS – also disappointed.

Written before Smartglass. Much worse outlook now. You keep the faith this is a next gen console here to compete with PS4 and XBox720 brother, that's going to sell in Wii quantities. I think time will tell.

Four words: Watch the share price.

Now if you excuse me, I must watch Dead Space 3 while fondling myself.

[Diresu]

God that press event was PAINFUL.

[OmniStalgic]

ok...that was pretty bad...not that what was showed was that bad, some of the stuff is pretty cool, but they were showing it like it was brand new tech worldwide? I get for gamers this is all new stuff for Xbox, but can't you do all that swiping images to your TV right now with an Ipad? I'm sure a lot of that technology is accessible right now by linking up with the Apple ecosystem, so I kinda loathed how the conference was presented.

Also, it's like MS conference is the 3rd party conference, you know none of these games are exclusives, yet MS puts some insignificant spin on things to make it seem like the best place to play these games. It all just feels really awkward.

Either way, I like integrating your console into tablets and cellphones and software that binds everything together, but all of these features would have been much more appreciated after the reveal of 4-5 more exclusive titles besides Halo. I almost got offended when they said they were the top selling console in the world, (seriously misleading btw) because I feel it's almost a disserve to the essence of gaming to support this as your main platform. They have completely moved away from the spirit of games, games, and more games, and I sometimes forget how awesome Xbox Live is. MS did contribute to the industry, but in a more social, software specific way that most times--I just don't really care about that much.

It wasn't annoying like last year with Kinect nonsense, but it was just really boring, and even the 3rd party titles showed all look similar, everything has to be Uncharted big blockbuster style where you press one button and an entire sequences of events happen. I sincerely hope people stop buying this stuff, because MS's philosphy needs to do a 360. And to think, I was actually pondering over getting a Windows Phone They are simply trying to outdo Apple with a Xbox branded ecosystem. I would not have a problem with that if gaming was the focus, but not according to this lineup it isn't.

Conference rating C-

[pari]

Smartglass is copycat of Airplay and wishing Nintendo go down is really bad. Nintendo has brought lots of innovation to gaming industry and they might not be servicing the hardcore gamer but Nintendo being replaced by MS is very bad. "Known devils is better than unknown Angel" and applies really well in this situation.

Engadget.com

Microsoft's SmartGlass gets official: app brings AirPlay-esque streams to Android, iOS and Windows Phone
Microsoft may not be introducing a next-gen console at E3 this year, but it is teaching its venerable Xbox 360 some new tricks. SmartGlass brings AirPlay-style wireless technology to Xbox and Windows 8 by letting you send video from your tablet or phone to your TV. It then turns that second screen into an information window giving you data of the content you're watching. Plus, it updates the info on your mobile device as the content on the TV changes. The app also enables peripheral controls for games you're playing -- so you can scroll through different plays on your tablet while playing Madden on your big screen, for example.

In addition to providing your peripherals with contextual awareness, the SmartGlass app turns your phone into a remote and trackpad for your Xbox, in case using Kinect and regular controllers aren't something you're into. So, you can pinch to zoom, move the onscreen cursor and scroll to your heart's content in Xbox's new web browser using your tablet or phone. When will we be seeing SmartGlass in living rooms? Unfortunately, not until this fall, so our liveblog photos of the app in action will have to suffice until then.

And on copycat, nice article

Inc.com

The Billion-Dollar Idea came to Arne Bleckwenn suddenly and all at once:

What if travelers could use the Internet to book rooms in apartments just as easily as they could book rooms in hotels? What if there were a website that let people anywhere in the world rent out an apartment, a spare bedroom—hell, even an air mattress? Travelers would get a good deal, cash-strapped people with extra space could make a few extra bucks, and the $400 billion-per-year hotel industry would bleed money.

It was wacky, but somehow Bleckwenn knew it would work. He figured this new company could disrupt the hotel market the way eBay had disrupted the world of retail. He decided to give it a try.

Bleckwenn was just 28 at the time of his vision, but he was already an old hand at starting companies. He created an online forum for video game enthusiasts at 17 and turned it into a business at 19. "While everybody else I knew was partying, I hired people and got funding," he tells me over coffee in his offices. "That's when I decided this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life." Since graduating from college, he had earned an M.B.A. and started two more companies—the most recent of which, GratisPay, he sold to a competitor for a seven-figure sum in February 2010.

By then, he was ready for something bigger, the kind of consumer-facing company he could brag to his friends about. He had been a backpacker all his adult life and liked the idea of helping independent travelers find places to crash. Plus, the economics of the business looked great. "In New York, you can stay at the W for $400 a night," he says. "Or you can stay in someone's apartment for $100. That's one-fourth the price. And the inventory of apartments is unlimited." Over the course of two months, he raised some seed capital and used it to build a slick website.

When I visit the company in March, just 11 months after its founding, Bleckwenn has 350 employees and is in the throes of wild growth. He expects to bring in $130 million in revenue this year. "When my last company went from zero to 80 employees, I thought it was the craziest thing that would ever happen to me," he says. "But this has been on a completely different level."

P erhaps this story sounds familiar. An ambitious twentysomething dreams up an Internet company, corrals some investors, and attracts customers by the millions. You might even think you've heard of Bleckwenn's company, which happens to sound an awful lot like Airbnb. That San Francisco company, which also lets anyone turn his apartment into his personal hotel, was created in 2007. The company's founders struggled to pay the bills before finally landing $20,000 in funding from Y Combinator. Last year, Airbnb surpassed 100,000 room listings, was hailed as the star of the annual South by Southwest Interactive conference, and picked up $112 million in venture capital funding.

But Bleckwenn isn't the founder of Airbnb—and though the story he tells me is true, it leaves out a crucial detail: The Billion-Dollar Idea was not his own. In founding his Berlin-based company, Wimdu, Bleckwenn reverse-engineered Airbnb's basic functions while borrowing liberally from its U.S. competitor's graphic design. He and his co-founder, Hinrich Dreiling, used a nearly identical page layout and a similar logo to Airbnb's. The bottom of Airbnb's page, which proudly proclaimed the company's press mentions in The New York Times and on CNN, could of course not be directly copied, because Wimdu had yet to be featured in any international media outlets. So Bleckwenn tweaked the wording—from as seen on to concept featured on—and left the logos in place.

In two months, Bleckwenn and his team reproduced what it had taken Airbnb's founders four years to create. They did it calmly and quickly, and they did it well. "It's just competition," Bleckwenn says. "Of course, Airbnb is unhappy."

And a nice book on copycats Amazon.com

If Nintendo and Sony cannot out think or get inspired (i.e., copycat-ing) then it justifies Nintendo and Sony going down but the question is who will replace them. I for sure certainly do want it to MS dominated industry it will be disastrous for the gamers. But again in the world of $1.99 games how do you make consoles and sell them? I want healthy competition in the gaming console with MS not being the first. MS is good for giving competition but not for top dog position.

---------- Post added at 11:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 PM ----------

ok...that was pretty bad...not that what was showed was that bad, some of the stuff is pretty cool, but they were showing it like it was brand new tech worldwide? I get for gamers this is all new stuff for Xbox, but can't you do all that swiping images to your TV right now with an Ipad? I'm sure a lot of that technology is accessible right now by linking up with the Apple ecosystem, so I kinda loathed how the conference was presented.

Also, it's like MS conference is the 3rd party conference, you know none of these games are exclusives, yet MS puts some insignificant spin on things to make it seem like the best place to play these games. It all just feels really awkward.

Either way, I like integrating your console into tablets and cellphones and software that binds everything together, but all of these features would have been much more appreciated after the reveal of 4-5 more exclusive titles besides Halo. I almost got offended when they said they were the top selling console in the world, (seriously misleading btw) because I feel it's almost a disserve to the essence of gaming to support this as your main platform. They have completely moved away from the spirit of games, games, and more games, and I sometimes forget how awesome Xbox Live is. MS did contribute to the industry, but in a more social, software specific way that most times--I just don't really care about that much.

It wasn't annoying like last year with Kinect nonsense, but it was just really boring, and even the 3rd party titles showed all look similar, everything has to be Uncharted big blockbuster style where you press one button and an entire sequences of events happen. I sincerely hope people stop buying this stuff, because MS's philosphy needs to do a 360. And to think, I was actually pondering over getting a Windows Phone They are simply trying to outdo Apple with a Xbox branded ecosystem. I would not have a problem with that if gaming was the focus, but not according to this lineup it isn't.

Conference rating C-

Omni, please no Windows Phone. I do not believe MS deserves another chance, let the old tree die and new trees take it place just like in Nature.

[BahnNZ]

ENGADGET: "Xbox SmartGlass: did Microsoft just render the Wii U controller obsolete?"

Yep, Nintendo was just beat at its own game. Where the original Wii's innovative gameplay saw competitors playing catch-up with their own motion controllers, Microsoft has introduced an added feature to its existing platform that will go head-to-head with the Wii U at launch.

Not only is Microsoft promising to take the Wii U on directly with SmartGlass, it's doing so with a much more logical implementation, harnessing players' existing technology, rather than bringing a big, hefty new controller into the picture.

Microsoft has just thrown up a major roadblock so far as buzz around the Wii U is concerned.

We already knew that the company would have a hard road to hoe at this year's E3 -- with the introduction of SmartGlass, that road just got a lot harder.

Don't wish them to go down, Super Mario Galaxy is well nice.

[Diresu]

I couldn't care less about any of the smart glass stuff. If I wanted to use my iPad I would use my iPad. I don't need yet another pointless accessory for my Xbox.

[Crazybone126]

Exactly.

[gibmonster]

I was watching bits and pieces of the conference last night as I wanted to see pre-conference gameplay footage of Injustice: Gods Among Us. I saw a bit of splinter cell, trying to find a better quality stream on my phone I returned with some dude from Nike speaking. That and the 'Press a button or two" and the game will play itself feature of splinter cell just made me call it a night. Looking at a number of news sites this morning, I didn't miss much.

Smart glass is interesting, but even if I had a 360 it's something I couldn't be bothered to use.

I fear this will be a boring E3. Even if Sony show off Killzone 4 I wouldn't care. The last game was a horrible "me too" COD clone, with dumbing down of gameplay using more scripted events and butchering the gunplay, physics and animation in favour of Move and 3D. What a piece of shit. They'd have to make it really hardcore for me to be interested again.

I have no interest in Nintendo, but they'll probably have the berst conference due to showing new hardware, but that doesn't mean I'll buy it though. Their control pads don't look ergonomic with the placement of analogue sticks. It's if they made it different for the sake of it. And I'm not interested in their first party titles. I have a pc with a GTX670 to tide me over until I see something worthwhile.

I'm disappointed with the way gaming is heading. Game's are being dumbed down. All this emphasis on social networks and device integration just feels like they're looking for problems to solve to make you buy more shit, rather than solving problems that exist. Which wouldn't be bad if this stuff was tastefully added on without pissing off the core, but they just haven't managed that yet. Cut it with the fucking gimmicks! Just give me a pad and a game with excellent design and A.I. It's sad that not many games use AI on the level of crysis and killzone with many devs still relying on scripted AI.

I foresee games becoming segmented and distilled at the same time, with PC coming out on top for the hardcore.

[Viper]

So BanNZ, you intend to hold an X360 controller and an iPad at the same time to play a game? You enjoy that, ok?


That was indeed a pretty rough conference. Seems like all 3 console makers have done 2 duds of a conference in a row at some point in the the last 6 years. Now that they've all got that out of their system, let's hope they never do that again.

[Diresu]

So BanNZ, you intend to hold an X360 controller and an iPad at the same time to play a game? You enjoy that, ok?


That was indeed a pretty rough conference. Seems like all 3 console makers have done 2 duds of a conference in a row at some point in the the last 6 years. Now that they've all got that out of their system, let's hope they never do that again.

Pretty much what I was thinking.

[solidsnakejej]