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I took some notes during the show, for anything I missed, I would recommend MajorNelson.com.

Chris Lewis first talked about Xbox Live and took a shot at Sony for copying everything Xbox Live is. He also went over all the download/member stats that I posted last week. He then announced that 1994’s Sensible Soccer would be coming to the Xbox Live Arcade in early 2007. Chris Lewis then announced that DOOM will be coming to the Xbox Live Arcade…TONIGHT.

A stream of upcoming Xbox Live Arcade games was then shown, and one that caught my eye was an upcoming sequel to Mutant Storm Reloaded, entitled, “Mutant Storm Empire“. Looks great.

Peter Moore then took the stage, and everyone knew what was about to happen, a stream of incredible games was shown,

Peter Moore announced that the Xbox 360 will be doing native 1080p, even though Sony has been nervously lying that Xbox 360 wouldn’t be.

Cliffy B. came out and demoed a new level of Gears of War, which is set to come out November 12th in US (actually a few days earlier in most stores) and November 17th in Europe. Peter Moore than said that Europe only has to wait five days after the US for the game’s release, instead of 5 months like with the PS3.

He then went on to say that a worldwide console launch is a hard thing to do, Microsoft went through it, but they believe it was important to go through the pain of that to show they have a global focus, and won’t deprive people of anything just because of where they live. He then talked about how they were the first company to launch a console in India, which they did a couple weeks ago, and will also be launching in 32 countries by the time the Xbox 360 hits its 1st birthday.

A hype trailer for Project Gotham Racing 4 was shown.

Peter then talked about Grand Theft Auto 4. No information was given besides this, exclusive to Xbox 360, will be two “epic episodes” for GTAIV, which will be several hour long story expansions to the GTAIV story. The PS3 will not be getting this content; so basically, the only place you’re going to get the full GTAIV game is on the Xbox 360.

Assassin’s Creed was then demoed on the Xbox 360 for a few minutes, it looked amazing.

A trailer for Bioshock was then played, and even though it’s quite disturbing looking, it looks incredible, and will be exclusive to the Xbox 360.

It was then announced that after next month’s release of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, the Splinter Cell series will become exclusive to the Xbox brand.

Peter then went on to talk about HD-DVD. He said that the HD-DVD format has twice as many movies as Sony’s Blu-Ray, and that this fall, will have 150 movies available. He then announced that the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on will be released in mid-November 2006 and will retail for $199.99. It will come with Universal Media Remote (which is $30 regularly) and an HD-DVD version of King Kong (probably another $30 value).

A trailer for the upcoming MMORPG, “Marvel Universe Online” then played and was announced as exclusive as well. MUO is being developed by the creators of City of Heroes, another very successful franchise.

The director of Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and the upcoming Halo movie, Peter Jackson was then invited on stage. Peter Jackson and Peter Moore then discussed a new partnership Jackson and Microsoft have come together on. Peter Jackson talked about his vision of combining the storytelling of a game and a movie and putting it on the Xbox 360 platform, whether it is an established universe or an entirely new one.

To kick off this new vision, their first project will be a new Halo series, based on this mutation of game/film, where you watch what will be like a movie, but you also interact with it. From the sounds of it, it’s in very early stages right now, so not much information on that. Bungie will be working alongside them with the project as well.

Chris Lewis then came back onstage and wrapped the show up, but then Peter Moore said they had one more thing, and the crowd started to realize what was about to happen….

A trailer with some ominous music began to play and the logo for “Ensemble Studios” came up. Suddenly there were Warthogs, UNSC troops, Elites, Banshees, Spartans, and all kinds of Halo action going on all over. It’s a new game based on Halo called, “Halo Wars” and it’s an RTS (real-time strategy) game. The website for it is already up and offers several wallpapers, the trailer for download, and much more.

From HaloWars.com

Q: What is “Halo Wars”?

A: “Halo Wars” is the next big real-time strategy game from Ensemble Studios, creators of Age of Empires. Designed exclusively for the Xbox 360, “Halo Wars” allows you to take charge of the human UNSC armies and see the Halo universe from a totally new perspective.

Q: Where does “Halo Wars” take place in the Halo timeline?

A: “Halo Wars” takes place before Halo 1 during the UNSC’s first deadly encounters with the Covenant.

Q: Can you reveal anything about “Halo Wars” storyline?

A: Players will lead the crew of the UNSC’s “Spirit of Fire” from initial skirmishes to an all out war against the evil Covenant.

For the trailer of Halo Wars, click here.

Peter Moore also announced that Bungie will be announcing information on Halo 3 by the end of the year. They must be planning on just doing it right on their site, I can’t think of any venue or expo that would be the place it would happen.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Xbox 360 News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.