E3 Conferences: The Index

MICROSOFT CONFERENCE

• EA Sports pledges commitment to Kinect: next Madden, Tiger Woods, FIFA and 'other' sports titles to be augmented with motion-control.

• Bioware confirms Mass Effect 3 will offer Kinect support, demoing the ability to chose conversation branch options and command squad movement and tactics in battle using voice alone.

• All future Tom Clancy games will support Kinect, announces Ubisoft. The company demos the tech in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, using hand gestures and voice to create, take apart and build custom weapons, and test them in a firing range.

• New Xbox Experience this year offers expanded Voice Control over Dashboard - search engine Bing integration compiles any content under name (examples used: 'X-Men', 'Lego') in one list.

• Xbox Live will get Live TV, with content providers to be announced for each territory.

• Partnership with UFC to stream fights on Xbox Live, includes Kinect interactivity, letting you check fighter stats and bet with firends online over which way the match is going to end.

• Ice-T and band Body Count are producing a song to tie-in with Gears of War 3.

• Crytek's Codename: Kingdoms becomes Ryse, Kinect-operated first-person brawler set in Rome. Due next year.

• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is announced. New graphical filter over original game, with option to turn it off. Online co-op, seven multiplayer maps; six classic and one Firefight, built in the first game's setting. Out November 15.

• Forza 4 Kinect to have over eighty car manufacturers included. Its due out October 12.

• Lionhead developing new Fable Kinect title subtitled 'The Journey'.

• Minecraft is being exclusively released for Kinect and is due this winter.

• Disney Kinect collaboration with Disney Adventures, letting you explore virtual recreations of the theme parks and play Kinect games in place of rides.

• Kinect Star Wars was given a playable presentation, and mixes scenes from the original and new trilogies.

• Kinect Sports Season 2 is announced, with new games such as NFL and golf.

• Dance Central 2 is debuted, and will allow users to import original game's songs into the sequel, which offers simultaneous two-player dance-offs.

• Halo 4 is announced by way of a teaser trailer. It's developed by 343 Industries, due for fall 2012.

• EA PRESS CONFERENCE

• Mass Effect 3: March 6 2012 release date.

• Need for Speed: The Run is shown, a mixture of classic street racing and on-foot QTE sections between rides as the entire experience channels an action movie.

• SSX is confirmed for January 2012 release. The game uses NASA satellite footage to choose the biggest mountains on the planet, and drops players on them. Three main modes: Race, Trick, and Survive. Ten characters to be revealed in total, likely to be a mix of classic cast and new faces.

• FIFA 12 will implement online social network entitled 'Football Club'. Lets players your prefer same teams to push their side up a global leaderboard against other teams/players. F.C will upload new challenges and story lines based on real-world matches, updating weekly. F.C will be free to use, and lets you carry one profile across all platforms.

• Same social network will be in NFL as well.

• Insomniac Games show its new multi-format cooperative adventure Overstrike, which has a slight Team Fortress/Brink look to it.

• Battlefield 3 will also have a social network, entitled Battle Log, and work similar to Call of Duty's Elite, and be offered free. The game is to have an open multi-platform beta in September, ahead of October 25 release.

UBISOFT PRESS CONFERENCE

• Far Cry 3 is announced via a live demo, survival FPS in a tropical jungle once more.

• Gearbox presents a video trailer for Brothers in Arms: Furious Four, riffs on Inglorious Basterds with a Nazi Kill Crew.

• Ubisoft is developing Adventures of Tintin overseen by movie producers Peter Jackson and Steven Speilberg. 2D co-op platformer with on-rails 3D sequences.

• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is shown as on-stage four-player live demo, with an assault on a factory. Gameplay is a lot faster than its predecessors, and more direct control and choice with remote mobile units / technology.

• Ghost Recon: Online shown, developed by Ubisoft Singapore, ability to share rewards between this and Future Soldier.

• ManiaWorld - a diverse brand currently covering RPG (Questmania), FPS (Shootmania) and racing (Trackmania) genres. Trackmania is shown - sports cars racing around exaggerated canyon track with massive curving course and huge jumps.

• Raving Rabbids: Alive & Kicking is confirmed for Kinect - series of mini-games, a few demoed (Whack-a-Rabbid, Fill the Shapes) on stage. Released November 8.

• Just Dance 3 video shown, game set for release October 2011.

• Rocksmith announced - less Guitar Hero, more actual guitar-teaching tool. Video is vague on details. Coming this fall.

• Yourshape: Fitness 2 for Kinect confirmed.

• Assassin's Creed: Revelations demoed, preceded by a trailer that shows a white-bearded Ezio following in the steps of a ghostly Altair. Live demo shows an explosive escape through a burning port (due to Ezio setting fire to most of the ships).

Sony Conference

• President Jack Tretton acknowledged the PSN outage right off the bat: "This isn't the first time I've come to E3 with an elephant in the room..." He tells journalists they're welcome for situation (bad news being good news for reporters) and thanks third-party developers. To consumers: "you are the lifeblood of the company. I want to apologise personally and on behalf of the company."

• PSN gets new media partner: CinemaNow, which is coming to the network later this year.

• Naughty Dog show off a live demo of Uncharted 3, as Drake works his way through a ship in the middle of the storm-lashed sea, and an escape attempt as the craft overturns in the waves, water rushing through the corridors.

• Uncharted 3 will get a multiplayer beta starting June 20th, and there'll be a tie-in with Subway later this year to allow players access to the full multiplayer game early.

• Insomniac shows off a live demo of Resistance 3, as characters try, and fail, to ambush a Chimera outpost. A Doomsday Edition of the game will be released on September 6, bundled with Sharpshooter peripheral and Move controller.

• God of War: Origins, a remastered collection of the PSP titles, plus Ico and Shadows of the Colossus Collection, will be released in September, both offering 3D support.

• Sony will release a 3D-ready bundle, which includes 22 inch 3D TV, 3D glasses, cables, plus game, for $499.99 later this year. The TV will allow two players with 3D glasses to see two independent full-screen displays for multiplayer games.

• 2K show off NBA2K12 on Move, with special guest Kobe Byrant playing a match. Game's out October 4th.

• New Move title, Medieval Moves, gets a live demo. On-rails cartoon adventure letting you swop between weapons with a twist of the Move controller.

• Sucker Punch shows off Infamous 2.

• LittleBig Planet gets fall update to incoporate Move functionality.

• Starhawk is shown off via trailer - due 2012.

• New Sly The Cooper game announced with teaser trailer, due 2012 as well.

• CCP's Dust 514 is announced as a PS3 console exclusive, with cross-platform support. Trailer shown. There'll be a closed beta this fall, and full game next Spring.

• Ken Levine comes on stage after a BioShock Infinite montage trailer, to explain the game will have some form of Move functionality built in. The game will come bundled with a free copy of the original BioShock on release.

• Saints Row: The Third gets an exclusive PS3 game mode.

• PS3 gets an exclusive digital Star Trek prequel game before the retail title is released next year, both of which will be 3D. A tie-in Phaser-style Move controller will be released.

• SSX will have an PS3 exclusive Mount Fuji track.

• The PS3 version of Need for Speed: The Run will get seven exclusive super cars.

• PS3 version of Battlefield 3 will have Battlefield 1943 bundled alongside it.

• PlayStation Suite service will share PS content between Sony-certified devices.

• The NGP is renamed the PS Vita. Two models will be released: Wi-fi only version for $249, Wi-fi and 3G version for $299. The latter will be exclusively partnered with AT&T network in the States. Carriers for other territories will be announced soon.

• Action-RPG Ruin for Vita is shown, overhead camera-angle as you raid rivals' lairs. Offers Cloud saving, letting you carry on your game on PS3 or Vita.

• Mod Nations Racers is announced for Vita, with track-creator using front and rear touch pads.

• Wipeout 2048 will offer eight player multiplayer across any combination of PS3s and Vita handhelds.

• LittleBig Planet is coming to Vita, will LBP2's tool set system included.

• Street Fighter x Tekken is coming to Vita, with Capcon's Ono-san showing off a live demo in the system. Version includes Cole from Infamous as a playable character.

• There's over eighty titles being developed for Vita.

Nintendo Conference

• Zelda's 25th Anniversary kicks off with The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening being released on the 3DS Virtua Console the same day. A series of symphonic concerts will take place around the globe this fall, and a soundtrack released of one of the shows. There'll be a Ocarina 3DS soundtrack as well, but only available to the first people that register the game upon release. Shigeru Miyamoto brings out key Zelda staff on-stage to offer a thanks to players who have been with the series all through the years.

• Mario Kart 3DS is shown via a gameplay video; game offers tricked out karts that transform into hang-gliders and submersible craft. Customisation options for kart wheels and body-frames.

• Starfox 3DS will let you use the 3DS gryo-sensor to pilot your craft. 3DS camera will record other players in multiplayer and overlay the footage to their specific crafts. Game is out in US in September.

• Super Marios Bros is shown for 3DS, and is out before the end of the year.

• Kid Icarus, which is released the end of this year, will have 3 on 3 team-based multiplayer modes.

• 3DS showreel video has Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Ace Combat 3D, Tetris, Cave Story, Driver: Renegade, Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions, Tekken 3D, alongside those titles already seen: Resident Evil Revelations and Mercenaries.

• The 3DS eShop and Virtua Console are now available with a system update, and to celebrate, ExicteBike 3D is available to download for free for a limited time.

• An enhanced Pokemon Pokedex 3D is available as a free download from the eShop, with a random selection of battle monsters in your download. To collect the rest you need to use the network features of the 3DS, such as StreetPass, to swop creatures.

• Wii U is announced, with Nintendo heavily emphasising the new controller. It is a iPad-style tablet, with grey-scale casing and standard controller inputs - two analog sticks, D-Pad, front buttons and rear L/R, Z/R buttons - built in either side of a 6.2 inch touch screen. Its also got rumble, microphone, speaker, camera

• The controller will be wireless connected to a simple box - the console itself - which you'll load the game discs into. The system is backwards compatible with Wii titles, and also supports all Wii peripherals, such as Remotes and Wii Fit boards.

• You'll be able to transfer your game from the TV to the controller's screen to keep playing, use it as a web browser and upload images and video to the TV, use it as a art tablet with the in-built stylus, or use it as an optional menu screen for the likes of Zelda's equipment changes or deciding NFL play changes when playing the games on the TV. You can also use it to make video calls to other Wii U users.

• A new Super Smash Bros is being developed for both 3DS and Wii U.

• Eight different demos are announced to be on the show floor, though Nintendo stress that these are prototypes to show off the relevant features rather than being actual demos.

• A video showreel has a range of developers talking about the system and its capabilities, from THQ, EA, 5th Cell and more.

• Lego City Stories is coming to the console.

• Games that are announced to be in development for the console are Darksiders II, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online, Tekken, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Metro: Last Light, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. All the videos are seemingly those that have been used in other conferences and therefore don't represent actual Wii U footage.

• EA come on stage to talk in general terms about their portfolio and how it could be used for the Wii U, exampling Battlefield 3 and Madden. They've jumped on board due to "a breakthrough in relationship due to breakthrough in technology".