So how many of our predictions from Microsoft’s Press Conference were correct, and how many new announcements did they have left? Well, quite a few actually in both categories (we’re just as shocked as you.) As we all expected, the big games Microsoft’s rolling out this holiday were up for demonstration: Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2, with a producer or director on hand for each (meaning Jun Takeuchi, Peter Molyneaux, Cliffy “Young Clifford” Bleszinski — notables.) What were the big announcements to be had after the mandatory stuff got out of the way? Hit the break for an itemized list, because there was a whole hell of a lot.

As we noted, there’s a bit of a glut of information here, so we’re breaking it down in categories for you, as follows:

Release Dates:

-Fable 2: October, 2008
-Gears of War 2: November 7th, 2008 (Worldwide)
-Resident Evil 5: March 13, 2009 (Worldwide)
-Lips: “Holiday”, 2008
-The Last Remnant “Holiday”, 2008
-Infinite Undiscovery, September 2, 2008

Xbox Live:

-Xbox Live “Primetime” — a gameshow-style Xbox Live system introducing user-created programs (we spied a videogame quiz with “Coming Soon!” splattered over it in the background.)
-Entirely revamped dashboard (pictures up in next hour).
-”Avatars” officially announced and mass-integration (more on this in a bit as well) — very customizable.
-Geometry Wars 2, September release.
-Galaga Legions, “first true sequel to Galaga from the team at Namco-Bandai that brought you Pac-Man Championship Edition”
-Portal: Still Alive — new maps and puzzles, exclusively on Xbox Live.
-A new South Park game (yes, that South Park). NOTHING shown, except for small teaser.

New Game Announcements:

-Lips (yeah, we knew about that)
-You’re in the Movies, a game using the Xbox Live Vision Camera to create “small, B-movies with your friends and family.” (will include Vision Camera with purchase)
-Uno Rush — one person, seriously one person, cheered.

General:

-Netflix Partnership w/ Xbox Live. Streamable. This will change the online movie frontier.
-Rock Band 2 compatible “without disc swapping” with Rock Band 1.
-Guitar Hero: World Tour shipping with 80+ master tracks, full Metallica album “Death Magnetic” to be released exclusively for download.

As this business just ended, we’ll have more thorough details on all of these announcements as the week marches on. Keep it locked on Quarterplay.com for our full coverage of the EA Press Conference later this afternoon. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to eat some damn lunch.

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