E3 Xbox Round-Up: Kinect, VideoKinect, ESPN, SlimLine

Microsoft unveiled its ambitious plans for the next year with a typically lavish and all-green press event at this year's E3 at the Wiltern Hotel, Los Angeles.

The hour and half press event was billed as "the future of gaming" and showed off a myriad of different features and content that Microsoft would be bringing to the Xbox over the next year. The show was kicked-off by fan favourite Call Of Duty: Black Ops. The next Call of Duty see's Treyarch move the franchise into new ground with the modern setting of the Cold War.

Mark Lima from Treyarch was first on stage to introduce the new game with all-new footage of the single player being unveiled – and we must admit it looks incredible. The demo went on to show some impressive footage of a jungle level where you get fly a helicopter.

Don Mattrick officially got the show started with announcement that they had signed a deal with Activision so that all future DLC for COD would be released first on Xbox for the next three years.

Hideo Kojima was next on stage with news of Metal Gear Rising, which was demoed for the first time and looked like the bastard child of Dynasty Warriors and Metal Gear Solid.

Bungie was on hand showing all-new footage of Halo Reach and they unveiled the first real taster of the single player campaign. We saw shots a new wind swept world with some amazing attention to detail in both characters, vehicles and weapons. To say it looked spectacular wouldn't do it justice.

Corporate VP Marc Witten was next up with more details on Kinect saying it will sense sound, vision and movement; for a true controller-free experience. He showcased the new way to sign into Xbox Live. You simply wave, wave again and you land on a controller-free menu with voice command as well.

Phil Spencer announced Kinect will launch in every territory available alongside their new video chat service VideoKinect. It will be available to users with Kinect and looked like a cool way to keep in touch with other Xbox users and Windows Live Messenger users. He also showed off the camera follow function which always keeps users in shot by following their movements.

Microsoft announced that they have signed a deal with ESPN and there will be 3,500 live games shown in its first year and all in HD, with no controller. And he stated that ESPN will be free for all Gold members.

Kudo Tsunoda introduced more about Kinect by announcing 6 new launch titles starting with Kinectimals, which showed a little girl interacting with Skittles the tiger.

Kinect Sports allows player to play 6 sports with four of your friends, Kinect Joyirde was the next game up and looked like Trackmania, only with no controller.

Kinect Adventures looked like a fun multiplayer game with a new twist on the on-rails platformer and looked like a lot of fun. At the end each game it shows you pictures of you whilst you were playing and with full Facebook support you’ll be able to share your experiences with a wave of your hand.

Next up Microsoft unveiled a new Dance rhythm game made by MTV and Harmoxix's, called Dance Centrral it looked like an dance spin-off version of the popular Rock Band franschise.

Microsoft confirmed that the North American launch for Kinect as November 4^th and would have 15 launch titles. A sneak peak of an exclusive Star Wars game was shown, which looked incredible.And will be out some time in 2011.

Microsoft left the best until last with the introduction of the new Slimline Xbox; its sleeker, smaller and whisper quiet – and comes with 250gb hard drive and the fastest Wi-Fi available – it’s available this week and will be $299 the same price of the current Premium Xbox. No word on UK price or release date yet.