Xbox 2013 Medie Briefing What Just Happened?

Xbox 2013 Media Briefing just happened and I'll be breaking down the event from my second row view. It was big, bright and green in the Galen Center early in the morning. Fans and journalist were foaming for what would be coming out to the Xbox One. The biggest news is of course the price point of the Xbox One being $499, later that day it was revealed Sony's PS4 would be $399, $100 cheaper. The system is out this November. In another big reveal Microsoft Points are dead and Local Currency will be how you buy games on the Xbox One. Nintendo should learn from this at get rid of their Nintendo Points or be the last of the major three with a currency system unfair and easily misread. Another reveal is that Xbox Gold would be going the way of PlayStation Plus with two free games a month starting in July. Lastly, you'll be able to have another game ready to play while already playing one. So if you want to play a VS match online with someone you can pause your game and just head online, then come back to what you we're playing in no time.

The first reveal was an open world Metal Gear Solid Game. The Phantom Pain, which looks nothing like that  early trailer set in a hospital anymore has Snake once again hiding and sneaking around. For fans of the series it seems like a fun new step in the series. It did look beautiful with accurate changes of time and weather. However, could the game's creator just start something new than Metal Gear? Poor Kojima was on stage for a second then abruptly left. Thank you and good-bye? Why even show up?

 World of Tanks will be be free to play to gold members. I don't understand that games popularity, but it seems to have enough fans to be going strong for the last couple of years.

 Ryse Son of Rome has you as a Roman General leading your army into battle. It showed off the Xbox One graphics were impressive. The story did not impress so much. The speaker for it had some white blemishes on his pants wonder what they were.

 Dark Souls 2 and Killer Instinct were announced as Xbox One titles. The applause for Killer Instinct was crazy, who knew a clone of Mortal Kombat was so loved, maybe I was just near it's developers.

 

Sunset Overdrive from the good folks at Insomniac had Ted Price on stage showcasing the open world shooter. A busy city with Insomniac's sense of humor has you blasting away weird creatures. It looks like you can team up with friends to blast way bad guys with a wide assortment of weapons on par with Ratchet and Clank style creativity. Weird new name for the open world, Ted called it "living world" due to how much can be changed about it in real time.

Forza Motor Sport 5 is boring. For Forza lovers it looks shiney and new. The worst part had to be when it's speaker messed up verbally and said "drivertard instead of drivatar. Avatar + driver is what he meant, but drivertard was what stayed with me as he explaind how you won't have to play the game to enjoy it. After the game captures how you drive you can just let the game play itself with your style of driving. This lets your drivertard play your friends online. What's the point unless your playing?

 Minecraft for Xbox One was announced and an ew game series called Quantum Break. It seems to be an episodic based drama game where you have time control powers. It might be better as a TV show, will have to see.

 Project Spark should soon be an article on BLDBLOG's as you can vastly change the environment, by building mountains, towns, and just the overall landscape with your touch using Xbox Glass. It reminds me of a UCLA Game Arts Festival Game where the landscape was controlled by moving play-doh around and it being scanned by a kinect.

On the subject of Kinect and the built in camera, no games even mentioned it nor was it ever brought up during the media briefing.

Project Spark let's you connect with friends online for your building of practically anything you want set in a semi-fantasy realm. I questions how fun it is to create scenarios for yourself to fight, but this game has so much you can change and the level you'll be allowed to control your world seems somewhat vast.

On this presentation an others the scripted dialogue is just painful to hear, you can just hire a professional speaker to show off your game. Developers and publishes might be good at making a game, but it doesn't meant their socially well-versed.

 Upload Studio and the announcement of live streaming your games through Twitch were impressive. They showed Microsoft understand how much gamers like sharing what happens to them in the games they play. With Upload Studio you'll be able to save epic game moments, some seem to be auto save through a new video achievement system. Twitch, a online game-watching streaming service will be built into Xbox One for live streaming of your games.

 Dead Rising 3 was announced, but it hardly felt like Capcom was their presenting it. With the series essentially now set in LA, I couldn't be less enthusiastic with the series seemingly losing it's sense of humor. Weapon combination is back, but the series creator is now no longer part of Capcom. THere's still time, but they better infuse humor into this title or forget about it.

 The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt  will be ending the trilogy series

 Battlefield 4 will be the number one shooter to play on Xbox One with is giant open world where you'll be able to attack enemies on the land, sea and air.  I'll have more on the EA briefing.

                                      Below was announced by the Super Brothers and music by Jim Guthrie of Sword and Sorcery fame. It looked beautiful, but I'd like it on a mobile device more.

 Master Chief wears a PONCHO. Ponchos will be cool in 2014 when the game is set to come out. Instead of superheroes walking backwards from explosions it will be the poncho. Little was revealed other than a giant new mech.

So many attendees!

Xbox One showcased many games, but there are still many questions about the system like the Kinect capabilities. With mostly shooters I'm not seeing that much innovation or new ip's to get excited about. The system might be fun for action adventure junkies, but I want some fun to play platformers. Will have to look to E3 for more big titles coming out.

Update: Microsoft revealed a new Xbox 360 that's slimmer and faster than the old Xbox 360, but looks more like the Xbox One. Now price point was given. Microsoft may want to keep up the 360 afloat as long as possible as it still will have plenty of gamers on it.