Since I stupidly left my notebook at home, I'll have to go from memory here. Luckily, this is the part of the event that I paid the most attention to. Odd that it wasn't the games, right?
What I really like about Microsoft this year is that they didn't focus 100% on games. While its true, a platform is only as good as the games available on it (as Sony is discovering), in this day and age, that's not all a piece of hardware is good for - playing games is only part of the whole media experience. They also didn't focus on who sold what and how many, like they did last year, which is a point in their favor, as well.
Beyond the games, Microsoft seems to be changing the way we think about entertainment in the living room. To start with, integrating Netflix's streaming services into Xbox Live last year was a huge step forward. Now its going to get even better, being able to browse DVDs and adjust your queue right from the console interface. Just last weekend I was showing a friend of mine how the Netflix streaming service worked, and I had to get on my PC to show him some things because I couldn't do it right on my 360. We ended up watching five episodes of 30 Rock, which I will now watch religiously all summer while there's nothing else on TV.
The point being, improving the Netflix functionality is awesome. It will be nice to be able to take some or all of that functionality that was once only available through the PC interface and make it available through the Xbox dashboard.
Last.fm is also coming to Xbox Live, so now instead of just streaming movies and TV shows, we have streaming music coming in, and it will be free to gold members of the service (its not that expensive, get over it).
In a move that was praised by my wife, the social butterfly that she is, Microsoft is also bringing Facebook and Twitter to Xbox Live. You'll be able to do just about anything you can do with these services online through the dashboard interface this fall. What I like best is the new ability to take screen shots from inside a game and immediately caption them and post them to your Facebook. (In the first draft of this, I wrote "screen snots". I laughed out loud.) That might be really fun. The only issue is, it sounded like the functionality would have to be on a game-by-game basis instead of built into the Xbox itself. I don't know how I feel about that - I think you should be able to do it inside every game you own, even if you have to access the Xbox menu and tell it you want to enter a "screen shot mode" or something. Still, the service sounds pretty cool if it can become widely supported by developers.
Quickly, I'll mention that the movie and TV download service through Xbox live will now allow instant play (streaming) of the movies you purchase and offer them in full 1080p. They're also expanding the regions of the world where the service is available, which is always a good thing.
The part of the presentation where my eyes remained glued to the TV was where they introduced "Project Natal". This is a motion- and voice-detection device that, I think, could drastically change the way we experience interactive entertainment on our televisions. It allows you to use your body as the controller.
What impressed me the most was the demo Peter Molyneux and his team at Lionhead put together of a real woman interacting with a digital boy named Milo on the screen. These interactions were simply amazing. She was able to converse with him and he would, through this technology, be able to pick up on her emotions, the inflections in her voice, determine how she's feeling and respond in kind. He would "toss" her an item and she would go through the motions of picking it up. She would draw on a piece of paper, hold it up to the device and that piece of paper would be digitally rendered on-screen to give the appearance she was giving it to Milo.
At this point, the possibilities of what gaming could be entered my head. I was imagining games where you were able to interact with the environment in the game by opening doors, hiding behind corners, climbing ladders, leaping gaps - all with only your body and no physical controller. Imagine interacting with an in-game companion such as Elika (from Prince of Persia) or Sheva (from Resident Evil 5), where they could pick up on your expressions and voice inflections and respond to them in ways that we never thought were possible. Imagine playing Madden or Fifa and giving yourself a full body workout instead of just hiding behind a controller working your finger muscles. The possibilities are endless.
If Microsoft is able to come forth with this technology at a reasonable price and actually make it work, without turning it into another useless gimmick of a peripheral, things will be simply amazing.
Microsoft seriously brought it this year and didn't disappoint. Their presentations were entertaining and enlightening and it really seems like they're pushing the boundaries of what is possible with interactive entertainment.
I'll echo my thoughts from the beginning of my last post - I'm turning into a Microsoft fanboy. They're doing so much, and its so good, that its hard not to be. Sony sure better bring it now, because its going to be incredibly difficult to top the whole Xbox experience.
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