Unit Reporting! (seated at Microsoft)

I'm currently sitting down in a theater just up the street from the Nintendo press conference. This is Microsoft's event, which won't be starting for a bit. People are still filing into the auditorium, cameras are getting set up, and that sort of thing. I guess I'll just sit here, drink this water, and listen to... Sean Paul. Great.

This will be the place to go for live updates from the conference, once it gets started. Well, provided the magical Internet box that makes computers work via thin air continues to work. It always seems like they employ signal blockers at these things.

11:16 -They're starting to show a bunch of gamertags on the big screen. Before the conference started, they asked everyone for their gamertag, favorite game, and score. I assume that's what these are. Where am I? If they don't show me, I'll be crushed! I probably have a higher score than all of these knuckleheads!

11:22 - Announcement made, they're starting in 10 minutes.

11:25 - I still don't see GameSpotting on this list. Maybe I didn't submit an edgy enough motto for them or something.

11:26 - DO NOT TAKE UNAUTHORIZED PHOTOGRAPHY!!!!!!!!111

11:29 - Not to complain, but they've played Hell Yes from Beck twice now.

11:32 - A brief random canvassing of a few people who were at Nintendo gave a pretty unanimous impression... Mario looked rad, but the rest of it didn't seem to grab too many people. Like I said back at Nintendo, we'll have to see how that stuff plays.

11:36 - Continue to not take flash or unauthorized photography, OK?

11:36 - The music swells... could we be starting? There are still plenty of people who aren't seated yet.

11:38 - Still haven't started. Should we take bets on whether or not J Allard will be here? My guess is that Peter Moore's going to do most of the talking. OK, the music's faded out, they're starting with a video.

It's a game video, it's Gears of War. Lots of blind firing. Oh snap, those cities got blown the hell up! A little chaingun action never hurts.

Up next... CliffyB. Wow, they just aren't even using his whole name anymore. Kind of creepy. Also weird that he's the first man on stage. Here's a live demo of Gears of War. Game seems to stutter here and there. Again, lots of blind firing from behind cover. He's advancing from position to position, taking out dudes along the way. Really hot blood effects. Shotgun goes,booya. Cypress Hill should be in this game. Wait, what?

Pretty good sound effects. Frame rate isn't 100% smooth, it seems to drop a few when the action's hot. Pretty cool swinging grenade toss. Your guy's name is Marcus Phoenix. They're cutting through a steel door to come get him and his partner. Rough frame rate again. Not bad enough to get in the way of the action, but it's noticeable.

Your partner does a lot of talking. Indoor to outdoor transition chunked up a lot. I guess that's why they call 'em "preview builds." Nothing some optimization can't fix. Other than that, the graphics are awesome. Up close shotgun blasts are especially awesome.

The team is heading to extract in a chopper. An alien creature just crawled out of the ground and pinned it down, end of demo!

11:46 - With no more fanfare, Cliff introduces Peter Moore who's here to show "the second generation of the next generation of games."

He's stoked that all the Microsoft game makers have been unified under one roof, from PC games to Xbox to casual games. He's going to dispel an urban myth... No Xbox 360s were hidden in Area 51. Complete with an ET cartridges in the landfill joke.

A few sales figures, 4.5 games per console, 3.0 accessories. That's a pretty good attach rate. Three key pillars to the Xbox 360 experience: "Your Games, Your Friends, Your Lifestyle."

He's now talking about Xbox Live, recapping its existing features. Claiming they'll have 6 million members by this time next year. As of last week, Xbox Live has a 57% attach rate. Cites Xbox Live Arcade as a key reason. New additions for Arcade up next...

11:53 - Pac-Man video, Contra (arcade version!) Frogger with enhanced graphics, Galaga, Sonic the Hedgehog, Defender, SF2: Hyper Fighting, Time Pilot (hell yeah!), Ultra Mortal Kombat 3 (yes yes yes yes, though the logo says Ultimate), Scramble! Good Konami and Namco support. New Rally-X, Dig Dug, Super Contra. He claims "the code" will work on Contra. How is that possible if it's the arcade version?.

Midway will have Root Beer Tapper, and more. Time Pilot with new graphics gets me very excited. Time Pilot is awesome.

New Arcade games include Lumines Live. Live video in the background. Is that Madonna? What the hell? Man, that's lame. Warner Music Group will be integrated into Lumines Live (technically called Lumines Live!). Madonna? Man, that's a real bummer.

11:57 - Now he's on to talk about Xbox 360 games. Here's some footage.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. That looks nice.

Rockstar's Table Tennis game.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Mass Effect

NHL 2K7

F.E.A.R. - Looks pretty good.

Too Human. A little launcher combo in there.

Viva Pinata.

MotoGP 06. Nice bikes

LOTR: BFME II.

Sonic the Hedgehog--driving a jeep just like he was at the Sony thing.

World Series of Poker from Activision.

Madden NFL 07.

Saint's Row, complete with bad frame rate.

SmackDown vs. RAW 2007

Stranglehold

Enchanted Arms.

Test Drive Unlimited

NCAA Football 07

Dead Rising.

DDR Universe. How will the pads connect? Its four-player.

Prey.

Superman Returns (THE VIDEOGAME!!!!!!11)

NBA 2K7

Crackdown has a neat look.

99 Nights.

Gears of War again.

12:01 - Back to Peter Moore. Over 160 games to choose from by this holiday season. A brief mention that there are still games coming for the original Xbox from third-parties.

12:02 - New announcement... Fable 2? It's a forest, showing a town grow, yeah, it's from Lionhead...Fable 2! www.fable2.com is the official site.

12:04 - Another new announcement... Forza Motorsport 2. Aaand a trailer. Those cars are most definitely racing. And vanishing? And now they're back. Neat-looking exploded car view. Oh snap, that car crashed into a wall. 12 player multiplayer, will be available this holiday season  along with a wireless steering wheel. Wireless headset also coming. And the camera is called Xbox Live Vision. Rainbow Six Vegas will have face customization with camera support. All coming this fall.

12:08 - Sakaguchi name-dropped, Mistwalker trailer up next, perhaps? Yes. It's got a crazy anime kid flying a ship over a marching anime robot army. His ship's been hit and he's going down spinning. He's gonne wreck right into that robot. It's Blue Dragon!

12:10 - Peter Moore's back. Blue Dragon will be out in Japan this holiday season. Man, this is quite the one-man show. No Robbie Bach, even.

Now we're talking Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 and talking up their support for the Japanese market and Japanese developers. DOAX2 trailer will be on Marketplace.

12:11 - Splinter Cell trailer. He used to hunt terrorists, now he is one. He's become... a double agent. Cue guitar rock and parachuting! And undersea action! And breaking fools' necks! That dude got his throat slit! Take it!

My name is Domino Harvey and I am a bounty huntaaa. That's what the Splinter Cell trailer reminds me of. Go figure.

12:13 - More of Moore. Viva Pinata's up next. And the game's executive producer is coming to the stage to show it off. What happens to piñatas when they aren't at parties? God, that's really blowing my mind. I sort of don't want to think about that. The game has you building a small paradise to attract wild piñatas to live there. Dude, what? Horstashio remains a great name for a horse piñata. On marketplace you can "acquire" new items and accessories. How many points will those "accessories" cost? This bear has a Mohawk.

The game has a "romance dance" mode that you use to breed new piñatas. Wild. End of demo!

12:17 - The return of Peter Moore! He's talking Marketplace as the one-stop-shop for games and entertainment. As of tonight, they will have over a thousand downloadable pieces of content. The demo of Fight Night led to a 5x increase in pre-orders. Marketplace allows for episodic content (though they don't really have any yet), and new worlds of digital entertainment... meaning movie trailers and music videos. Yay.

A "docu-drama" based on the development of Gears of War will debut on Marketplace and will conclude via a 30 minute MTV special.

It's HD-DVD add-on time. He's holding it up, it's shaped like a 360 but smaller. The device will be out this holiday season. Cue delayed applause!

He has a very important announcement.... of a franchise... he's taking off his jacket and showing his Halo tattoo. "Some guys do rubber ducks, some guys do tattoos." Oh snap. He has a Grand Theft Auto IV logo on his other arm. 10/16/2007 release date.

They'll have it at "day one." Meaning it's a time exclusive. They've partnered with Rockstar to deliver exclusive episodic content via Xbox Live.

12:24 - He's on to talk about Games for Windows now. There's a live demo of Crysis going on now. It's very dark, can't really tell what's happening. Nice looking fire effects. Oh, big alien "exosuit" monster. Sort of looks like the thing that came for the team at the end of the Gears of War demo.

He's firing all he's got at these walkers, including a rocket launcher. It's dead with a pretty rad-looking explosion. Demo's done!

12:30 - The return of the return of Peter Moore. Says Crysis will look its best on Vista. Now it's time for a Vista games trailer. Flight Simulator X, Crysis (nice jungle), that sort of thing.

12:32 - Peter Moore says that Vista is built for games and will be the single biggest launch in the history of Microsoft. Says more "joint release titles" that hit both platforms are in the works, citing Oblivion as an example. Two more announcements... FASA's Shadowrun is up first. Homeboy got sniped and immediately resurrected. Talks about the reawakening of magic and how the struggle is over who gets to control it. Neat looking trailer. Is it a shooter? The trailer doesn't show gameplay, but that's how they make it look. Moore's back to talk about how deep it is. And... it's a first-person shooter. It'll be out in January and will launch alongside Vista.

Next up... a game from Remedy. Alan Wake. Dude looks pretty freaked out with his pistol and his lantern.

12:37 - Bill Gates is coming out. That's a bit unexpected. (Boy, this is a bad time for this laptop battery to run low.)

12:41 - Bill's still talkin' business and I've got a fresh battery. 8 new countries for the 360, some MSN messenger stuff will get integrated into Live, etc. Mobile phones as part of the integrated future, too. "Live Anywhere" is the name of the platform. It will be a part of Vista. One account across all platforms. That sounds smart. He's got demos. Showing the 360 guide including mobile and Windows users doing things like "using Windows" or "Mobile - Playing Luxor." Ooh, points for Windows games? That's going to kill me. The achievements between versions of Shadowrun are shared. And the two versions are compatible. 360 vs. PC. Now showing a mobile phone. Buy a game once and get it on all platforms. Zuma being used as an example and it looks like you can start a game in once place, pause it, and pick it up on another platform.

Achievement points for mobile games? Man, that's going to really kill me. Now showing a brief Forza 2 demo. Edit car skins on PC, use them on the 360, buy upgrades on mobile. This is just a mock-up.

12:55 - Peter Moore's coming back to help Bill close things out. That has to be the Halo trailer. He's recapping. Come on, show it already.

12:56 - Bill's introducing some "in-game footage." White screen, fading into a torn up patch of flat ground. Some flickering woman popped up and talked all crazy for a sec. It's pulling back, there's a figure walking in through some smoke. Oh hey, the crazy woman is Cortana. And hey, that's the Master Chief. It pulls out to a huge movement of covenant ships, Chief is standing on a plateau. The ships are forming a big circle and energy is coming out of the middle. Cortana: "this is the way the world ends." Halo 3. Finish the Fight. 2007.

Lights are up, this one's over.

For another angle on the Microsoft Press Conference, check out News Editor Tor Thorsen's live blog.