EA's E3 08 Press Conference

(07/14/2008)

2:50

crecente:

OK, Im sitting down here at the show with Fahey.

Monday July 14, 2008 2:50 crecente

2:50

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TONS of BUngie guys were hanging out in front of the Orpheum where the press conference is about to kick off. I wonder what that could mean?

Monday July 14, 2008 2:50 crecente

2:52

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Fahey now has control. Muhahahah

Monday July 14, 2008 2:52 crecente

2:53

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Annnnd I'm back. The connecion in here is pretty awful. Hopefully we wont lose you in the middle of this.

Monday July 14, 2008 2:53 crecente

3:00

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We're sitting near the front row of the Orpheum Theater. EA has a large screen up showing off a bunch of studio names like EA Salt Lake, The Sims Studio, EA Romania, etc, etc, etc

Monday July 14, 2008 3:00 crecente

3:01

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OK, the show is about to get started

Monday July 14, 2008 3:01 crecente

3:01

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Looks like we're about to start

Monday July 14, 2008 3:01 crecente

3:02

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Looks like we're about to get started

Monday July 14, 2008 3:02 crecente

3:04

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They're telling us to turn off all cell phones and PDAs... again.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:04 crecente

3:06

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Lights are dimming... or im passing out

Monday July 14, 2008 3:06 crecente

3:06

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OK, here we go

Monday July 14, 2008 3:06 crecente

3:10

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They're showing a vid trailer that mixes a bunch of different games including Merc 2, Mirror's Edge, NHL, Madden, Tiger Woods, the Sims, etc, etc.

Ah, they're showing off games from new partners, but no sign of BUngie yet. If indeed they are a new partner.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:10 crecente

3:11

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Riccitiello is on the state to show us EA's largest ever press week.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:11 crecente

3:11

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They're going to take a different approach. No powerpoint, no reference to market share. They are going to have the people who make the games show you the games who make them.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:11 crecente

3:11

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He's going to introduce us to 12 people, starting with Rod Humble, head of the Sims studio.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:11 crecente

3:11

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He's showing us Sim Animals.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:11 crecente

3:13

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OK, here's our first look at sim animals.
The game opens with a look at some bears sleeping. The bear is plucked up and dropped to play with a squirell, which then starts getting chased by a fox.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:13 crecente

3:13

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FInally the fox runs into the bear and the baby bear is saved from the fox by the giant white glove.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:13 crecente

3:14

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Its your own sim animals world to direct. Coming to the Wii and DS.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:14 crecente

3:14

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He's showing off some of the creations made by users in The Sims.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:14 crecente

3:14

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Sims 2 that is

Monday July 14, 2008 3:14 crecente

3:14

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Sims 3 is coming 2009

Monday July 14, 2008 3:14 crecente

3:15

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Sims 3 will have the most complex characters ever put into a video game. These have their own personalities. Just like real life one thing happens on one side of town that impacts the other side of town.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:15 crecente

3:15

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SHowing us gameplay now.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:15 crecente

3:16

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Graphics look pretty amazing, as does the level of depth. They're showing a sim jogging through a town filled with sims. They're talking to each other, calling each other on cell phones, partying at a concert.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:16 crecente

3:17

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It's like OC the game.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:17 crecente

3:17

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Glen Schofield of EA Redwood Shores just took the stage

Monday July 14, 2008 3:17 crecente

3:17

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He's talking about Dead Space, which by the way really kicks ass from what I've played of it.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:17 crecente

3:18

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He's walking us through the game. No HUD, Zero G gameplay, and lots of strategic dismemberment.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:18 crecente

3:18

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OK, now we're seing live gameplay.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:18 crecente

3:20

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The gameplay is pretty amazing to behold, the creatures he's taking on are very organic, messy looking things.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:20 crecente

3:20

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He's taking on some large creature with growths sprouding from its back and legs

Monday July 14, 2008 3:20 crecente

3:20

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Everytime he shoots it it huddles into a ball

Monday July 14, 2008 3:20 crecente

3:21

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He looks like he's trying to take off one of it's legs with repeated shots.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:21 crecente

3:21

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The thing is shooting blobs of goo or something at the main character from its mouth.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:21 crecente

3:22

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He took it out and is moving to another room, something grabbed him by the leg. Now he's fighting it laying on the ground as he gets dragged toward it.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:22 crecente

3:23

crecente:

Coming to the 360, ps3 and pc on Oct. 21

Monday July 14, 2008 3:23 crecente

3:23

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Oh, he's showing us a "mature" trailer from the game

Monday July 14, 2008 3:23 crecente

3:23

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Scenes of carnage shown while Twinkle Twinkle plays in the background

Monday July 14, 2008 3:23 crecente

3:24

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Pretty gruesome stuff

Monday July 14, 2008 3:24 crecente

3:24

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And it's done

Monday July 14, 2008 3:24 crecente

3:24

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Patrick Soderlund head of European Studios is on the stage now

Monday July 14, 2008 3:24 crecente

3:25

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He's here to show off Mirror's Edge

Monday July 14, 2008 3:25 crecente

3:25

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They're demoing the game on the PS3

Monday July 14, 2008 3:25 crecente

3:25

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Wow, still looks amazing, very crisp, white, colorful city

Monday July 14, 2008 3:25 crecente

3:26

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Certain items turn red as the main chracter makes her way through the game, it helps show players the right route to take. They call it runner's vision

Monday July 14, 2008 3:26 crecente

3:27

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They're showing one of teh puzzles in teh game, which involves figuring out how to make it up to an air conditioner shaft

Monday July 14, 2008 3:27 crecente

3:27

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Uh oh, she's run into people with guns

Monday July 14, 2008 3:27 crecente

3:29

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She's running, she just used an ability to slow a scene down so she could make a tight turn and jump across a building. THings can also be slowed down during combat. DIsarming in combat is key to fights in Mirror's Edge/

Monday July 14, 2008 3:29 crecente

3:30

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Wow it ended with the lead running from the roof and grabbing a helicopter to get away from bad guys.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:30 crecente

3:32

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WIll Wright takes to teh stage amidst hoots and hollars

Monday July 14, 2008 3:32 crecente

3:33

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His shirt says Save Seti at Arecibo

Monday July 14, 2008 3:33 crecente

3:36

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He says he always wanted to have a chemistry as a kid that would allow him to create horrible things that would terrorize the world... good to know.

Science, he says, is a topic few people are trying to tap into in the game industry.

Now he's talking about the creature creator.

The game has been at the top of the PC charts since it launched.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:36 crecente

3:36

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He says they were hoping that if they launched the creator early they would have 100,000 creatures or so by launch, maybe a million by the end of the year. They hit 100k in about 22 hours, a million in about a week.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:36 crecente

3:37

crecente:

Right now we have about two million creatures. The number of unique creatures in Spore has now exceeded the total known species on earth.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:37 crecente

3:37

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It took Spore about 18 days... it took God about seven, he points out.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:37 crecente

3:37

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Now he's showing off some pretty amazing creations.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:37 crecente

3:38

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Hey they're showing off the celebrity creature creatures. I'm number three on the chart baby

Monday July 14, 2008 3:38 crecente

3:38

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Whoah, a Companion Cube creature!

Monday July 14, 2008 3:38 crecente

3:39

crecente:

Sweet, I was in the EA presentation. Go to SporeVote to vote on the best btw

Monday July 14, 2008 3:39 crecente

3:40

crecente:

EA filmed a documentary with the National Geographic Channel about Spore. It's going to air when the game ships.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:40 crecente

3:41

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Trailer time

Monday July 14, 2008 3:41 crecente

3:42

crecente:

Neat trailer, it shows the creation of a galaxy. Starting with a gold and dark place, creating a small creature at the cell level, it evolves to land creatures, then on to larger creature. Then it evolves and gets weapons. Eventually it leads to civilization. Which then galaxy exploration.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:42 crecente

3:43

crecente:

Now, Peter Moore is taking teh stage

Monday July 14, 2008 3:43 crecente

3:43

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To much applause. Someone wants to see his tattoos

Monday July 14, 2008 3:43 crecente

3:43

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He's talking EA Sports

Monday July 14, 2008 3:43 crecente

3:44

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This year is the 20th anniversary of Madden.

Monday July 14, 2008 3:44 crecente

3:45

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OK he's going to show off some new neat stuff for NBA Live 0

Monday July 14, 2008 3:45 crecente

3:46

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09 that is

Monday July 14, 2008 3:46 crecente

3:47

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NBA Live 09 with fundementally shift sport gaming with "dynamic DNA"

Monday July 14, 2008 3:47 crecente

3:58

crecente:

OK they're starting to talk about All Play now

Monday July 14, 2008 3:58 crecente

3:58

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We first broke the news of the Wii, easier to play All-Play version of EA Sports games earlier this year

Monday July 14, 2008 3:58 crecente

4:00

crecente:

Peter Moore is playing against an LPG golfer on stage. He's winning because he's using the All play mode while she's using the normal hard mode.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:00 crecente

4:00

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The golfer is Natalie Gulbis, she's also in the game.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:00 crecente

4:01

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OK she's left the stage. Fahey is sad.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:01 crecente

4:02

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Understandably

Monday July 14, 2008 4:02 crecente

4:02

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OK after another short pitch Moore left.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:02 crecente

4:02

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John Pleasants just took the stage. He's in charage of EA's publishing organizations.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:02 crecente

4:03

crecente:

Could this big some big news???

Monday July 14, 2008 4:03 crecente

4:03

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Pleasants has AWESOME hair, btw

Monday July 14, 2008 4:03 crecente

4:04

crecente:

They're talking about improving consumer experiences.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:04 crecente

4:04

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Nanea Reeves is on stage to talk abot the EA Online Group

Monday July 14, 2008 4:04 crecente

4:05

crecente:

Games like Spore, Battlefield Heroes, yada yada yada.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:05 crecente

4:05

crecente:

THey've just rolled out their nucleus system which tracks your identity across multiple games.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:05 crecente

4:06

crecente:

Wait, she just said they were going to make microtransactions a bigger part of your gaming experience.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:06 crecente

4:06

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By end of 2009 nucleaus will be integrated into more than 29 titles.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:06 crecente

4:07

crecente:

Shawn Fanning is on stage to talk abot Rupture

Monday July 14, 2008 4:07 crecente

4:07

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about

Monday July 14, 2008 4:07 crecente

4:07

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Rupture is a webpage that allows you to track a friend's game play

Monday July 14, 2008 4:07 crecente

4:08

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Any developer or gamer with scripting knowledge can use it. Gamers can also export game data.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:08 crecente

4:08

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He's showing off something called social achievements. This is essentially a community created achievement. You can also track your friend's achievements and comment on them.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:08 crecente

4:09

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Rupture.com/developers for more information.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:09 crecente

4:09

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Travis Boatman from EA Mobile is on stage.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:09 crecente

4:09

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He's talking iPhone games. Fahey is angry

Monday July 14, 2008 4:09 crecente

4:10

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Make sure to check out our iPhone game round up if you have a phone and are looking for great games to play.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:10 crecente

4:10

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Oh, i finally got Tetris to work on my iPhone, btw. Pretty fun. I'll make sure to update the guide later this week with my impressions.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:10 crecente

4:10

crecente:

He's talking up the accelerometer now. He said they're adding it to the scrabble game, letting you shuffle tiles with it. You can also, soon, play Scrabble over WiFi with friends.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:10 crecente

4:10

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Tiger Woods, Need for Speed and more games are coming to the iPhone.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:10 crecente

4:11

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They're showing a trailer of iPhone games now

Monday July 14, 2008 4:11 crecente

4:11

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OK, Greg Zeschuk of BioWare just took to the stage

Monday July 14, 2008 4:11 crecente

4:11

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They're showing off Dragon Age Origins

Monday July 14, 2008 4:11 crecente

4:12

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Spiritual Successor to Baldur's Gate, he says.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:12 crecente

4:12

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YOu can be a hero, tyrant or a martyr

Monday July 14, 2008 4:12 crecente

4:13

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They're showing a trailer of the game now.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:13 crecente

4:14

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The trailer shows a bunch of soilders standing side by side in the rain. THey're facing some blighty zombie types..

Monday July 14, 2008 4:14 crecente

4:14

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Now both sides are charging at each other.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:14 crecente

4:14

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OH, it looks like it's the same trailer we've already posted. Nothing new here, so far

Monday July 14, 2008 4:14 crecente

4:14

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Gabe Newell just took to the stage

Monday July 14, 2008 4:14 crecente

4:15

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Left 4 Dead time

Monday July 14, 2008 4:15 crecente

4:15

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first person coop horror game. He's going over the same talking points that he used when we presented it to us last month

Monday July 14, 2008 4:15 crecente

4:15

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Still looks kick ass

Monday July 14, 2008 4:15 crecente

4:16

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They hope the games blends the narrative of Half Life with the social features of Counter Strike

Monday July 14, 2008 4:16 crecente

4:16

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The Director, a big chunk of AI, is what pulls this off

Monday July 14, 2008 4:16 crecente

4:17

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He's going to show off what the game looks like with two different groups. The first is playing poorly

Monday July 14, 2008 4:17 crecente

4:17

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So the director gives them an easy encounter

Monday July 14, 2008 4:17 crecente

4:17

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Now the same scene with a much harder encounter, bk the second group is playing a lot better

Monday July 14, 2008 4:17 crecente

4:18

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They learned a lot from Team Fortress 2, Gabe says.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:18 crecente

4:18

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They're redoing all of the survivor charactes.

Monday July 14, 2008 4:18 crecente

4:19

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The designs are more familiar. Like a guy in a dress shirt and tie

Monday July 14, 2008 4:19 crecente

4:19

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Shipping Nov 4 for PC and Xbox 360

Monday July 14, 2008 4:19 crecente

4:19

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CANT
WAIT

Monday July 14, 2008 4:19 crecente

4:20

crecente:

OK It looks like we are wrapping up

Monday July 14, 2008 4:20 crecente

4:20

crecente:

Could there be a surprise announcement?

Monday July 14, 2008 4:20 crecente

4:21

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Ricetello is talking up EA Partners

Monday July 14, 2008 4:21 crecente

4:21

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Today I want to announce a new partnership

Monday July 14, 2008 4:21 crecente

4:21

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It's with id

Monday July 14, 2008 4:21 crecente

4:21

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John Carmack is on stage

Monday July 14, 2008 4:21 crecente

4:22

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id has a long and storied history