With the first day of E3 in the rear view mirror, we learned a lot about the future of gaming. We witnessed new franchises. We watched reboots of old franchises reimagined and remastered. We were fed tons of great visuals and stunning graphics as well as teased with short, punctual trailers of great games to come from some of the world’s best developers. But the one thing that stuck out this E3 is, without question, the Xbox Kinect.
Kinect has a big lineup planned for the next 12 months.
Recently, I wrote an article entitled “Dear Kinect, I Am Sick of Dancing” that can still be viewed at Gaming Irresponsibly (shameless plug). In the article I ranted about how I wanted the Kinect to do amazing things, how I wanted the peripheral to accomplish the extraordinary and show hardcore gamers that the Kinect is for real. With this year’s E3, Microsoft, Xbox 360 and Kinect showed me just that.
During the Microsoft Press Conference, a slew of Kinect titles were revealed, and not just for the casual dancer. Games being developed for the Xbox Kinect are coming from every different direction. Kinect Disneyland Adventures recreates the entire theme park for children and their families. Star Wars Kinect and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier show hardcore gamers that they too can invest in Motion Technology. There are new installments of Kinect Sports and Dance Central for those casual fans and Electronic Arts is releasing four titles that will be Kinect compatible for sports fans out there, including Madden NFL and FIFA.
Imagine the possibilities with these new Kinect titles.
Yes, this was the official coming out party for the Xbox Kinect. Ubisoft announced Kinect titles for the future, including a statement that every Tom Clancy game will feature Kinect technology, and with a first look at the “gunsmith” feature in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, that will be a very good thing. The rapid movements of your arms as you destroy and reassemble firearms reminds me of Tony Stark playing with his holographic models in Iron Man and that, my fellow gamers, is just a glimpse of the future. Fable: The Journey showed the capability of the Kinect Sensor when it comes to hardcore gaming. Using your flailing arms to summon a spear from nothing, only to chuck it towards a goblin in a bell is something truly amazing.
Then there was the introduction of Kinect Fun Labs. Kinect Fun Labs uses a wacked out Christopher Lloyd to demonstrate the new little creations and gadgets to show off the spectacular technology that is the Kinect. Small “mini games” and “tools” allow users to make themselves into bobbleheads or draw three dimensional, sparkling lines onto your television screen. Although I personally didn’t really enjoy the Kinect Fun Labs presentation, the fact that it went live the moment it was over showed me that Microsoft was fully invested in its product.
Finally, I can weild a lightsaber. Kinda.
Xbox Live TV showed me that by using my Kinect’s voice recognition system, I can have complete control of my TV at all times and with as little effort as possible. Xbox Bing is sure to be a hit with YouTube coming to the Xbox this fall and the amount of music, movies and television shows that will be added will dramatically increase the content on Xbox Live. Speaking of the voice recognition system, Mass Effect 3 will utilize this technology, allowing you to scream at the TV and actually get results.
All in all, I am pleased to see the Kinect doing the things I had hoped it would by catering to hardcore fans. Even though I won’t be fighting alongside Master Chief or Marcus Fenix anytime soon, I am excited about the titles that Microsoft has lined up this year for the Xbox Kinect.
What about our readers? Did you feel like the Kinect stole the show? Or were you blown away by something else entirely? Let us here at Gaming Irresponsibly know by commenting below.
Joke article or just really low standards?
I didn’t think people thought too highly of on-rails arm-wagglin’ action.
Loved the Microsoft conference tbh, the Kinect stuff showed real potential and makes me glad I ordered a Kinect from Amazon recently. I honestly don’t understand all the hate really, maybe they should ban ^kids^ from commenting on the internet.
If I was a kid, I might think this stuff had potential. Call me crazy, but any type of control that results in less control is not good control.
Mind boggling, I know.
Nice to finally get some support. If we were talking about the Move, I bet the fanboys would agree. Who knows, maybe I should just join them and buy another copy of Call of Duty this November.
They clearly have a new vision for the potential of the Kinect. Glad to see it. Isn’t the point of the video game to have a great time and enjoy the title. Sure I love playing all of my first person shooters (by myself, or maybe with ONE buddy). But when I’m having a party or got a bunch of people over my pad, what do you think we play? …KINECT!!!
It’s clear from the previous posts that “your mom” doesn’t have a Kinect. Rendering your opinion…..INVALID ::FART NOISE::
Cool name bro, super original!
The potential is there. I think it was important for them to have a strong kinect showing after so many people caughed up the money for it last year. It shows that it isn’t just some silly add on and that they believe in the product. Just because you don’t care for it doesn’t make it any less important. As a gamer you appreciate all forms of entertainment created for us even though not quite all of it fits your style of play.
We must have watched to seperate MS conferences…. The one I saw showed Kinect games using rails to guide charcters through the game. The laggy movements in Star Wars was terrible. This showing only reinforces my belief that Kinect is not an advancement forward in gaming.
This is a joke right? You’re joking? Kinect is possibly the stupidest invention anyone ever thought of, do you really want to play all your games by waving your arms and legs around like an escaped mental patient???
It’s blatantly obvious that Sony once again owned E3 yesterday, unlike Microsoft Sony actually had some exclusive games to talk about. What do the 360 kids get? Useless, tacked – on Kinect controls for multi – platform games that most of them won’t even bother using. Nice try, you kids look forward to playing Kinectimals 2, the real gamers will be looking forward to proper games like Uncharted, Resistance and Twisted Metal.
I don’t agree, Handhelds are whack and when you have to start your conference off with “We’re Sorry” you already lost me.
At least Sony had the guts to apoligse for what happened, even though they didn’t need to, it’s more than you can say for Microsoft. Why haven’t Microsoft apoligsed to their consumers for not having a single decent exclusive game available for the past 3 years? Why haven’t they apologised for the last – gen graphics? Why haven’t they apologised for asking their users to pay twice for their internet connection???
Microsoft are the ones who need to apologise. They promise their fanbase the marvel of new IP’s and what do they hand out? A tired old rehash of Halo, a franchise which is now more stale than Rock Band, some stupid ass Kinect – support for multi – platform games and more entries into the hugely underwhelming Fable and Flopza franchises.
Even Nintendo had more AAA exclusive games to announce at E3 than Microsoft. That tells you all you need to know, the 360 is about as relevant now as the Dreamcast.
I’ll gladly pay for Internet twice if my information is safe and online play is flawless. As for Sony, you can’t tell me that online service is superior.
LMAO, online play is flawless? Even the part where most of the multiplayer games on LIVE don’t use dedicated servers??? Clearly you’ve never played either of the Gears games, there’s more lag online in Gears Of War than pretty much any other game out there. Then there’s the fact that almost everyone online who owns a 360 is a screaming, racist 8 year – old.
Oh and then there was that fiasco a couple years back when LIVE’s servers went down during the Christmas holiday for 2 whole weeks, for no reason! SONY’s servers were hacked into by a group of terrorists, they had a reason for the PSN going down. What’s Microsoft’s excuse?
So yeah, PSN is far superior to LIVE, even if it got hacked into again next week it would still be more than a hundred times better. At least PS3 owners actually have games that they CAN play online like Uncharted, Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone, Motorstorm and Resistance. 360 owners are handing Microsoft money to play inferior versions of multi – platform games online and don’t even have a single exclusive to justify LIVE’s ridiculous price tag.
Kinect is only an ADD-ON to the console, not a replacement. Stating that it stole the show for it’s vision and well developed ideas is not a joke. They truly did look amazing. That “waving your arms and legs around like an escaped mental patient” is going to be the future of gaming consoles. Sure it may seem under developed now, but so was NES when it came out. Lets talk when our grand kids are playing video games and see if they even have remotes for their systems.
I completely agree. 30 years from now we will be old and wrinkled, talking about the days when consoles had controllers and were played in 2 dimensions. The fact of the matter is casual gamers bought the Kinect. Now with hardcore titles coming out for it, maybe those casuals will lean towards hardcore games and see what we all see when we play.
Don’t tell me that 2D games are going away! NoooooooOOOOOooooooo
Wow Tom Ato, I hope you are joking. My Xbox live didn’t go down for two weeks during that period, it was down for two days. Two days out of 6 years. Not bad. What about Playstation? What about the crappy lag fest that is PSN? And what exclusive Multiplayer are you talking about? Killzone 3? I have it. It sucks. Socom 4? Terrible. Halo, and gears smash the online market or haven’t you heard? And are you serious about the gears of war multiplayer? You must have posters of Jack Tretton on your wall.
Are you completely freaking retarded? Halo and Gears smash the online market? Is that why Call Of Duty has a bigger market share than both of them COMBINED? What an uneducated loser. Also I find it hilarious that you’re talking smack about PS3 exclusives when games like Uncharted 2 and LittleBigPlanet hold HIGHER Metacritic scores than ANY of the last – gen trash that passes for an exclusive on the 360. Halo, Flopza and Gears Of Bore are jokes of games compared to what the PS3 offers and review scores prove that.
Go and enjoy your bad – graphics, last – gen, on – rails shooters with their monumentous lag and terrible controls. You must have pictures of Marcus Fenix above your bed……..whimsicalboy.
How is that uncharted multiplayer Tom? You enjoy the world of LittleBigPlanet? Tell me what the highest pre ordered game is. Gears 3? There must be slot of me out there. BtW I have a PS3. I enjoy it’s single player games like uncharted and God of War. But ask me if I will ever buy a Call of Duty for PS3. Never. I’d rather be able to access the online content thank you very much. I also enjoy the fact that you must resort to name calling to present your point. And I am uneducated? Ha, but enjoy Sony. Great graphics there. No question. Online play? Yeah, get a 360. It’s ok, they don’t bite.
How is the Uncharted multiplayer? Well if you owned Uncharted 2 you would know because there’s still upwards of 40,000 people playing online every day despite the fact that it released nearly 2 years ago.
Also, what the heck are you talking about with the Call Of Duty online content? If you’re referring to the expansion packs then I feel I have to inform you that those are only TIMED exclusive to the 360, they DO come out on the PS3 just a month or so later. So maybe you should do some research before declaring that the COD DLC is unplayable on the PS3…….shoddy journalism at it’s finest.
/popcorn