Microsofts press conference just ended with a huge amount of new content coming to Xbox live. Facebook, twitter, better netflix and also the option to buy or rent games directly from Xbox live. This is one step closer to a new gaming world, were DVDs will become obsolete. But there was one thing that, after watching the video, really gave me the impression that Microsoft really wanted to change the way games will be reachable and playable. Project Natal is about taking full body motion control and implementing it into every aspect of Xbox Live and games. Making everything possible by body gestures. You don’t need a controller like the Wii, but a high tech camera that is able to recognize you face, whole body gestures, voice and depth perception.

Modern Warfare 2 Teaser(2) from CW Games on Vimeo.

The Xbox has been a very successful platform for many gamers and XboxLive is what connects all their gamers together. The PS3 also has a online network but it’s free were as Xboxlive is around $60 a year for gold membership. Now you don’t get as much with the PS3s online features as you do with the Xbox, but Sony is keeping customers updated with firmware that sometime introduce new features. But expect those new features to already exist on the Xbox network.

So it’s 2009 and 2008 was the year of the PS3 they said. Fail. They were a year late. With E3 coming close and more exclusives coming to the PS3 like Infamous which just scored a 9.2 on IGN. There are plenty coming from Playstation.

E3 seems to be big this year with both companies showing off their latest inovations. Sony and Microsoft seem to be into some motion sensing and will probably show the public their next add-on to their gaming platform. Having a Wii bar-like sensor in front of your TV will be released for all consoles apparently. Moving more towards the Wii is not really what I hope for, for the future of Playstation and Microsoft. But let’s wait and see.

Now introducing a new motion control for the PS3 and Xbox will not do good for hardcore gamers. Only because they don’t want error in their inputs and were the game misinterpretes the movement. I personally hate motionsensing for home consoles. I think that it should only be produced for mobile games, like on the Iphone or PSP. But for hardcore gaming, it’s just going to ennoy everyone. Sony and Microsoft are just looking at the success of the Wii and stole some ideas on what they believ made it popular. The problem is that I don’t see the success to be in the motion sensing gameplay that the Wii offers to be its selling point but it’s games only. Sony most of all, should focus on making decent games that people want to play and enjoy exclusivly on their favorite console. They need to produce games that the PS3 is named for and introduce new titles that obtain peoples attention. There have been a few like Killzone 2, LBP, now Infamous, and the Metal Guear Solid series. But that’s it for the moment for Sony. It seems that they are moving slow compared to Microsoft in delivering titles that impress the public. Now I own a PS3 and an Xbox and I have different views on each platform. I bought the Xbox 360 the month it came out with a copy of Call of Duty 2 (awesome game) only because it was the so called “next generation” console but also because Halo was what I played back then. The PS3 I bought the next month it came out. But I had a different approach to it then I had towards the Xbox. It was its complexity of options and power that it delivered for the price, not only for the games. You can use your PS3 as a full desktop computer and it had more space available then the Xbox had (80 gb instead of 20 gb for the Xbox). Not only that but it had wifi built in, better video support for watching movies and blue-ray. I would also say that I bought it because of the new cell technology that Sony introduced and I saw that it would bring the PS3 better graphics and gameplay for games. But the truth is that, to this day we can’t trully use the full power of the PS3 because of software issue that developers use. Their is also a problem with the graphics memory that the PS3 uses but I don’t want to go into full detail.

So the PS3 is better for the price compared to the Xbox but just the games that Sony should deliver, are not there and it’s crushing the PS3. Let’s hope that changes in the few upcoming weeks with E3 happening June 2-4. Now we will see a lot of new tech and new awesomeness at E3, not only games but maybe new consoles. Yup the PS3 slim will be introduced and shown to all viewers. Because it seems that all Sony’s systems start out fat and end up skinny (ps2 to ps2 slim). Now this is still a rumor and there are some pictures out there saying that this thing is real and is ready for the publics attention. I don’t think that Microsoft will be showing off a new Xbox, but who knows. In my opinion I think the Xbox needs to go on a diet and get a new look. OK and the PS3 but that is almost certain that it will.

E3 will be the turning point maybe for this war on consoles. Let’s not forget that Sony also has part of the portable gaming industry in its pocket, with their PSP and PSP2 coming out end of this year. Maybe Microsoft will join to and try to dominate over the success of the Nintendo DS and the PSP.

So get ready for E3 for new news and upcoming titles that might put the PS3 back in the race. And also E3 is set to be huge, not like that last few years. And it will have more booth babes to make it more of an enjoyable stay for those going and more reasons to watch TV for us gamers at home.