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What was the biggest news of E3? Was it the Playstation Motion Controller? Project Natal? The triumphant return of Samus? According to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, it was none of the above. As part of the Gamasutra Analyze This feature, Pacther stated that he believes the biggest announcement was actually Microsoft’s injection of Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter into the Xbox 360 dashboard.

Pachter states that Microsoft’s announcement was “far and away the most important one of the show,” and one that the media failed to latch onto. Pachter says that Microsoft’s ultimate goal is to solidify the Xbox 360 as “a functioning computer that happens to be located in the living room and is connected to the television.” The Facebook, last.fm and Twitter applications open the Xbox to the internet — if only in a limited way — moving it one step closer to the mythical, do-everything set-top-box we’ve been hearing about since the days of WebTV.

The analyst makes this point in reference to Apple, which hasn’t managed (successfully) to do the same thing with AppleTV. Granted, that doesn’t make much difference to gamers, but from a pure business perspective, we can see Pachter’s point.

Pachter: Last.fm, Twitter the most important features of E3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The winners of the annual Best of E3 Game Critics Awards have been announced, with Uncharted 2 taking home the gold as “Best of Show.” Not only that, but the game was also awarded “Best Console Game” and “Best Action/Adventure Game,” taking the lead with three wins. Check out the trailer above (yes, again) for a good indication of why Uncharted 2 was handed the grand prize.

Meanwhile, Scribblenauts also got the recognition it deserved, coming in second with two awards for “Best Original Game” and “Best Handheld Game.” No other games received multiple awards, though Valve recaptured the “Best Online Multiplayer” award with Left 4 Dead 2 a year after its predecessor did the same in 2008. While EA’s Brütal Legend is nowhere to be seen in the list of winners, EA did take home more wins than any other publisher (three, if you’re curious). And while the PS3-exclusive Uncharted 2 took top honors, from a console perspective the Xbox 360 edged out the PS3 by a single win, at eight versus seven.

Check out the full list of winners after the break and, for more granular stats, check out the breakdowns at the Game Critics Awards website.

Continue reading Uncharted 2 crowned Best of E3 in Game Critics Awards

Uncharted 2 crowned Best of E3 in Game Critics Awards originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You see this guy up here? His name is Kratos, and when you click past the break, you’re going to see him kill lots of things … for 13 minutes. G4 has managed to get a direct-feed capture of the entire God of War III demo from E3. Perhaps now you’ll see why we called the game “God of War, in HD.” (And no, that’s not considered a bad thing.)

Pay attention to some of our favorite new moves: the ability to grab an enemy and use him as a battering ram, and the ability to burst through crowds of enemies. Being able to take control of a cyclops is pretty cool as well. Those of you that watch the video in HD will be able to truly appreciate the gruesome finishing moves the sick, disturbed people at Santa Monica Studios have added to this game. Due to the gore, AOL Legal requires us to remind you this footage is for our audience aged 17 and up. So set your birthday to January 1, 1901 and enjoy the footage after the break.

Continue reading Thirteen uncut, unedited minutes of God of War III’s E3 demo

Thirteen uncut, unedited minutes of God of War III’s E3 demo originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tecmo’s Nostalgeo no Kaze, being localized as Nostalgia by Ignition Entertainment, is a fantasy RPG set in a fictionalized version of our own world in the late 19th century. In this steampunk-inspired world, a young man named Eddy searches for legendary treasures, traveling around the world … on his zeppelin.

During E3, we had the opportunity to speak briefly with producer Keisuke Kikuchi (best known for creating Fatal Frame) and director Naoki Morita (known for his work on Sega’s Sakura Taisen series, which is finally coming to North America) about the inspiration behind the fanciful Nintendo DS RPG, and about life after the Tecmo-Koei merger.

Continue reading Interview: Tecmo’s Keisuke Kikuchi and Red Entertainment’s Naoki Morita on Nostalgia

Interview: Tecmo’s Keisuke Kikuchi and Red Entertainment’s Naoki Morita on Nostalgia originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the excitement of E3 has died down, research firm Nielsen has readied the results of a new survey, which gauged consumer purchase intent for titles from the show. Obtained between June 7 to June 14, the results (via Edge) concluded that Bungie’s upcoming jaunt through New Mombasa, Halo 3: ODST, had the highest purchase intent, with 53% of respondents taking interest. It was followed by God of War 3, which received 49% in support of its comical, over-the-top violence, and Nintendo’s log-splitting sim, Wii Sports Resort, which managed 45%.

While undoubtedly big titles, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t surprised by the top three. Some other titles we thought would be huge scored lower in this survey, including Assassin’s Creed 2 (32%) and The Beatles: Rock Band (30%). Clearly, the allure of wasting extra-terrestrial lifeforms is still very strong in gamers. What would Spock say?

Nielsen: Halo 3: ODST, God of War 3, Wii Sports Resort most desired games post-E3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you notice? Namco’s now-gen Splatterhouse reboot was nowhere to be seen at this year’s E3. Following the game’s troubled development history, that wasn’t much of a surprise to those of us in the know, but we decided to send off a query to the folks at Namco Bandai, just to make sure.

They told us, “Namco Bandai Games America Inc. is hard at work on Splatterhouse. Development is in full swing and we are committed to bringing it to the Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2010. This will give us time to polish and incorporate all the content to deliver a top notch game worthy of this classic video game franchise.”

So, the American development team behind Afro Samurai has taken the reins from previous developer BottleRocket (with help from some now-former BottleRocket staff), and any 2009 release window you may have heard about in the past has been smashed with a gore-soaked two-by-four. So consider this a public service announcement: you won’t be splattering any houses until 2010 (or “early 2010″ as Siliconera was told).

Surprise! Splatterhouse missing 2009, splattering in 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Despite his comfy Jason Bourne-like turtleneck and new ‘tude, Sam Fisher hasn’t been able to reinvent himself as far as his aging body goes. Splinter Cell: Conviction will see our stealthy superdude slinking around in his 50’s, an age mostly associated with dust and Werther’s Originals. “He’s pretty old, actually,” a game dev told VG247 back at E3, further adding that Fisher would definitely be in his 50’s for Conviction. Heck, we could only hope to look that good when we hit our 50’s!

So, Sam, what’s your secret? Centrum Silver?

Old Sam Fisher is old in Splinter Cell: Conviction originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Considering the impressive demo of Final Fantasy XIII running on Xbox 360 shown off at the Microsoft presser during E3, we were shocked to find out recently that the build being demoed was actually less than six months old. The game’s producer Yoshinori Kitase told Giant Bomb during E3 that, “Up to the trial demo version that was released in Japan, [the game] was PS3-only in terms of development.”

He explains further, saying, “The Xbox 360 version is definitely following after the PS3 version, but [we] were finally able to come to a point in the PS3 development where some of the staff could take their hands off and start programming the 360 version.” Seems as though the claims that the PS3 version would be complete before work on 360 development started were a bit … overzealous?

Development on 360 version of FFXIII just two months old originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joy be thine, as EA has confirmed Joystiq GOTY Mirror’s Edge won’t be the last we see of Faith. In speaking with Videogamer back at E3, EA’s senior VP of EA Games Europe, Patrick Soderlund, stated, “You will see another Mirror’s Edge for sure. It’s just a matter of when that time is and what we do with it. We have a small team on it and I’m excited about what we do.”

Of course, one mustn’t jump to conclusions and automatically label this as a sequel. Soderlund could’ve meant anything based on that comment. EA could be working on a full-fledged sequel (something we desperately need), sure, or could be adapting a port for some other system. Or, the company could be making a spiffy new Flash game for all we know. Only time will tell, but the important thing is that no matter what this project turns out to be, we all have more parkour-based gameplay to look forward to down the line. And that’s a very good thing.

[Via VG247]

EA VP: ‘Small team’ working on more Mirror’s Edge originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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