Monday happened, and there was a lot of news. Most of it, nobody cares about.  There were three big press conferences from Microsoft (we live blogged it), EA and Ubisoft. Below you should find links to all of the big news that actually matters, neatly listed for your reading enjoyment.

In the “things that weren’t announced on a stage” category;

• Crysis 2 was announced and will be multiplatform.
• WipEout HD got itself an expansion pack.
• Lego Harry Potter was announced (Gandy thought this was important news)
• Front Mission Evolved was announced by Square Enix and has a trailer. It has mechs and brown in it.

Another story that was not announced on stage is that the Xbox will be getting full retail games, on demand. As in, full 360 games that you download onto your console without leaving your house. Why they didn’t actually put that in the real press conference astounds me. Also, quick thanks to Gandy for helping find all the links.

Microsoft Press Conference

Amusingly, most of the new games announced during the press conference were leaked online several hours before the conference started, taking the wind out of their show some what. For a full list of what happened, have a read of our round up post. But, if you don’t care that much, here is a brief run down of the announcements;

One of the biggest pieces of news to come out was the announcement of a new Halo game in the works called “Halo: Reach.” It’s also been made clear they want more money, so are whoring for all they are worth to sell ODST. There will be a new 360 controller and beta codes for Reach with ODST.

Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm will soon all be available for you to ignore on your Xbox. Why anybody would want to use twitter on their Xbox is beyond me, though Last.fm I could possibly understand.

In news that shook the very foundation of complete morons everywhere, the next Metal Gear Solid game will be coming out on the 360. Though through a combination of not explicitly saying things, some weird wording and some odd product information it may also be coming to the PS3 and the PC.

Waggle was added to the Xbox. It’s in the form of an iToy-esk camera device called Project Natal that apparently also has a microphone in. Peter Molyneux was brought out to show a tech demo (which will eventually be a game) called Milo. It’s an AI virtual kid who is able to interact with a user using voice recognition and the motion camera. It’s also damn creepy.

• Beatles Rock Band exists (see; Dtoid, Kotaku, Eurogamer) and was shown off on stage by real Beatles.
• Tony Hawk was out on stage to show of the doomed to fail controller for Tony hawk Ride.
• Modern Warfare 2 went and got itself some gameplay demonstrated. The first two map packs will also be timed-exclusives for the Xbox.
• Final Fantasy 13 works on the Xbox. We were all very shocked. It’s also been dated for Spring 2010.
• Epic Games are making a new2.5D platformer game. It’s a bit like Bionic Commando. 1up have a preview of it.
• Joyride, a cart racing game with avatars, was announced and had a trailer. Looks like shit, though is free until you want to buy more tracks.
• Crackdown 2 (trailer) and L4D2 were both announced. RPS has a preview of L4D2.
• Splinter Cell conviction got itself a trailer. Looks a bit like Hitman now.
• Forza 3 was announced. You can totally paint penises on your cars.
• Alan Wake actually had a video showing not just a bit of story, but also some gameplay.

EA Press Conference

The EA press conference was basically a whole bunch of trailers for games, as well as the usual “we are so awesome” talk from people in suits. Here’s a brief run down of what was shown;

• Dante’s Inferno
• Dragon Age: Origins, which has been given an October release
• Mass Effect 2
• EA Sports Mixed Martial Arts (no, actually)
• The Saboteur
• Real Time Worlds who made Crackdown and are making APB (the Xbox 360 MMO), have signed up with EA.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMO) will have every NPC voiced.
• They also announced EA Girls. I don’t want to talk about it.

Ubisoft press conference

Pyroph was our man for the Ubisoft press conference.  However, we probably wont be getting a wrap up from him because, and I quote, “this conference is terrible, please kill me…”

Kotaku’s live blog of the event exists, so you can read that if you want to know how disappointing the whole event was. Their live blog did yield this little gem though, which made me chuckle;

Luke Plunkett:  New guy on stage now. He’s French too. God they make press conferences sound exotic.

Ubisoft also announced U Play which is some Ubisoft-only network that will be accessible from their site and within their games. Clearly it’s going to be under used, under supported and is a terrible idea that will fail horribly.

As well as showing the trailer for Splinter Cell Conviction that Microsoft already showed, they also had Red Steel 2 and Assasin’s Creed 2. The latter looking very impressive, although it was in 100% CGI trailer form.

James Cameron is making a film of Avatar and says it wont suck. He said something about it being like dreaming with your eyes open. Sure it will.

But don’t be fooled into thinking they give a crap about games, as they spend a good chunk of their press conference talking about, well, casual crappy games. Including their own fiteness game for the Wii. How origenal.