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Top 5 Forum-Breaking E3 Announcements

5. New consoles

We all know this one is coming up eventually, but it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any announcements made about the new consoles for the next generation. We’ve already heard rumors regarding Nintendo’s project cafe and the mysterious ‘Beem [1]‘, but there’s also been talk about developer kits [2] being released based on current PC hardware, similar to what was done in the past before the console were officially announced. Although denied it could be one of those surprises at E3.

4. Xbox 360 games on the PC
Windows 8 [3] was recently shown off during Computex, and it looks a lot like Windows Phone 7. WP7 already has some live features and even some cross games, both the 360 and WP7 and seemingly Windows 8 will have a similar architecture for developers. Could this mean more cross platform games between the PC and 360? could we even see the existing library of 360 games playable on the PC or capable Tablets? It’s only a rumor [4] for now but seeing as how Microsoft will have a new console by 2012 more than likely, and can still earn royalties from the sale of them games, it’s more possible than you may think.

3. Diablo III on the consoles
This is all but confirmed at this point, especially with Blizzard’s recent job posting [5] requesting a PS3 developer for a console version of the anticipated RPG Diablo III. It would certainly be a bit of a shock for PC gamers especially after Blizzard’s assurances that they were working on an unrelated title on the consoles. Then again Crytek claimed the same thing originally concerning Crysis 2.

2. Half-Life 3/Episode 3 either gets a confirmed release date or canceled
Come on Valve seriously? We’ve been waiting for 4 years now to here ANYTHING regarding this game, it’s turning into Duke Nukem Forever. Either way this goes, any announcement regarding HL3/EP3 other than “no comment” or something like “we’re working on it” is sure to send Valve fanboys, and Anti-Valve fanboys alike racing to the forums to let off steam.

1. Insomniac’s new game is a 360 exclusive or PC and 360 multiplatform
It’s already been known that Insomniac is releasing a multiplatform game [6] next, part of EA’s partners program. At this point it’s confirmed it will be on the 360 and PS3 but what if they also announce another game solely for the 360 or for the 360 and PC? It could potentially be an even bigger forum fiasco than the Final Fantasy XIII multiplatform announcement of 2009. PS3 fanboys have already started to turn on Insomniac [7] for simply going multiplatform, completely shunning the system as a whole could be catastrophic at this point.

Article by Tom Springer
Contributor for Lo-Ping.org