Lips to lead Microsoft's new casual IP drive
Karaoke title Lips and You're In The Movies target casual audience; Final Fantasy XIII for the core gamer
Microsoft officially unveiled Lips - a karaoke game for the Xbox 360 - at its E3 2008 press conference this morning, showing a renewed commitment to wooing the casual audience.
Keiichi Yanno, from developer iNiS, said that the game would let you sing songs from your own music collection - whether it be on a Zune or on an iPod.
The microphones are apparently motion sensitive, allowing players to perform tambourine hits with them. Lips will be available this holiday.
In other music-game news, Red Octane noted that Van Halen and The Eagles will be exclusive to Guitar Hero: World Tour. The developer also indicated that Xbox 360 owners would be getting an REM track pack early. Finally, Metallica's new album will be released day and date with downloadable content for the Guitar Hero: World Tour game.
Microsoft also demonstrated You're In The Movies - a title which uses a bundled USB LIVE vision camera to place images of players into B-movies. A sequel to Scene It is also upcoming.
For the core gamer, Capcom's Jun Takeuchi, the producer of Resident Evil 5, demonstrated the game's online co-op mode in which players must team up to overcome obstacles. The game is scheduled for a release on Friday the 13th in March 2009 in the US and UK - a day after it is released in Japan.
Peter Molyneux demonstrated Fable II, set for an October release. In the demo, purple orbs appeared in the game which represented friends playing online. By simply walking up to the orbs, players will be able to invite friends to join their game - no lobbies required.
Epic's Clif Bleszinski showed off Gears of War 2, which he called the most anticipated title of the year on any platform. He noted a new five player co-op mode where players take on waves of locusts and demonstrated the ability to ride a Brumak. The game is scheduled for release on November 7.
Last, but not least, Square-Enix announced US release dates for Inifinite Undiscovery (September 2), Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Spring 2009) and The Last Remnant (November 20). It also said that Final Fantasy XIII will be released on the Xbox 360 day and date with the PS3 version in North America and Europe.