E3 2012: the highlights

The reps from Criterion Games were the happiest people I met at E3, passing around beers to friends, joshing with the racers getting demolished in their new game, Need for Speed: Most Wanted. They made off-the-cuff comments about the freedom they have as a developer to do whatever they want with the series following the success of their last Need for Speed, Hot Pursuit. They’re grown-ups, but they were giggling like kids given the keys to one of EA’s finest rides.

The latest iteration of the annual racing franchise, like their beloved Burnout Paradise, takes place in an open-world filled with friends, challenges and as many rewards as there are streets. Racing is only part of it.

Here’s a fancy vocabulary word from E3 this year: “bifurcation.” That’s how Sony’s John Koller, VP of Marketing for Home Console and Handheld Platforms, describes the current state of the gaming industry. Microsoft and Sony’s paths are finally diverging — Nintendo, of course, has been veering away for years. According to John, the “battle for the living room was in 2006, and we’ve totally moved beyond that.” Sony is now putting an emphasis on mobile and, well, video games. But is it moving beyond, or ceding the fight?

I spoke to Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis, before Microsoft’s press conference on Monday, who said “Sony and Microsoft need to tie their consoles into phones and tablets or Apple will start eating away at their market share.” Apple’s burgeoning iOS ecosystem has already made a huge dent in mobile gaming, and that $99 Apple TV could turn into the living room’s next big threat.

Every year’s biggest E3 highlights tend to be concentrated in the three marquee keynotes — those carried out by Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony — and one of them has now been posted online in its full glory for repeat consumption. Microsoft’s Xbox Media Briefing from Monday includes a deluge of new things to get excited about, such as the return of Master Chief, a teaser for the next instalment of the Gears of War franchise, new languages for Kinect voice controls, and of course, the introduction of the SmartGlass companion app. If you don’t quite have the full hour and 50 minutes to digest it all, may we suggest our two-minute summary video below?

We’re streaming live from The Loft™ (not an actual trademark), regaling tales of the first and zero’th day (that’s today and yesterday) of E3: Wii U, Sony, EA and everything else oozing out of the Los Angeles Convention Center. Well, almost everything. Watch the stream, post your comments.

ZombiU is the exclusive zombie-killing simulator for Wii U shown briefly at the Ubisoft and Nintendo press conferences. It is also one of the show’s best surprises and one of the most promising games announced for the upcoming console.

Polygon had a chance to go hands-on with the first-person shooter at the Nintendo booth, and found it took full advantage of the Wii U GamePad without falling into the trap of novel, but cumbersome controls.

During today’s E3 keynote, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils Aime announced four new partners that will be providing content to Wii U owners — Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Video, and YouTube. The keynote was largely focused on games, but further details on these new partnerships are coming. “In the future, we’ll show you how the Wii U will integrate and elevate entertainment in your living room,” Fils Aime explained.

This morning Microsoft made good on last week’s rumors with the announcement of Xbox SmartGlass, a companion app for mobile devices and Windows 8 PCs that lets you control and interact with videos and games you play on the Xbox 360. We were given an early look at the app running on a Windows 8 tablet and a Windows Phone device, and while there were some bumps in the road we have to say we’re quite impressed at the product’s potential. In its most primitive form, SmartGlass is a Wi-Fi remote app for video. When launched, the app goes into “listening” mode, and seamlessly syncs up with any SmartGlass-enabled content, providing the usual array of controls (we were shown School of Rock from Microsoft’s own first-party movie service as well as a clip of Game of Thrones from the HBO Go app). That’s just where the story begins, however; what SmartGlass really offers is a way to access additional interactive material while you’re watching a program or playing a game.

SmartGlass is based around what Microsoft is calling “activities,” which can include anything from a director’s commentary to an interactive map (unfortunately, the Game of Thrones example shown off this morning didn’t work during our demo). Additional information about a movie or TV show’s cast and creators is a logical step, and SmartGlass doesn’t disappoint: during School of Rock, one page displayed a shifting array of faces, representing each actor present in a scene — all in real time. Selecting a given actor on the demo tablet brought up their filmography, and it was possible to play other movies the actor was featured in, jumping to the specific scenes where they were present. All of this added content is keyed off the timecode in the video stream, and Microsoft is hoping content creators will take the additional material they’re producing for Blu-rays, DVDs, websites, and apps, and use it in SmartGlass as a type of write-once, run-anywhere for value-added content.

At Sony’s E3 press conference this evening, Naughty Dog unveiled a new gameplay trailer for The Last of Us.

The trailer follows protagonists Joel and Ellie through an abandoned hotel buried in overgrown weeds and a flooded first floor. Joel leads the way with Ellie on his heels, chattering idly to fill the silence. As they climb to the next floor and round a corner, Joel spies someone rifling through the doors of battered dresser. Within seconds Joel has choked the stranger and pockets the goods for himself.

Microsoft has been testing a modified version of its Internet Explorer browser on Xbox 360, and the company unveiled its latest work at E3 2012 today — Internet Explorer for Xbox. Built into a web hub of the Xbox 360, Internet Explorer works from Microsoft’s SmartGlass service (using third-party devices) to allow Xbox owners to surf the whole of the web.

Microsoft believes keyboards don’t belong in the living room for browsers so it’s also supporting Kinect voice and gesture controls with Internet Explorer on Xbox. There’s no word on whether Adobe Flash is supported, but Internet Explorer for Xbox will be available this fall for all Xbox 360 owners.

The rumors were true: Microsoft has just announced Xbox SmartGlass, an app for Windows 8, tablets, and mobile devices that lets users view and interact with new content in association with games and video on their console. On the surface, the app serves as a remote control, allowing users to control what is playing back on their Xbox 360, as well as letting them start video content on one SmartGlass device, and seamlessly pick it up on another. The standout feature, however, is how SmartGlass will serve as a secondary screen, providing additional content related to whatever video or game is playing on the 360 (no doubt dampening Nintendo’s hopes for the Wii U). Game of Thrones was demonstrated as an example, with the SmartGlass app displaying an interactive map of Westeros, pinpointing where the action in a given scene was taking place. Developers will also be able to use it in association with games; a Madden title was shown off, letting users draw hot routes on a Windows 8 tablet’s touchscreen, with a Halo 4 concept allowing players to view their stats, get notified of different waypoints, and initiate multiplayer gaming sessions from the app.

Perhaps best of all, Microsoft plans to make SmartGlass available on as many platforms as possible — including Windows 8 computers, of course — as well as on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices. The enhanced video experience will be available for all versions of the app, though it will apply only to Xbox Live content. The extended game functionality, however, was specifically noted as being for Windows 8 tablets and Windows Phone devices. SmartGlass will be available later this year, but we’ll be trying to get our hands on it this week to give you our impressions.

We heard that Microsoft was planning to unveil its “Woodstock” Xbox Music service at E3 this week, and the company has revealed details on its plans today. Yusuf Mehdi says Microsoft will release Xbox Music on Xbox, Windows 8, and Windows Phones. Microsoft didn’t mention exactly when we can expect to see Xbox Music, but the company demonstrated what it will look like in a demo video played on the big screen.

The Metro interface is present throughout, and there’s a clear social element with a friends list visible. Microsoft is keeping the Zune Smart DJ feature as part of Xbox Music, and a library of over 30 million tracks will be available. The rebranding of Microsoft’s Zune services to Xbox is part of a bigger effort to position Xbox as the company’s primary entertainment platform.

Today during a streaming video conference, Nintendo detailed the final version of the Wii U controller, which it is calling the Wii U GamePad. Nintendo has made some notable tweaks and revisions to the prototype version detailed last year at E3, adding a new NFC reader and writer, motion and gyroscope sensors, and fully-independent infrared TV remote functionality. The thumbsliders have been replaced by analog thumbsticks, which now support L3 and R3 inward depressions. Nintendo has also made adjustments to the controller’s ergonomics and dimensions, adding new handgrips on the bottom, making the GamePad wider, and adjusting the button layout. The Wii U GamePad and the Wii U console were shown in both black and white variations, though its unclear if the company will offer other color selections as well.