Wolverton: E3 opening hints at things to come

LOS ANGELES -- With the big news from the E3 video game conference not expected until Tuesday, when Nintendo unveils the successor to the Wii, the opening news conferences Monday were fairly staid affairs -- with some intriguing tidbits.

Perhaps the biggest news for gamers was Microsoft's announcement that "Halo 4" is in development and will come out during the holidays in 2012.
The "Halo" series is one of the top-selling game franchises of all time. Microsoft's short preview of the game showed a space marine on the edge of a damaged space ship. "Halo 4" is going to be the first of a new trilogy of "Halo" games, said Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business. Mattrick and the company gave no further details.
But "Halo" fans won't have to wait until next year to get their fix. In November, for "Halo's" 10th anniversary, Microsoft plans to re-release the original "Halo" game through its Xbox Live online service. The company has revamped the game, adding new features such as an online multiplayer mode.

Microsoft's Kinect: Microsoft made the "Halo" announcements toward the end of its news conference. Much of the time before that was spent touting all the upcoming features and games for Kinect.

Kinect is a great technology, but its use has been fairly constrained so far. To date, many of the games that have been made for Kinect