As we told you earlier, Microsoft kicked off their E3 festivities with what could be considered a fairly standard and unsurprising Press Conference. As expected, they announced the anticipated console exclusive, Halo 4. Upping the ante from last year, this E3 brought gameplay footage of Halo 4 to the audience with a first look at the new enemies and weapons as well as some familiar faces from past Halos. Microsoft would follow with footage of the new Splinter Cell: Black List which uses enhanced Kinect controls.

Following on the Kinect bandwagon, EA debuted footage of the latest Fifa and Madden franchises. In Fifa, players will be able to make coaching decisions and their reactions will be read by the Kinect and penalties may even be awarded based on poor sportsmanship. In Madden, NFL Hall of Fame Quarterback Joe Montana demonstrated the game’s new Kinect enabled play calling features.

After the Fable: The Journey trailer, Microsoft Studios brought out studio head Phil Spencer who introduced the trailer for the new Gears of War: Judgment, staring Baird, and then the latest racing experience with Forza Horizon.

It all started with Summer of Arcade before XBox Live came alive with a series of seasonal promotions to help push new titles for their digital download platform. With the Block Party freshly wrapping up with some hits like Warp, Microsoft has already dropped the list of games for the upcoming Arcade Next promotion set to start on April 18th and wrapping up on May 9th.

Of the four games, only one is a wholly original IP with Bloodforge. Trials Evolution is a sequel to XBLA hit Trials HD and Fable Heroes is a new gameplay style set in the Fables world. The most anticipated of all the titles though may be Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition, a port of the unstoppable indy PC sensation making its debut for the first time on any console system.

Also for the first time, the achievement cap on XBLA has been upped. Starting in April, XBLA titles will be allowed up to 400 Achievement Points and up to 30 total achievements per release. This is a drastic increase from the original 200 point / 12 total achievement maximum that had been in place (well, 250 point maximum if you include the possible 50 points that could be added for DLC.

Take a look at all four titles after the jump and stay tuned to the Flickcast for news and reviews on Trials Evolution, Bloodforge, Fable Heroes and Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition as soon as we get our hands on them.

Anyone who has been a member of XBox Live for the past few years has been aware that they could purchase some classic XBox games via download through XBox Originals. This would lay the groundwork for the recently deployed Games on Demand program that contains XBox 360 gems like Grand Theft Auto 4, Mass Effect and Oblivion. Stored to the player’s hard drive and tied to their XBox Live account, the customer never has to touch a disc to play their favorite games.

Also added to this list has been the XBox exclusive Fable II which came out last year on retail discs. The way Fable II is being sold to customers is an entirely new way to distribute previously released full retail games as it takes an episodic format. Through Games on Demand, players can download the first of five chapters in the game for free.

Instead of giving a traditional demo which would stand apart from a retail copy, players get to experience the full first chapter of the game and save their progress throughout at no cost. Should the player enjoy what they play, they will be able to continue purchasing chapters through the in game menus. The only setback of this first chapter of the game is that it won’t receive full online XBox functionality until players have purchased additional chapters.