Microsoft has been making some noise lately regarding an extended lifespan for the Xbox 360 console. One of the things they're counting on is Project Natal. Another is software, the very thing Microsoft was built on. The latter is also what Microsoft exec Shane Kim thinks will be one of the deciding factors for next gen, even more so than actual hardware.

Seems like I wasn't the only one of the opinion that E3 made a splashy comeback with this year's event. Industry bigwigs also expressed their satisfaction with how it averted near-disaster, and giving a great show despite the pull-out of some companies, as well as the threat of the A-H1N1 virus. Check out what some of the industry personalities had to say about E3 2009 after the jump.

It's over. It's done. E3 2009 has come and gone, and the worldwide gaming community is left to sift through the announcements, reveals, videos, hype and promises that came out of the yearly gaming expo this past week.

To make it just a wee bit easier, here are all the E3 2009-related news that graced the QJ.NET pages in the past week. This is quite long, so I'll cut this intro short and get right down to the meat. Hit the jump for the QJ.NET E3 2009 Round-up.

How many articles about bad economy and suffering publishers have you read on QJ in the past two months? I lost count. That's because it's undeniable - the gaming industry in in the toilet, praying not to be flushed. Take-Two's Chief exec, Strauss Zelnick, describes the current situation to be so bad, that "being slightly down is the new up."

Microsoft corporate VP Shane Kim loves Nintendo. Sony, on the other hand, seems to be a different matter altogether. Read more from Shane Kim after the jump.

It wasn't long ago that Microsoft's Don Mattrick, president of the company's Interactive Entertainment division, opined that the first console to break 10 million unit sold was the winner of the console race. Of course, at that moment, the Xbox 360 just touched that threshold after NPD results of April poured in. Now we have VP Shane Kim saying that the winner of this generation's console race will be the one closest to 100 million units sold. You know where to go for the full story.

Microsoft Game Studios Vice President Shane Kim discussed several choice topics during the recent DICE Summit in Las Vegas last Thursday. Among the things he mentioned were the company's move to expand its userbase into the casual gaming market, more Halo projects and some other small tidbits discussing the state of the gaming company and its plans for the future (a portable handheld gaming console, perhaps?). Read more about what Shane Kim had to say in the full article.

Shane Kim, director of Microsoft Game Studios, had a lot to say at E3. GamePro sat down with the big wig to talk about Metal Gear Solid 4 on 360, the future of the box, hardware issues, upcoming games, and everything under the sun.

Rumor is hot on MGS4 coming to the 360, and the entire gaming industry anticipates any new word on the issue. Kim sees Konami's defection to Microsoft as a feasible business move. "If you look at it from an economic standpoint, third parties have to support more than one platform. How much do you think that Konami is spending on MGS4? So economically they've got to leverage that the best that they can."

While Sony is dead set on making the PS3 live for ten years, the box's destiny isn't set on stone. "The customers will tell us how long the Xbox 360 is viable. We definitely plan on it have a five-year-plus life cycle. We do plan on winning this generation and nothing is going to shake us off of that aspiration," Kim stated.

The biggest dilemma raining on 360's parade would have to be the hardware failure rates. Kim claims that the box is a "very complex high-end piece of machinery." What of the PS3 then, the machine developers complain about because of its complexity? "I can't speak to Sony and how they built their product. They've got a much bigger product than we do."

Right now, Shane Kim is confident that Microsoft will dominate the competition. "We have a ton of confidence of the content portfolio of Xbox 360 and Xbox Live... We have this huge momentum, and we have the greatest game lineup of any system."

Nintendo's magic wand and the plethora of games that come to the Wii doesn't seem to faze this man. "We're in the leadership position... It's really up to the first parties to create the content that's going to differentiate the platforms and that's where we think we have the competitive advantage."

Just yesterday, Microsoft had revealed their black crusader, the Xbox 360 Elite, which stirred the Xbox 360 community for its slick look and roomy 120 GB hard drive storage. While the Xbox 360 is now going back to the old-school black motif, like most PC Banzai Runner rigs (minus all the bells and whistles) and the PlayStation 3 (need we say the Atari Jaguar and the Sega Genesis, too?), Microsoft did deal a below-the-belt blow to current top selling Nintendo Wii.

John Rodman, Group Product Manager for the Xbox and Xbox Live, said, "We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing. We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else." He is entitled to his own opinion, but he hasn't even considered the two other demographics the Wii has touched.

The aged and the female parts of the incidental gamer market have also been tapped into by the fun, non-gamer friendly Wii. Retirement homes have equipped their entertainment centers with Nintendo's next-gen platform, and the only console to have even reached the corporate bracket of the market is also the Wii. Ever had an Xbox 360 in your department's lounge room?

Earlier, Microsoft Game Studios VP Shane Kim explained why they were inspired with Nintendo's accomplishments with the Wii and how Microsoft Game Studios hopes to tap into a broader piece of the market that none of the competing platforms knew existed. According to Kim, they hope to follow suit by attracting older, younger and fairer people to their platform. So why comment like this now?

Contrary to rumors, Microsoft's Shane Kim is saying that the company is not interested in buying Take-Two Interactive, and for good reason.

CNN's Chris Morris talks about the potentially powerful acquisition, citing Shane Kim and some pretty good reasons why Microsoft wouldn't want to take over Take-Two:

One company that says it's not in the running is Microsoft. Because today's independent publishers are platform agnostic - that is to say, they build games for all major systems - taking over one would result in a massive revenue loss for Microsoft, as all development would be redirected toward the Xbox 360.

"We could never launch an acquisition bid at a third party publisher," said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft (Charts) Game Studios.

Of course, where there's a will (for rumormongering), there's a way. "Potential buyers" now include Ubisoft, Activision, Bono (care of Elevation Partners), and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Sorry folks, Cthulthu won't be making any bids this time, so consider that rumor smashed.