The list of games for the summer of arcade this year include the Giant Bomb shilled Bastion, an iPhone to Kinect port Fruit Ninja Kinect, Toy Soldiers: Cold War, From Dust, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.
Perhaps the least exciting lineup ever? Yes.
Microsoft has never been able to keep the lid on their news, and this year is no exception, via images on their site they released everything they’re announcing at their E3 conference, and it’s pretty much all Kinect stuff, except for the Halo milking.
Halo 4 is coming, surprise.
As heavily rumored, they’ll also announce a Halo: Combat Evolved remake for the Xbox 360.
Kinect Sports Season 2 is the sequel you’ve all been waiting for.
Dance Central 2 coming to the Kinect
Last.FM becomes Kinect enabled.
Kinect Fun Labs is for “crazy, cool new gadgets” presumably this is where they try to capitalize on Kinect stuff people have been making on the PC. So far this includes: Kinect Sparkler, Kinect BobbleHead, and Kinect Me
Ryse is the Codename: Kingdoms game, and it will be a Kinect thing, a “cinematic, action-packed” Kinect thing.
So this Microsoft event is going to be just as disappointing as had been expected, at least they released this early so there’s no need to sit through it.
Do you like Kinect? Well you better start loving it, because that’s all you’re getting from Microsoft for the rest of the life of the Xbox 360. Kotaku is reporting this list of games for the show floor, and aside from the third party multiplatform games there’s absolutely nothing to get excited about.
Tomb Raider
Forza 4
Star Wars Kinect
Gears of War 3
A Halo related title
Codename Kingdoms
Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster
The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim
Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor
Alan Wake: Night Springs (Kinect compatible)
XCOM
Hitman: Absolution
Modern Warfare 3
Spelunky HD
Ghost Recon rail shooter for Kinect
Dance Central 2
Kinect FunLabs XCommerce
Kinect Sports: Season 2
Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Fable: The Journey
Raving Rabbids for Kinect
An Unspecified Double Fine game
Hybrid (XBLA shooter)
Roller Coaster Kinect
Rise of Nightmares for Kinect.
In addition to this list Geoff Keighly has been tweeting about the Batman guys, and the Mass Effect 3 guys being at Microsoft’s event, but again nothing we don’t know about already, isn’t on every capable platform, and that’s worth seeing.
It looks like the 360 is done as a source of new and interesting exclusives, it’s time to move on to the next console generation if they want to retain any of the core audience that their platform was built on.
Just a reminder the Microsoft E3 press conference starts at 9:30am Pacific Time this morning.
Microsoft’s Kudo showed off Disneyland for Kinect to some french press who quickly put it online for all to see, and surprisingly it’s a collection of mini games, look forward to a Microsoft for soccer moms at E3.
He also showed off this Star Wars Kinect demo for E3, and it’s proving not too popular with gamers, but gamers aren’t too popular with Microsoft at the moment either.
The first DLC for Mortal Kombat is revealed in the latest issue of GameInformer, and it’s all characters. Kintaro, Kenshi, and an as yet unnamed Lady in red are all going to be up for purchase on top of the $60 price tag for the game itself. It’s a good thing Mortal Kombat hasn’t been relevant since the SNES days, or I might be upset about the many ways in which they plan to nickle & dime people on this game.
Microsoft is having a pre-GDC event right now, and information is beginning to come out, the first taste is a great big image of the Gears Of War 3 boxart, scheduled for release September 20th.
Click the meat head for full size.
NPD for June changes things up a little bit with the Xbox 360 just barely taking the number 2 spot thanks to stock clearing sales on the old model 360′s and the release of the 360 short. Red Dead and Galaxy 2 continue to hold the first 3 software slots, while Toy Story 3 for DS and Lego Harry Potter Wii make a strong showing for licensed titles. Being beaten in the portable space by Toy Story 3 must be painful for Hideo Kojima whose Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker failed to chart on that unlovable loser the PSP. Alpha Protocol, Singularity, and Transformers should also commit seppuku for their horrible sales this month.
Nintendo DS 510,700
Xbox 360 451,700
Wii 422,500
PlayStation 3 304,800
PSP 121,000
Top 10 Games Sales
Red Dead Redemption 360 (Take 2) - 582,900
Super Mario Galaxy 2 Wii (Nintendo) - 548,400
Red Dead Redemption PS3 (Take 2) - 380,300
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo) - 200,900
Just Dance Wii (Ubisoft) – 174,800
Wii Fit Plus With Balance Board Wii (Nintendo)
Toy Story3 NDS (Disney Interactive Studios
UFC 2010: Undisputed 360 (THQ)
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 Wii (Warner Bros. Interactive)
UFC 2010: Undisputed PS3 (THQ)
Updating with the rest of the top 20:
11. Pokemon SoulSilver DS
12. Transformers War For Cybertron 360
13. New Super Mario Bros. DS
14. Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 360
15. FIFA World Cup 360
16. FIFA World Cup PS3
17. Mario Kart Wii
18. Pokemon HeartGold DS
19. Toy Story 3 Wii
20. Wii Sports Resort
Also some numbers for specific games were released.
Transformers 360 did 132,000, and Wii Sports Resort in the 20 position sold less than 100,000 which should give you an idea of how bad some of this month’s other releases did. Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker failed to even crack the top 20 selling only 52,000 copies. Even worse numbers for Green Day Rock Band which sold only 83,000 copies between ALL 3 of the console releases. Skate 3 only sold 253,000 copies in it’s first 2 months down forty percent from Skate 2, and Tiger Woods 11 dropped 68 percent from last year’s release, due entirely to Tiger’s unquenchable love of white meat being made public this year.
According to the twitter account of an IGN employee some bombs of the month are in this order:
Naughty Bear > Singularity > Sin and Punishment
Perhaps if Singularity, or Sin and Punishment had had any promotion whatsoever they might have had at least a remote chance of beating out Naughty Bear!
Fable III Boxart
Notice it features the “only on Xbox 360 AND Windows” stamp. Hopefully that means PC gamers will be able to get their hands on Fable 3, but more likely Microsoft just slipped up with the early box art.
The second of Rockstar’s Xbox 360 exclusive DLC will be titled The Ballad Of Gay Tony. You will not be playing Gay Tony however, because Rockstar isn’t daring enough to have you play a gay lead character, you will play as his underling Luis Lopez. This release will not be limited to download only however, Rockstar will be releasing The Ballad Of Gay Tony on disc along with The Lost And The Damned DLC on the same disc for 39.99, and you will not need to own the horribly dissapointing Grand Theft Auto IV to play it!
Microsoft embracing the racist culture of the Xbox Live community.
