E3 Update from 6/6

Yesterday saw two of the big three press conferences - Microsoft and Sony. Microsoft focused extremely heavily on Kinect games and Kinect integration into existing franchises like Forza and Fable. Sony had just a heavy emphasis on 3D, unveiling an attractive $499 Playstation Branded 3DTV bundle, but also focused on big name exclusive content like Bioshock Infinite coming with the Original Bioshock if you buy the PS3 version.

Here's the breakdown of big announcements.

Microsoft

• Opened the show with a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Gameplay Demo. Looks really slick - NYC is under a full boar attack, and you're sneaking around placing bombs on submarines and escaping on speed rafts.
• Tomb Raider Opening Moments Demo. Very visceral and gritty. Lara has a new look and the games opens with her captured and bloody. You make a narrow escape from a cave as a bloody mess. Very cool.
• Mass Effect 3 Introduction - looks like more of the same. If you're a ME fan though, I'm sure this is on your radar.
• All EA Sports titles will support Kinect 
• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - Kinect Demo w/ "GunSmith" for Kinect. A rep is showing how simple gestures can open up your gun and you can customize every single piece of it. It also shows off voice commands.
  "All future Tom Clancy game will leverage Kinect"
• Showing off Kinect capabilities w Voice Commands for the dashboard. Looks annoying - "XBOX - Movies" "XBOX - Play DVD" I think we'd all rather just press a button. New Dashboard looks slick though, similar to Windows 7 Phone OS.
• New Channels - Youtube and Bing - Bing searches everything available on XBOX Live. Motto is "You say it, XBOX finds it."
• XBOX 360 Live TV. Partnering with many cable providers. Launches this fall. 

New Dahsboard with Live TV Channel

• UFC is Partnering with XBOX Live. Watch Pay-Per-Views, interact with the fights with stat tracking, or by betting on the winner (for points).
• Gears of War 3 co-op demo with Cliffy B and Ice-T...ugh. Ice-T is going to reunite his band to write a song about Horde mode. Wow. 
• Halo 1 remake. "Halo: Combat Evolved: Anniversary" Remastered single player campaign and seven original multilayer maps. Comes out November 15.
• Forza 4. I wish they called it 4za. "Monthly expansions" flashes across the screen. Heavy integration of Kinect with head tracking and "air steering" but we saw this last year.
• Fable: The Journey demo. Looks like it can be played only using Kinect, sitting down no less. It actually looks like a really cool use of the hardware. Conjuring spells with different gestures. 
• Minecraft is coming to 360+Kinect this winter. 
• Kinect Disneyland Adventures. Explore the entire Disneyland park virtually. Could be cool for a family going to Disney for the first time. Play through the park's rides using Kinect.
• Kinect Star Wars game demo. The crowd goes crazy. It looks pretty darn cool, and it seems to work with Kinect fairly flawlessly. 
• Tim Schafer is on stage to announce a Sesame Street game - Once Upon a Monster. For - you guessed it - Kinect. Dad and son on stage playing. It's cute, but this is not the venue to show this one off. I can hear the collective barfs of everyone in the crowd.

• Kinect Fun Labs. Play around with new prototypes for Kinect games. Showing off how to create a virtual avatar by taking a picture of you - works great!
• Kinect Fun Labs - Finger tracking - drawing in 3D. Really cool.
• Object Capture - allows you to play games with your favorite objects. 
• Kinect Fun Labs goes live TODAY! WHOA!
• Kinect Sports Season 2. Baseball, Skiing, Golf, Darts, Tennis, Football. Demo of Golf - the swing is significantly delayed. Football demo co-op with two dudes. These guys are douches.
• Dance Central 2 demo. They got actual dancers to demo it - not that awful white guy from last year. Looks more legit. 
• They close the show with a brief trailer for Halo 4. It will be kicking off a new trilogy, and it comes out Holiday 2012.

Sony

• Significant apologies for PSN fiasco, they keep thanking the consumers for their undying support.
• Uncharted 3 demo followed by demo of Uncharted game for the new PSP - now called PSVita. 
• Two HD collections coming from Sony - God of War Origins will be uprezzed versions of the two PSP games and the ICO Collection will be a disc with uprezzed versions of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. 
• PS Move focus on Sport games. Kobe Bryant comes out to play the new NBA 2K game. Point at what you want to do basically. An extremely dumbed down version of the game, but it looks fantastic.
• Medieval Moves - a new Move title for this fall. Kind of a Zelda type thing. No inventory screen - everything is handled with gestures. 

Medieval Moves for PS3

• Bioshock Infinite demo with Ken Levine. He talks about his support for Move in the PS3 version after making some negative comments about the tech in the past - he is ready to support it. Also announces a game set in the Bioshock universe for the PSVita - no further details. 
• EA Games announces a new SSX, Need for Speed, and Battlefield 3. PS3 version of Battlefield 3 includes Battlefield 1943 for free. 
• On stage demo of PSVita. 
• Mod Nation Racers for Vita - create a custom track by drawing on the screen.
• Little Big Planet for Vita demo.
• Vita is coming out this holiday. Wi-Fi only version is $250, 3G version is $300. Not bad - competitive with the 3DS, anyway. 

That's it! Nintendo's presser is today at noon on the East Coast.