E3 2008 Day 2 Coverage

by Rob Walker | July 15, 2008 at 10:14 am

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While the first few days of E3 are generally devoted to announcements and press-only events, there's still some interesting info coming out of Los Angeles today.

First up this morning there was the Nintendo conference, where the most interesting information was the Asian giant's announcements regarding how the Wii will be used over the next few years.

Of note is the shift away from 'hardcore' gamers, into the more traditional market (Nintendo's announcements included videos of families and grandparents playing Wii games).

One of the more interesting additions is a more sensitive movement sensor that attaches to the wii-mote, giving a higher degree of control over the games. Shown during the conference was Fencing and Wii Music, along with a new Wii Sports game (Wii Resort).

Later this afternoon the Sony conference is set to start, to check out the live video stream, look no further:

Sony's E3 2008 press conference is almost upon us. Can you smell the announcements? Tasty. Check back here promptly at 11:30 AM PST (Tuesday, July 14th) for our live commentary of everything that goes down. And remember, you can also check out our live video stream of the conference if you don?t want to read our babble (jerks!).

Highlights from the Nintendo live blog:

9:31 - Reggie: by this holiday, total DS worldwide sales to exceed 100 million systems, total US software sales are up 29% from last year.

9:34 - Another quotable: “when those June NPD numbers are released on Thursday, we wont be surprised if the wii is the best selling console in north America”

9:36 - Star Wars: The Clone Wars trailer, showing motion controlled lightsaber battles

9:37 - Rayman Raving Rabbids TV party trailer, a party game, looks family friendly, showing kids playing it, giggling.

9:38 - Call of Duty: World At War trailer, targeted more to the core gamer, has co-op mode.

9:40 - Cammie Dunaway is back onstage to talk about portable games (and their success). In 2005, 30% of game recipients were female, that’s gone up to almost half in the last year.

9:46 - they’re testing the DS for PDA-like uses and connectivity features - example using the DS at a baseball park to order food, compete in trivia with other fans.

9:46 - they’re testing the DS for PDA-like uses and connectivity features - example using the DS at a baseball park to order food, compete in trivia with other fans.

Nintendo today announced the development of Wii Music, demonstrating the title at the company's E3 2008 press conference.

Wii Music appears to allow multiple users to play in bands simultaneously. Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated an in-game saxophone, holding the Wii Remote up as one would play such an instrument.

Sierra Entertainment sends along new Ghostbusters media in the form of Wii and current-gen screenshots, and a trailer which you can stream below.

Previous NowPublic coverage:

Today, the big rumbling was for the Microsoft conference, which saw new videos for Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5 (co-op gameplay!) and Fable 2 (also co-op gameplay!). Most of these games are finished - or nearly finished, and will be out in Fall 2008.

2 See all footage | View Slideshow

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