MS Gamer Day after thoughts
It is very clear that Microsoft will be going after two demographics this fall: hard core (as usual) and young kids. The later is a group Microsoft has said they are trying to get but in the past they have never really followed through. In the past Microsoft has relied a bit too much on 3rd party publishers to develop kids games. Well this all changes this fall with the two rare games: Viva Pinata:Trouble in Paradise and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.
Both titles are developed by Rare, the makers of Conker's Bad Fur Day, Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox Adventures, which is now apart of the Microsoft fold of 1st part developers. Rare was bought by Microsoft to develop games for kids and now they finally have a pair that might actually deliver this holiday season.
Rare did not have much success early on 360 with Perfect Dark Zero or Kameo but did have a success in Viva Pinata. Viva Pinata is a game you take over a plot of land and maintain the area to attract pinata animals to live. I throughly enjoyed playing Viva Pinata and will definitely be buying the new game. A DS version will be coming out soon as well which will be the first Microsoft on the Nintendo device.
Microsoft didn't show off any secrete games or devices like a few people though would occur. There was the rumor that Newton and Lips would be shown off but this did not occur. There was another Ninja game rumored to be in the works but it wasn't shown off either.
What wasn't shown but was interesting absent was Halo Wars, the RTS game that takes place before the three Halo games. Seems that will not be coming out this fall. Having Gears of War 2, Fable 2 and Halo Wars would probably be too much to deliver for the holiday season. If Halo Wars wasn't great it very likely would have been lost in the shuffle. I expect this is being delayed till March of '09.
The event has to be a bit of a let down considering there was no newton or lips on display. A new Viva Pinata game is a nice surprise and will be a lot of fun to play. Other than that though there wasn't much of interest. We knew Too Human was coming this summer, Fable 2 looks good and will probably be huge again, and Gears 2 looks great. I guess we'll have to wait for E3 to see the real fireworks.
Both titles are developed by Rare, the makers of Conker's Bad Fur Day, Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox Adventures, which is now apart of the Microsoft fold of 1st part developers. Rare was bought by Microsoft to develop games for kids and now they finally have a pair that might actually deliver this holiday season.
Rare did not have much success early on 360 with Perfect Dark Zero or Kameo but did have a success in Viva Pinata. Viva Pinata is a game you take over a plot of land and maintain the area to attract pinata animals to live. I throughly enjoyed playing Viva Pinata and will definitely be buying the new game. A DS version will be coming out soon as well which will be the first Microsoft on the Nintendo device.
Microsoft didn't show off any secrete games or devices like a few people though would occur. There was the rumor that Newton and Lips would be shown off but this did not occur. There was another Ninja game rumored to be in the works but it wasn't shown off either.
What wasn't shown but was interesting absent was Halo Wars, the RTS game that takes place before the three Halo games. Seems that will not be coming out this fall. Having Gears of War 2, Fable 2 and Halo Wars would probably be too much to deliver for the holiday season. If Halo Wars wasn't great it very likely would have been lost in the shuffle. I expect this is being delayed till March of '09.
The event has to be a bit of a let down considering there was no newton or lips on display. A new Viva Pinata game is a nice surprise and will be a lot of fun to play. Other than that though there wasn't much of interest. We knew Too Human was coming this summer, Fable 2 looks good and will probably be huge again, and Gears 2 looks great. I guess we'll have to wait for E3 to see the real fireworks.
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