Microsoft’s press conference ended a while ago. While we thought they might announce price cuts or another Peter Moore tatoo, we didn’t get any of that. Here’s some things that stuck out.

1. Great show. It was like a rock concert at first, with a fan band playing the Halo 3 theme song live, and Peter Moore playing Rock Band. Peter Moore, respect. That was cool. The conference died out a little at the end with the announcement of a limited edition Halo 3 360, and a strange live action trailer for that game.
2. Gears of War coming to PC. (”Surprise”) It moves so, so, smoothly, but what kind of PC are you going to need? Also, looks like Viva Pinata is coming to PC as well.
3. Speaking of Viva Pinata, a new one called Viva Pinata: Party Animals is coming out. It’s basically a multiplayer, party game, for the little ones. Scene It! also comes to 360. One game, four controllers (new controller, looks like a remote), same $59.99 price. Cool for the casual players, and I think it’s cool too.
4. Downloadable content is getting a boost from all the Walt Disney movie companies, starting tonight. Plus, Marathon’s gonna be on Arcade!
5. Call of Duty 4 looks incredible, and Assassin’s Creed is looking much much better. Can’t wait. They also showed glimpses of Mass Effect, PGR4, Lost Odyssey, Naruto, and Resident Evil 5.
6. Halo 3 single player looks really exciting. Graphically? Some scenes looked amazing. Others, not so much. Guess we’ll have to see.

There were also a bunch of stats on how the 360 is the driving force of growth in the industry. I didn’t pay too much attention to that part since stats can be made to say anything. All in all, a good show, but besides Scene It! and Viva Pinata: Party Animals, not many surprises. In fact, every game mentioned is going to come out this year (except Resident Evil 5, a trailer of which will be on Live starting July 26th.). What’s coming after that? We need something to look forward to.

We also saw the effort Microsoft is putting behind making the console a bit more family friendly, with stuff like Naruto, and some other licensed games.

I also got the feeling that people in the audience didn’t know how to react to another Xbox 360 variant being released so soon after the Elite. Kinda killed the mood at the end, as I’ve said.

So, not too much new, but it was fun. Can’t wait for tomorrow.