I was actually overall impressed with Microsoft's conference this year. It was easily the best showing they've had in a while.

What I liked/ Thought was good.

1. Halo 4 looked great! To be honest I never really got into the Halo series ( I played 1 and 2's co-op campaign with friends alot) but I really don't care much for FPS. Halo 4 looked beautiful, one of my biggest complaints with shooter's today is their refusal to use any colors in the games. Gears of war being a prime example ( Everything is brown in that game!) I liked the metroid prime aspects of the game ( the thermal like visor and AI enemies that remind me of space pirates and chozo ghosts) Lucky for me my brother loves Halo and he'll be picking it up. Meaning I get to play it for free.

2. Splinter Cell was a nice surprise and the gameplay looked really good. It seems to be bringing back the stealth element to the series

3. The Southpark game looks fun and faithful to the show.

4. Micosoft's new IP's look interesting and I give them props for actually bringing new IPs.

4. The gameplay segments were the highlight of the show and these parts did their job well.

5. Very little Kinect demonstrations

What I didn't like/Thought was bad

1. Usher's performance while not bad, was totally out of place and not needed.

2. Pretty much all the Kinect voice command intergrations were just boring and uninteresting.

3. The whole middle segment of the conference was dull and non game related.

My Overall Rating = 7.5

This was their best conference of the past 3 years. While there were a lot of boring segments that didn't really relate to games, The game announcements and footage were good. It was a lot better then I was expecting!

Same thing will happen to all Big 3: the bar is set so high that nobody will meet expectations.

Question is whos gonna disapoint the least?

But also kinect is really proving itself. Many great core games have kinect functionality, its a powerhouse when navigating Xbox dash/Live, and now Internet explorer. And its great for parties.

Seems people hate on kinect because its trendy when it is in fact a runaway success and even catering to core gamers more then ever before.

i really thought the integration in madden or fifa will be shit but at least for fifa it made a lot of sense. did really not expect that and would be a reaons for me to chose the 360 version and not the ps3 version. which i personally do because i like the xbox-controller more but without that, i would maybe chose ps3 fifa because more people play that version.

The consoles on the market now are all running on fumes for games, so focusing on services / content providers makes sense. As long as sequels and more and more services come they should be able to transfer most of their current base to the next Xbox which will be unveiled next year presumably, and should have a good showing.

E3 2013 should be a pretty good show - Wii U second wave, 3DS peak titles, Vita / PS4 / X720 all getting interesting games. This year the only chance of a good show is really with Wii U, we know there won't be too much interesting stuff on the existing platforms, even 3DS / Vita will probably not get much content despite their newness.

Hmmm, wonder if others are doing the same.

I even think Iwata said that they wouldn't really be talking about 3DS much.

I hope EA puts out stats on yellow/red card violations.

I'm not sure how someone from the UK will be able to play this game without swearing.  I wonder if Kinect recognizes slang or Cockney Rhyme?

I could have done without the Usher performance bit, but I didn't think it was bad.

I was by far more interested in the Smart Glass feature than anything else.

It was solid, but SERIOUSLY lacked a megaton hook at the end. The swapped Halo and Call of Duty in order, rushed through titles they had, showed some exclusives, showed the Smartglass, but didn't have a WOW hook at the end, like a price cut, announcing new hardware, or an exclusive lockdown. More like a pile of teasers. Solid, but didn't end with AWESOME.

For me, the South Park guys making fun of Smart Glass was arguably the best part of the presentation.

So, who else is up for playing games from their refrigerator?

THIS.

Overall I'd rate Microsofts Conference as a 5/10, not great, but quite watchable. For me, too many multiplatform games taking control of the show (Usher doing a hole song too >.>), they had a new Gears and they didn't show any gameplay in the conference!

Halo 4 wasn't on long enough for me either :( I would've liked to of seen some Forza gameplay as well. The multiplatform game for me (South Park), didn't even get a proper gameplay trailer :/ 

Lara Craft also lasted too long in its demo imo. 

Could someone also tell me Alan Wake 2 was announced? Or was it just a rumour.