It’s not every day you get to say you were present for history in the making. But Microsoft made history on January 1st, 2009, and I was there to see it.

Xbox set the bar insanely high with its 2009 E3 Media Briefing. This multi-million dollar affair was a star-studded venture filled with juicy exclusives, jaw-dropping demos, and revolutionary surprises that just might turn the entire gaming industry on its head. Microsoft stunned the audience with surprise appearances by Steven Spielberg, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and others.

But let’s get right to the big: Microsoft is about to change the way you play games forever with a new piece of hardware it’s codenamed “Project Natal.” Natal is Microsoft’s answer to Nintendo’s motion-sensing technology, but it’s much more than that.

Natal is a set-top box, about the size of a thin DVR player. It has a whole host of state-of-the-art technology inside, including a motion-detecting camera, sensors, audio equipment, and more. When put together with your Xbox 360, Natal transforms you into the ultimate game controller. Not only does it sense full body movement, it recognizes your voice, your face, gesture commands, and more.

I got full video of the entire Project Nadal presentation and it explains the technology far better than I ever could. It features the likes of Steven Spielberg, Fable creator Peter Molyneaux, lots of demos and video, and much more. Prepare to be blown away:

But Natal wasn’t the only major news. The Xbox Live Video Store is being rebranded this fall to “Zune Video,” with tons of new features, including: “instant on” movies and TV shows — no more waiting to download, just click and play; full 1080p HD videos; a partnership with SkyTV is bringing live TV shows to Xbox; and “Live Party” allows you to enjoy a movie or game as a shared experience through a virtual living room where your Avatars can watch and interact with each other. In addition, Microsoft has forged a new partnership with Last.fm to bring Music to Xbox Live.

Social Networking fans have reason to rejoice: both Facebook and Twitter are coming to Xbox Live! Here’s a video that shows you some of the features you can expect, all of which will be launching this fall:

Metal Gear Solid is finally coming to Xbox 360! Hideo Kojima was on hand to help announce that the next game in the MGS franchise is titled Metal Gear Solid: Rising, and it stars MGS secondary character Raiden instead of Solid Snake. There’s no release date yet, but Kojima touted it as “a completely new Metal Gear experience.”

Before all of the big announcements, the conference was first kicked off with a world premiere presentation of The Beatles: Rock Band. Check out the entire demo, trailer, and surprise celebrity appearances in this video:

To recap, 45 of the Beatles’ most popular songs will be playable in-game, and the first 10 of them were announced today: “I Saw Her Standing There,” “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” “I Feel Fine,” “Day Tripper,” “Taxman,” “I Am the Walrus,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Octopus’s Garden,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Get Back.” The entire Abby Road album will be downloadable shortly after the game’s launch, and “All You Need is Love” is an Xbox Live exclusive track whose proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.

By the way, I’d love to know how much Microsoft paid Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison to walk out on stage for all of twenty seconds and not say a single word.

Other highlights…

Modern Warfare 2 was demoed for us, showing off an incredible snow mountain level. After ascending precariously amid a blizzard, using ice hooks, the player nearly dies after under-jumping a chasm. The devs then fast-forwarded to a moment later in the level where you’re infiltrating an enemy camp. They engaged in some sneak-and-shoot action using the snow storm as cover. Once a full-out battle broke out, the player tumbled down a hill and was attacked by enemies on snowmobiles. The player took out the driver of one of the vehicles and commandeered it, racing down the mountain, controlling the snowmobile with one hand and shooting enemies with a gun in the other. Two map packs for MW2 are releasing first on Xbox Live after the game’s launch.

Halo 3: ODST, the new spinoff of the popular FPS series, is set in the fictional city of New Mbasa, where you play as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper who’s separated form his team after a crash landing. Something terrible has happened to New Mbasa, and the story unfolds as you discover clues scattered throughout the city, which trigger flashbacks to other ODSTs that you’ll play as well. Halo 3: ODST arrives September 22nd of this year.

But there was another Halo game unveiled as well, and it’s shrouded in mystery. Halo: Reach, a “top secret project” in development at Bungie was shown only in the form of a teaser trailer (with no game footage). It’s unknown what genre of game Reach is, exactly, but Halo fans know that “Reach” is the name of a planet that played a crucial role in humanity’s war against the Covenant. A purchase of Halo ODST includes an invitation to the multiplayer beta of Halo: Reach. The final game is expected sometime in 2010.

Alan Wake was finally shown again after years of radio silence from its developer, Remedy Games. This is one of my most-anticipated titles of the show, and wouldn’t you know it: my video tape ran out very early in the demo and I was so enthralled by what I was watching on the stage and big screen that I didn’t notice my video not recording until it was over! Doggone it! The incredible demo showed the power of light in the game, from a never-before-seen level. The dark creatures that attack Alan are hurt by his flashlight, and he can use flares and generators to activate larger lights. The demo ended with a profoundly cinematic cliffhanger where a trailer Alan was hiding in was pushed over the side of a cliff by an enormous tractor. The whole thing oozed atmosphere and dread, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!

Final Fantasy XIII is targeting a Spring 2010 launch. Here’s a video showing off some sweet demo footage:

Gears of War maker Epic Games is working on its first-ever Xbox Live Arcade game, a side-scroller built with Unreal Engine 3 called Shadow Complex. It’ll be out this summer. Here’s a short demo:

Joy Ride is a new social game that uses Avatars in a car-driving experience. Customize your car and then take your Avatar for a spin, a race, an obstacle course, or other destinations. The design is reminiscent of Pixar’s Cars, with lots of red desert rocks and the wide open west. Joy Ride will be free to download and play this winter, but if you want additional cars, upgrades, or race tracks, you’ll have to buy them. Check out the demo:

Tony Hawk put in his annual appearance to talk about Tony Hawk Ride and unveil its unique skateboard-shaped controller:

Splinter Cell Conviction was finally unveiled after years of having fallen off the radar, and it’s clear that it’s undergone a major transformation during that time. It now features a fast-paced narrative with intense, brutal action that’s centered around protagonist Sam Fisher’s vendetta against the people who had his daughter killed. It showed of lots of innovations in gameplay, including a unique in-world projection system for relaying story information, and tons of new moves and abilities for Sam. It’s coming exclusively to Xbox 360 this fall:

Forza Motorsport 3 is sure to please fans of the series and the racing genre in general. Shipping in October, the game features tons of customization options and the ability to record and edit your own video with some wild and crazy results, such as in the demo shown here:

By the way, I counted 5 separate times they referred to Forza 3 as “the definitive racing game of this generation.” Good grief, we get it already.

We were also shown trailers for the next Lips game, Crackdown 2, and Left 4 Dead 2.

The crowd seemed truly stunned by the grand finale with Project Natal. I don’t think anyone was expecting such a revolutionary announcement from Microsoft this year. The Natal hardware is something that could easily have been saved for the next iteration of the Xbox, but Microsoft is releasing it for this generation instead, and if it can deliver on all of the promises made today… the mind reels at the possibilities!

All photos and video by Robin Parrish, except Paul McCartney/Ringo Starr photo by ©2009 Casey Rodgers/AP Images for Xbox. Used by permission.

Post from: EveryJoe

E3 ‘09: Xbox changes gaming forever