E3 2009 Conferences Thread

Firestorm

Firestorm

I did my best, I have no regrets!
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Hey guys, E3 starts Tuesday but the conferences kick off tomorrow. The largest video game convention in the world has been quite the disappointment the last two years, but this time they're back in LA and it should be huge. Sadly, it looks like a lot of what might have been really nice surprises for the show have already been announced over the last week, but I still expect great things from at least the three major hardware manufacturers!

So, what's this topic for? This topic is for conversation about the press conferences that will be happening. You can post during and after the conferences with your thoughts. However, I highly recommend joining us on IRC on #smogon for real-time chat during the event. All the conferences will be streamed or blogged live so you can laugh and get all excited with the rest of us =) If you don't know how to use IRC, check out this tutorial and see if you can jump on before the big events! The events are as follows:

Liveblogs for all events at:
1up (they might also have a ustream up)
Eurogamer
Joystiq
Kotaku
Everywhere that doesn't have a live stream really.

Monday June 1st, 2009
Microsoft: 10:30 AM PT / 1:30 PM ET / 6:30 PM GMT
Live Streams at:
G4 (Also on TV)
GameTrailers (HD)
Official Xbox Site
IGN
GameSpot

Electronic Arts: 2:00 PM PT / 5:00 PM ET / 10:00 PM GMT
Live Streams at:
G4 (Also on TV)
GameTrailers (HD)
IGN
GameSpot

Ubisoft: 5:00 PM PT / 8:00 PM ET / 1:00 AM GMT
Live Streams at:
G4 (Also on TV)
GameTrailers (HD)
IGN
GameSpot

Tuesday June 2nd, 2009
Nintendo: 9:00 AM PT / 12:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM GMT
Live Streams at:
G4 (Also on TV)
GameTrailers (HD)
IGN
GameSpot

Sony: 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET / 7:00 PM GMT
Live Streams at:
G4 (Also on TV)
GameTrailers (HD)
IGN
GameSpot

[Not a Press Conference] Miyamoto + Nintendo Presentation: 6:00 PM PT / 9:00 PM ET / 2:00 AM GMT
No live streams. Hopefully live blogs though. This is where Brawl was shown three years ago. This is where Chris Remo went "Are you making Pikmin 3" and got a reply last year (which was the only relevant news out of Nintendo that show...). So who knows. Maybe something will come of it.

Wednesday June 3rd, 2009
Square Enix: 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET / 7:00 PM PT
No live streams. At the very least 1up is liveblogging it and the blog sites should obviously be liveblogging too.

Konami: 3:00 PM PT / 6:00 PM ET / 11:00 PM GMT
No live streams. At the very least 1up is liveblogging it and the blog sites should obviously be liveblogging too.

Tips
G4 is your best bet if you can get the channel. It can't really crash and is going to be in pretty good quality. GameTrailers is your best bet if you don't have G4 I think. This is their first year live streaming and they're doing it in HD, so I expect a LOT of traffic there. If it stays up, it'll be the best. However, remember that "HD" for GameTrailers just means 1280x720 with a really bad bitrate. It will still be better quality than any other stream.

Last year, IGN had the best quality stream but it was behind by more than a minute which made talking with others who weren't on the same stream hard. After all, they were already onto the next thing.

GameSpot is usually fairly stable, but crappy quality unless you pay. G4 was my favourite stream overall last year.

This year I'll personally hope for the best and try GameTrailers. If not, I'll go to G4. I'll be putting that on my TV using a VGA cable and using my laptop screen for IRC =) Totally nerding out for Monday and Tuesday since I have those days off.
 
You know, I can't really think of any big name titles this year I'm really excited to hear about. I believe last year left a very bitter taste in my mouth thanks to Nintendo, Spore, and the like.
 
I'll be watching it the conferences on the TV. For people who have DirecTV, the channel for G4TV is 310 with a Choice XTRA package. Dish Network is channel 191 with a Silver or higher package to receive. Check other local listings blah-blah-blah (Tidal Wave).
 
Gah, I'll be missing Sony's event and will barely be able to watch Nintendo's before having to leave for work on Tuesday. As luck would have it I have Monday off... I guess I'll watch the Microsoft one for kicks. Better make up for last year's travesty though.
 
Idunno man, last year's Microsoft was probably the best as far as "Wait, holy shit, really?" because of that FFXIII announcement. The fallout from that as far as message boards went was amazing <3 Last year was one big joke. I can't remember anything interesting being announced by any of them. Penny Arcade really summed it up so well last year, and I think we'll have the same type of conferences this year...

20080716.jpg


Microsoft: Our target demographic is... EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHERS?
Nintendo: Holy crap look at all this money! It just comes out like magic! Oh what, this is a press conference?
Sony: This year really is the Year of the PS3! We promise!

Anyhoo, I'll be home on Monday and Tuesday but not Wednesday. It's not like the Wednesday ones have livestreams anyway so I'll be able to just have one of the self-updating blogs open for that at work=) I think 1UP and Kotaku would be best. Viva la dual monitors!

Also, I suck at dates. Fixed them XD
 
So we know, it's a bit later in the day, but Microsoft has released a statement that they are going to begin their conference five minutes earlier than planned. This is for a "...last minute surprise."

10:25 AM PDT, 1:25 PM EDT, 6:25 PM GMT.

Enjoy.
 
I have a bad feeling that Microsoft is going to introduce a terrible motion control gimmick this year. Really, I can't imagine anything very exciting being announced this year. Sony has the ugly new PSP but that's about all I'm expecting on the hardware front. Hmm...maybe because I can't think of anything, I'll be in for a big surprise?
 
I still think the last minute surprise is going to be some stupid mainstream celebrity or "look people really like to play halo music" thing.
 
Too bad I can't watch these on TV in the same room as the computer, so I'll be looking at the live streams instead. Really looking forward to something big though, watch me get disappointed though.

Who knows, I might get on IRC for the first time ever, depends on other things though, I have to work around chores.
 
Call me crazy (and yes this is a very harebrained guess) but I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft starts hinting at the newest Xbox this year. It's been nearly 4 years since the 360 was released and a little over 4 years since the thing was first announced.

As for my personal wishlist for E3, I'm really hoping Microsoft shows us something from Rare today, and that tomorrow, we see a bit of pikmin 3 and/or HGSS news from nintendo!
 
Firestorm said:
Idunno man, last year's Microsoft was probably the best as far as "Wait, holy shit, really?" because of that FFXIII announcement. The fallout from that as far as message boards went was amazing <3 Last year was one big joke. I can't remember anything interesting being announced by any of them. Penny Arcade really summed it up so well last year, and I think we'll have the same type of conferences this year...
Click to expand...

As you know I am pretty biased, meaning most of the "major announcements" they had were useless to me. The fallout from FF XIII was pretty amusing (and annoying, because the game is now going to take doubly long to come out for everyone because of the "day-and-date" launch...) but I found every press conference to be absolutely... terrible.

Actually I kind of did enjoy Ravi and Wii Music just because it was so painful to watch and I started laughing. In misery.



Edit: Firestorm I wanted to give you major props for posting links to every place we can watch a live stream. I'm sure many (definitely including myself here) are appreciative of it.
 
Whoever that Forza guy is really full of himself, he kept on repeating "THE DEFINITIVE RACING GAME BLAH BLAH BLAH"


Alan Wake looks really good.

And oho, the show-stopper: Metal Gear: Raiden is coming to the system along with the PS3. Lots of rumours abound now, I've settled on: Raiden action game coming to the 360 (Notice it wasn't "Stealth Action") and Big Boss game coming to the PS3 or PSP.


lol that Kudo guy demoing the bottom of his shoe, the Avatar flipped out and got all glitched up.
 
I think every IRC channel I'm on exploded when he said "What's the last franchise not on 360" XD They should've saved it for last for sure.
 
I already expected Halo: ODST(or now Reach) in 2010 but Metal Gear Solid Rising is good news, but does that rule out MGS4 on 360? Maybe more at the Konami conference...

Left 4 Dead 2 should be fun but motion controlling seems pretty lame.
 
Oish. Spent most of my day in front of my laptop and TV. As for streams... GameTrailers SUCKED for Microsoft but they worked out the kinks and it worked fine for Ubisoft. Hopefully it's good to go for Nintendo and Sony so I don't have to resort to GameSpot again.

Microsoft's conference was pretty damn good. They started with three boring games, but after Final Fantasy XIII it really picked up and they showed some cool stuff. The Motion stuff took too long to demo. It was a cool concept, but silly demo I felt. The announcement of the conference, Metal Gear Solid Rising, should have been made at the end as an epic ending like they did with Final Fantasy XIII. That really would have carried their momentum past the end of the conference. This time it felt like it sort of fizzled out.

Electronic Arts started with really, really boring tween shit that nobody in the audience or watching from home cares about. But The Saboteur looks great as does the Bioware stuff and Schaefer's game (Brutal Legend). Decent effort overall except no NHL mentions in the EA Sports segment and NO MIRROR'S EDGE 2 >=(

Ubisoft had quite possible the worst conference of all time. The only positive thing was that Nintendo's couldn't be any worse than that pile of shit. It was even worse than Capcom's conference last year. Oh my god how did they do this. 15 minutes. 15 MINUTES James Cameron talked about is goddamn movie and game. That Pele game was like Harry Potter plays Soccer instead of Quidditch. They showed the SAME Splinter Cell trailer as they did this morning. Assassin's Creed was just a CG trailer. It took them an hour before they showed any games at all. I can't believe I watched the whole thing.
 
Well hey, on the bright side, your suffering allowed me to get the reader's digest version in the 1 minute it took me to read your post.

<3 Firestorm
 
It was so bad that Red Steel 2 looked good in comparison to the other shit they showed. They spent time talking about IMAGINE and their new line of IMAGINE games. He asked the audience "Guess what our best selling franchise was" and some guy actually said "IMAGINE BABYS" but I guess he didn't hear him. Apparently Imagine is second only to Pokemon on DS as far as franchise sales go.

If it beat Pokemon I would have shot myself.
 
Don't skin me to death, but the only game that's really caught my eye so far is Brutal legends. I am so happy to see double fine making another game after 5 years of hiatus. :D

The Natal project that Microsoft wheeled out was actually pretty cool. Sure, as far as games for the 360 goes, this is just another landslide of gimmicky wii-like games, but as far as using the X-Box as just an entertainment device, it was pretty fucking awesome. The "Talk to a british boy" thing was also a neat tech demo to complement it.

Also, I'm still hoping for pikmin 3 tomorrow!
 
good to see Microsoft's "Wii ripoff" apparently isn't halfassed in the least, though I don't give a damn about the 360 itself.
 
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