The Richter Scale^®

I estimate that there are about 2500 people in attendance, with almost a
third of these standing.

Nintendo seems to tug at emotional heart strings more than Sony or
Microsoft, perhaps because for many a Super NES or Gameboy were their
first game devices. And gosh those characters from Super Mario are just
so cute!

In any event, a noticable part of the audience are looking toward the
stage with a blend of adulation and awe, although nothin much is
happening yet.

The Nintendo DS is out in force as well (I didn’t bring mine ). Not
sure what’s showing on the DSes.

The big news this morning, while waiting to enter the Kodak Theatre at
Hollywood & Highland for the media briefing on the forthcoming third
entry in the next generation video game consoles - the Nintendo
Revolution - was that USA Today got the scoop.

There on page 1D (the Life section), above the fold, was a picture of
the Revolution (confirmed as authentic by the Nintendo staff when I
checked in this morning for the briefing).

http://www.usatoday.com

Quite an interesting day today attending both the PS3 unveiling at Sony Pictures Studios and the Xbox 360 Kick Off.

Key Announcements of things I hadn’t heard before today:

Sony PS3
- Sony will launch the PS3 at E3 in May 2006
- All major game developers appear to be on board, no exclusives announced (although it’s presumed that Sony’s own games will work only on Sony platforms)
- The PSP will be able to be used as a remote control for the PS3, and the PS3 is intended to be the center of the living room, as a media center
- Up to seven wireless controllers, connected via Bluetooth.
- Will support up to two, count ‘em - two! - HD displays simultaneously for a 32:9 aspect ratio, 4K by 1K pixel display. Wow.

Xbox 360
- Will offer backward compatibility with with the leading Xbox games. This implies that not all original Xbox console games are guaranteed to work. As I stated below, this is not particularly surprising, as the Xbox 360 hardware is radically different from the original Xbox, and thus Microsoft has to run in “Xbox emulation mode”. Ill behaved games will break the emulation.
- Still apparently, for an “HD Era” device, will apparently not feature an HD or Bluray DVD drive.
- Will offer support and integration with a variety of media devices, and an image shown by J Allard at the briefing also showed the Apple iPod as one of the supported devices, and a Sony PSP as another - wow! (if they can pull it off without Apple or Sony getting all ballastic on them)
- Will ship in time for Christmas 2005 sales, with 25-40 titles available then
- Has convinced Square Enix, previously a staunch Sony supporter (although recently also Nintento Gameboy too), to support the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live! with a forthcoming release of the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI.
- A number of exclusive titles - including Activision’s Call of Duty 2 and EPIC’s Gears of War

Live pictures via Cell Phone cam can be seen below.

More details available at:

http://www.xbox360.com
Engadget and Joystiq’s Coverage of the Xbox 360 Kick-Off
Engadget and Joystiq’s Coverage of the PS3 Briefingand more pictures of the PS3
MAKE: Blog - PS3 Specs vs. Xbox 360 Specs
Ployer’s PS3 Coverage

Live, from L.A....

Microsoft certainly knows how to throw a party… The Killers - in about
ten minutes, on this stage....

The presentation’s over. Time for the reception…

Yoichi Wada, president of SquareEnix, just announced support for the
Xbox 360 and Xbox Live! Final Fantast XI was demonstrated.

This is a major deal for Microsoft, which has been courting leading
Japanese developers for some time in order to be able to better
establish a foothold in Japan.

Rob just announced that the Xbox 360 will be backwards compatible “with
the leading Xbox games”. Implication is that not all original Xbox games
may run, which is not surprising as the Xbox 360 will have to emulate an
Xbox - x86 architecture and NVIDIA graphics hardware, instead of having
native hardware compatibility.

Also announced was a simultaneous three continent release of the Xbox
360 in the Fall in time for Christmas.

It’s about a half hour late, but the briefing has started. Microsoft’s J
Allard, Peter Moore, and Robbie Bach have kicked things off.

They claim that Xbox Live! will have 2 million subscribers within 2
months, and 6 of the top 10 games out now are Xbox titles.