E3: Microsoft

Have you got E3 fever yet? The biggest gaming event of the year (arguably) is just around the corner with the Big Three showing off their goods to the world. I'm going to take a guess at some things that will happen in each developers conference.

Microsoft

This Christmas season is an important one for Microsoft. With Project Natal coming out they're hoping to get their tendrils into the rich vein of money that Nintendo opened with the Wii and DS called "the casual market". Sony is doing the same thing with the Playstation dildo backmassager Move and expect both Sony and Microsoft to follow the Wii with its minigame collections using their motion technology.

The Microsoft press conference is going to feature the Cirque du Soleil for their "World premiere of project natal". Now wasn't Natal shown last year? I think what they mean is that they're going to show actual games and not just some mini-games. This conference is also being shown on Spike TV and MTV in the USA at least. Handy for the Americans out there, but it should mean that the new Rock Band 3 is going to have some prescence. Hopefully it'll be a better demo than 2008 when they let Peter Moore loose on The Hives.

Also expect to see: Fable III and Peter Molyneux make some wild accusations that doesn't actually happen in the game, Microsoft announces Natal Sportz that comes onstage to rapturous tumbleweed, Activision shows off Call of Duty: Black Ops that will feature "exclusive" DLC featuring your favourite maps from Modern Warfare 2 and cost 1600 MS points for 5 maps.

Crackdown 2, Halo Reach, Gears of War 3 and Bulletstorm should all see demos or trailers too.

I'll do my expectations on Sony and Nintendos press conferences over the coming days.