E3 kicks off with the Beatles, Spielberg, Cameron and a hands-free controller
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E3 hasn’t even officially started yet, but some of Hollywood’s biggest names turned up at pre-show news conferences Monday to show off the video game industry’s newest technologies and titles:
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two surviving Beatles, took the stage briefly at Microsoft’s news conference in the morning to (very) briefly tout MTV’s new version of its Rock Band music game that focuses entirely on the iconic band. The L.A. Times tech blog has a full report on their appearance.
Later on at the event it was Steven Spielberg’s turn to surprise the crowd. But the A-list director wasn’t there to talk about any games in which he’s involved. He dropped by to plug Project Natal, Microsoft’s new peripheral for the Xbox 360 that lets players control games by moving in front of a camera and using their voice. ‘I felt like this was as significant as the transformation from square-shaped movie screens to CinemaScope and then Imax,’ he said of his first glimpse at the technology. Get all the details on Project Natal and the rest of Microsoft’s plans to expand the Xbox 360’s audience without losing its hard-core fans in the story from today’s Times.
James Cameron played a more traditional role at publisher Ubisoft’s news conference, where he talked about the upcoming video game based on his movie ‘Avatar.’ It will be the first video game produced in stereoscopic 3-D, mimicking the technology used in the film (though only a tiny percentage of people have TVs that support 3-D images). ‘When entertainment succeeds in today’s market, it does it by combining games, films, books, toys ... where you can visit the world and characters in different ways,’ Cameron said, according to video game news site Gamasutra.
There were also a few new games unveiled based on Hollywood properties. Ubisoft announced that it would be making a game based on Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s upcoming film adaptation of ‘Tintin.’ And Warner Bros. confirmed longstanding rumors that it will apply the Lego video game formula that has proved so successful with Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman to Harry Potter. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 comes out next year and will be produced by Traveller’s Tales, the game development studio Warner bought in 2007 for about $200 million.
Wednesday at E3: Nintendo and Sony hold their news conferences. Check Company Town throughout the week for interviews with executives and sneak peeks at games with a Hollywood angle.
-- Ben Fritz