Recap of EA’s E3 2008 press conference

Electronics Arts (aka EA) held its E3 2008 press conference today (3:00 p.m. PT, July 14, 2008) and, as usual, they had plenty of stuff to talk about.

Or, really, they had plenty of people there who talked about stuff. EA’s format was for exec John Riccitello to introduce developers and let them talk about the games.

The biggest announcement was that EA will be producing id’s game, Rage. There was also another Will Wright Spore sighting and a new game in the Sim franchise, SimAnimals.

Here’s a more complete list of happenings gathered from various Live Blogs:

• Rod Humble introduced a new game, SimAnimals, and teased the upcoming Sims 3, “Imagine you lived your entire life inside your house, and then someone opened the door.”
• Glen Schofield talked about Dead Space (Xbox 360, PS3) featuring zero-G and “strategic dismemberment.”
• Patrick Soderland from EA Games Euro demoed Mirror’s Edge
• Will Wright talked about Spore and had a (gasp) PowerPoint presentation. Not much new except that 2 million creatures are currently in existence thanks to Creature Creator.
• Peter Moore introduced Bill Walton who presented the EA Sports games including NBA Live 09 and the “Dynamic DNA” feature that is promised to help create more realistic acting players. “Team DNA” will help teams work together.
• Nanea Reeves talked about EA Online games and Nucleus which is cross platform (mobile/others).
• Natalie Gulbis showed off the new Wii “All-Play” including a golf game vs. Moore.
• Shawn Fanning (Napster’s creator) talked about Rupture and “Social Achievements” which be added to many of EA’s games.
• Travis Boatmn talked about EA Mobile and iPhone games with Tetris, Scrabble and Sudoku on display.
• BioWare’s Greg Zeschuk showed a Dragon Age: Origins trailer.
• Valve’s Gabe Newell talked about Left 4 Dead (November 4, 2008, for PC and Xbox 360) and how the game will adjust to players’ levels.
• id’s John Carmack was on stage to announce that EA will be publishing Rage. (Sorry Activision)

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