Microsoft's E3 2012 Press Conference: What They Did Right and What They Did Wrong

Teh interwebzezzz are already going berserk over the Microsoft press event. A popular theme seems to be “WORST EVERZ ZOMG” among a laundry list of other hatred. While you won’t catch me talking about how great it was, you won’t see my opinion leaning towards the other end of the spectrum either. Let’s take a balanced look at where Microsoft really delivered and where they didn’t do so hot.

[Yi-Long]

... I was extremely disappointed with it.

They didn't even show any cool new XBLA games (apart from some Kinect-crappy stuff by a girl in a tight shirt), and all they did was go on about the 360 as an interactive media-center, focussing on Kinect, and exclusive DLC deals...(!)

Horrible, just horrible.

[darthv72]

i see it as them covering a wide spectrum of electronic entertainment. The downturn for me was usher dancing. It reminded me of when they had that girl duffy singing to promote the game lips.

Honestly, even if the games were multi or exclusive, they showed off some nice footage of games that are going to be available for 360 owners.

There are far more than what they showed and we will see/hear about them in the coming days.

o/t: what they did wrong (imo) was close the show using blops2. I think it would have been a fitting end to close with halo 4 like they did years ago with halo 2. That was (imo) the best close to an e3 conference I ever saw.

Bill gates said: "we have just one more thing to show you" (or something to that effect) and the trailer rolled for halo 2. That music and the dialog in the background as the chief was traversing the ship....still great to watch to this day.

[Xwow2008]

Sigh just sigh, and when i thought MS will surprise me and blow me away this year...and make up for there last 2 years Man i was so wrong.

>>Usher<< are u serious MS!!!? and the new exclusives are just gow and xboxlive games and how much time u spent on multimedia and showing cod and finally the kinect foucs and copying WII U.(somewhere outthere nintendo is laughing. )

Finall verdict for MS confrence: call me a hater but MS direction in video games just SUCK..just quit this industry u dont belong to it.

[ieatbabies]

All they had to do was show celebrities and have timed dlc to impress. Cheap tactics to gain more sales lol.

[Persistantthug]

Basically.

[-Alpha]

Got bored and turned it off early. All I remember is generic shooting and some lame voiceover yell out objectives and hearing "save that! Capture this!" This is really the saturation of the industry this gen, that I've seen time and time again and it was all there at MS's E3. The cheesy cliches are killing me

Forza and Halo looked good, but nothing out of the ordinary, the teasers for the new games they did announce were underwhelming and felt thrown in

This is why I am much more excited to see Nintendo and am excited for PS:A, Quantic, and TLG on Sony's side. What Sony and Nintendo have just feel more fresh and fun to me, and that fun factor is really what's missing for me. The Resident Evil gameplay made me roll my eyes, it has all the staples of what is saturating this gen, and nothing was respectably true to the series. It had everything I felt was cliche and overdone in so many other games/shooters. Tomorrow will be a better day

[Kinect]

Agreed man, Sony and ninty please save e3

[Chuk5]

It was ok.

I wanted to see halo 4, that's all i really cared about, and it was awesome.

Smart glass was a good bit a of future proofing on their end, it has potential.

But otherwise the rest was whatever.

[maniacmayhem]

More of what they did WRONG.

I cant wait to see the inteviews with MS after E3. There has to be journalists out there just dying to ask MS "WTF!"

[insomnium2]

I doubt it. MS has gotten a free pass for years on this casual BS so I will not get my hopes up.

[Lucretia]

seriously, not to sound like a troll but this is the 3rd year in a row that MS has failed. the conference was utter trash, xbox has no good games aside from halo, forza gears and fable....and actually only 2 of those are even good.

i now see that aside from a soon to be released arcade game i will never turn my 360 on again. I am not even going to bother buying the next xbox

its pathetic really

so basically the only reason to pay for live is to play gears and halo online? lol man, i will gladly skip the multiplayer in those games since there isnt much to use a live sub on

[Morbius420]

What the hell are you doing with two bubbles? That was brilliant! +1 level up man.

[MGRogue2017]

not enough first party titles...

[Trenta27]

I prefer Xbox 360 to my PS3, but this conference was terrible.

[NeoBasch]

They did something right?

[jonboi24]

Someone explain to me how does Smart Glass communicate with the 360? Is it via bluetooth, wifi or something else?

[darthv72]

as an app that you can sign in to using your gamertag. From there it is like remote play over the web through xbox live. That is one thought.

another would be if you had wifi and your tablet/phone was on the home network like the 360 is then you could interface that way.

We will know more obviously when it gets closer to release.

[EverydayGuy]

It runs on crush hopes and dreams of its fanbase.

[RememberThe357]

It was lame. But there were some cool things; Halo 4 looked amazing, South Park looked funny as hell, and Duty looked pretty good.

But for the most part I was not impressed. Splinter Cell looked odd and I think it's lost it's identity, Ascent looked like crap, and all the Kinect games still look like boring shit.

[NateCole]

The apple/casual gaming effect. When you have apple making billions from their integrated ecosystem and casual gaming you get this.

It's an end of an era. Sony will hold out just a few more years but they will also move this direction. Soon everything will be about services that you subscribe to.

[givemeshelter]

You see where MS is going with this.
They are totally going for the casual gamer and not hiding it at all.
Business wise it's the smart thing to do. Actually it's very smart and they will make profits.
However, for us hardcore gamers...it's painful to see...but thank god their are other systems to game on in conjunction
with the Xbox360.

[Lucretia]

no one cares about their business aspect, I would rath MS crash and burn and close down then waste my money on the next xbox.

I feel ripped off this gen by them, i dont even get to use my 36o because they don't know wtf they are doing. this will just cause a backlash from the core gamers. Casuals come and go but its us hardcore that keep the money coming.

like you said thankfully their is the PC and the ps3 and handhelds to keep us with games, otherwise I would be developing my own damn games :P

[givemeshelter]

"Casuals come and go but its us hardcore that keep the money coming."

The real sad truth is that is not the case anymore. This use to be the situation years back. The majority of money comes from the average gamer/casual gamer now based on numbers and demographics. This is why MS/Nintendo went to the dark side LOL
The best bet for hardcore gamers if you can do it, is have as many systems as possible.
The gaming market has changed...

[ScubaSteve1]

having usher sing and dance that was 3 minutes of my life wasted

[bub16]

what they did right?

gears of war

what they did wrong?

everything else

[Silly gameAr]

Geek Revolt to the rescue.

[-IronMan-]

360 got no games. Enjoy the kinect games lmao

[rmedtx]

I think that the problem is the focus on services rather than games. But Gears of War was definitely good news.

[tigertron]

The only good things were Halo, Gears and South Park.

[modesign]

cant wait to get splinter cell, call of duty black ops 2, south park, tomb raider, madden 13, fifa 13 for my playstation 3.

[silkrevolver]

Right:
Halo 4

Wrong:
Most everything else

[JoGam]

Naw, Splinter Cell and Tomb Raider was good.

[silkrevolver]

Yeah, but those are multiplatform.
It’s hard to get excited from a 360 point of view if I can play it on the PS3 too.

[neutralgamer19]

Straight garbage overall e3 as expected based off last few e3's. Anyone who says differently micro shoukd give you money bcus you are the ultimate fanboy. Nevertheless micro will still sell tons of Halo and Gears not onky bcus thet are good franchises but because if ppl dont buy tht what others games will they buy? Oh yes Cod blk ops2 lol

[MilkMan]

M$ was at the conference?

[jalen247]

The only thing they did right IMHO is the Halo 4 demo...

I would include the Tomb Raider demo but that is a multiplatform game

[ronin4life]

What they did right: Better than last year.
What they did wrong: Everything else...^__^;

It was pretty bad. But not as boring as EA's....@_@

[Somebody]

I stopped caring for Microsoft gaming side ever since they ignored PC gaming ever since the X Box came out. I only gave attention to MS's E3 conferences hoping they would change their mind but so far I've been consistently disappointed every year.

Now, even IE is being integrated into X Box so I guess that's that then.