Microsoft at E3 2012: Bro-gaming and No-gaming

You're here at the Caves of Narshe. You're reading this hoping for some RPG news. You're not getting it. Microsoft came out and just like last year, they had very little to offer other than games for the "core" and the opportunity to shove Kinect down our throats.

Now, don't get me wrong. Obviously there is a huge market for both of these things, or else they wouldn't keep showing up over and over again at E3. However, virtually every game that Microsoft showed was a sequel to a juggernaut franchise - Call of Duty, Gears of War, Forza. Of course, too, Halo. The Kinect offerings included the typical casual games and some content elaborating on how this year's EA Sports offerings will be more Kinect-enabled.

The big push beyond that this year has nothing to do with gaming at all. It was all about media, and all of the new video and audio that Xbox will be able to send to you, working towards meeting Microsoft's stated goal of becoming more than a gaming console. There was also an extensive demo of Microsoft's Smart Glass technology, intended to make your mobile and console devices interact with each other quickly on the fly to enhance the consumption of a variety of different content, be it games, TV, or movies, and also to potentially emulate the tablet interaction of the WiiU controller. All of these things have been expected, but it just seems to this author more and more like unless you're into console FPS or over-the-shoulder shooters, Microsoft really just doesn't care if you want their console.

That said, this has to be considered a pretty successful E3 keynote for Microsoft. Their talking points are all going to be very, very good for business. What doesn't appeal to me or (I assume) a lot of our readers here still appeals to a ton of folks. I just wish there were a little more to be really excited about.

Oh, and for Square Enix fans? There was one thing to look at, from Eidos: a new gameplay trailer of the Tomb Raider reboot. It looked pretty much just like last year, just with new scenery in which Lara gets beaten up thoroughly.

Am I being too hard on Microsoft, who announced that they were the biggest console company in the world as of this year? You tell me.