Kinect Message Board older than one year ago

If you have, in some Mr. Magoo like fashion, managed to stumble around the last ten years without playing the original Halo, this launch trailer for Halo Anniversary will spoil just about every major plot point. Everyone else: Enjoy.

#wellplayed While conceived as a device meant to expand the reach of Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming platform by allowing people to play video games without the need for controllers, the Kinect has always been destined for a broader future. More »

#kinectsports It's not often I get to proclaim myself an athlete, and today isn't going to change that, but I will say that I owned the shit out of my computer-controlled opponents today in Kinect Sports Season Two. More »

#dancecentral There may be some debate about what the best Kinect game is. Some may say Fruit Ninja Kinect, others will cast votes for Child of Eden and Twisted Pixel's The Gunstringer made a strong debut on the motion-sensing More »

#kinectsports And that music, ungh! If you've ever wanted to see Japanese people playing Kinect in a large living room, here's your chance. Enjoy. More »

How do you know when you've been at this job too long? We always hoped we'd sense it, that we'd have some sort of signal when it's time to hang up our blogging spurs, and we think it's finally come. Because when we read about the entire Dance Central catalog going on sale in honor of Dance Central 2, here's (no lie) the first headline that came into our heads and refused to leave: "Boogie on a budget."

Boogie. On. A budget.

You can see all the details of the sale (which continues to Nov. 5) right here. You can see us performing every Tuesday (lasagna night!) at the the Saint Anne's Home for Retired and Destitute Bloggers.

Prepare for war this week with Battlefield 3...

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#kinect Now, granted, this gimmick doesn't just use Kinect. It uses a fancy clear display and Kinect to achieve the effect. But what an effect it is. More »

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists at Joystiq that attribute the human race's breathtakingly rapid technological advancement to ancient aliens, claiming that world-changing inventions like polymers, optical media and the Internet have all been reverse engineered from downed extraterrestrial spacecraft.

In actuality, very few modern conveniences can trace their roots back to ancient aliens; most mind-bending breakthroughs come from abstract corporate think-tanks like Microsoft Research. The lab that previously utilized a Kinect to create real-time 3D models has now developed an interactive, holographic 3D environment called Holodesk.

As is demonstrated in the (strangely silent) proof of concept video above, Holodesk uses a Kinect, projector and beam splitter to create interactive holograms. In a nutshell, the Kinect watches your hands and face, tracking their movements and projecting 3D shapes onto a semi-transparent surface above your hands, tricking the eye into thinking the shapes and your hand exist on the same plane. The interface is still fairly rough, graphically speaking, but the technology itself is so solid, we're hoping it'll eventually lead to a Kinect sequel to Time Traveler.

#wtf Fast Company, the business magazine read by movers and/or shakers, uncorked some outside-the-box advice for companies stuck in a rut. Harmonix Music Systems is on the list, it seems, because of stagnation in the music gaming genre, not necessarily because it's spinning its wheels, but whatever. They are being advised to make, wait for it, a shooter. More »

Microsoft issued a trailer featuring two of the new kid-friendly Kinect games announced yesterday, Kinect Sesame Street TV and Kinect Nat Geo TV. The footage of these two games above reveals the shocking truth: at least in parts, these are an attempt by Microsoft to bring back FMV games, indoctrinating our children into the moribund genre by having them point at moose and triangles.

After the break, you can see a montage of upcoming Kinect games, interspersed with footage of actors pantomiming the movements involved with playing the games (which is also essentially pantomime), and demonstrating realistic expressions of enjoyment.

Those without an Xbox 360 (or looking to get a new one) for the holiday season, Microsoft has you covered with two games-and-hardware bundles, one with Kinect and one without. More »

#kinect Microsoft kicked off their new global campaign this week, showcasing not a one of their products, but all of them and they managed to squeeze in a little Dance Central too! More »

#happyactiontheater Last Friday, Double Fine invited a gaggle of press over to their San Francisco Headquarters for hot dogs, beers, and game announcements. In addition to announcing Costume Quest on Steam and some new (and fun-sounding) Iron Brigade DLC, they also announced a new game: Happy Action Theater, a minigame collection for the Xbox Kinect. More »

Microsoft's latest batch of kid-friendly Kinect games includes projects developed in collaboration with Disney Pixar, Sesame Workshop, National Geographic and the Games for Learning Institute. Wow. Back in our day, we had to make do with The Castle of Dr. Brain.

Disney Pixar's game, codenamed "Rush," will scan and deposit you and your diminutive kin into the wonderful worlds seen in five Pixar movies: The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, Toy Story 3 and Cars 2. It sounds like you can expect some minigames while you're in there, though Microsoft prefers to call them "exciting challenges."

Kinect Sesame Street TV purveys basic education in the best way possible: via adorable muppets, with Sesame Street footage filmed specifically for Xbox 360. Kinect will also host Kinect Nat Geo TV, which lets you explore the natural world as an animal (in case you've grown tired of being a hedgehog all the time), and a game tentatively called "Project Columbia." It's proposed as a way to immerse young gamers in books, pairing storytelling with interactive music and illustrations.

We'll see more of these projects before they start arriving in Spring 2012. Another game, Double Fine's Happy Action Theater, is due this holiday. You'll just have to see the trailer to understand its insane exuberance.

You heard that correctly, though that's obviously not the only thing happening in this trailer for Double Fine's newest cavalcade of Kinect funtimes. There's also ball kicking, and fireworks, and dancing, and hot lava! Pretty much everything you need to know about Happy Action Theater is here, although you haven't really seen the game sold until you see someone pull a Terminator 2.

Double Fine Happy Action Theater will release next year on Xbox Live, courtesy of Microsoft Studios.

#xbox360 The whole deal with Kinect is that it's supposed to free you from touching things. But a new implementation might have you being more in touch with the physical world than before. More »

This latest trailer from Microsoft's 343 Industries goes behind the scenes on Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's campaign mode, which the team tells us has been carefully updated graphically and with extra features like online co-op mode, skull modifiers, 3D, and even that Kinect functionality we learned about last weekend. And there's a lot of thought going into these features: Master Chief's retro armor, for example, was iterated on for a good six to seven months (including cues from fan feedback after its first appearance at E3) before the team arrived at the final version.

As Franchise Development Director Frank O'Connor himself says, the updated game certainly seems like quite a smörgåsbord for the Halo fan, all for just $40. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is due out on November 15.

Kick crime in the face this week with Batman: Arkham City...

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#halo You can shout "grenade!" and see Master Chief sling one with the Kinect functionality 343 Industries has added to Halo: Anniversary, the high-definition remake coming Nov. 15. Other voice commands include "reload!" the studio revealed yesterday at Comic-Con. More »

As promised, we've got a quick and dirty video of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's Kinect functionality, straight from the Halo/343 Industries panel at New York Comic Con. Are you prepared to shout "Grenade!" and have Master Chief straight throw a grenade, all willy nilly? We sure hope so!

Yes, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is getting Kinect functionality -- but you knew that already. Despite a bit of news escaping Tokyo Game Show earlier this year about what the functionality actually is, we were promised a fuller reveal "this October." As it turns out, that actually meant "at New York City Comic Con," as 343 Industries reps told Halo panel attendees tonight that the game will include a variety of new Kinect features, namely analyzing world items.

When in Anniversary mode (read: fancy new graphics mode), players can use Kinect voice commands to "Analyze" various enemies, which will then add said enemies into a readable in-game database ("The Library" -- no, not that Libraby). What's more, you can also shout "grenade!" and, well, Master Chief will totally throw a grenade. "Reload weapon!" does ... well, you get the idea. A full video showcasing the additions was shown off and we'll have it up for you as soon as possible -- it'll arrive in a fuller form on Halo Waypoint this coming monday.

[Image credit: 'Laugh Pong']

#microsoft This Sunday, Microsoft will launch an ad campaign that tout its "family" of consumer products together, rather than individual campaigns for each. What that really means is the company is ramping up the sex appeal for products like Microsoft Office by including the Xbox 360 and Kinect in the picture. More »

It's hard to imagine a Halo game without achievements, but in the long passed, black-and-white prohibition-era yesteryear of 2001, that's just how things were. No 'chievos to grind, no Gamerscore to bolster, and only the earliest, fledgling proto-trolls were hurling racial slurs over Xbox Live.

A lot has changed since then, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary knows that kids these days couldn't handle a Halo experience devoid of achievements, so jump past the break for a complete list of points you never had the opportunity to earn in the first place.

#gutcheck Last year, the people who made Guitar Hero and Rock Band made the best game for the Xbox 360's Kinect sensor, the hands-free dancing game Dance Central. We danced in front of it, one at a time, as it tracked and scored our moves. We loved it. A year later, we have a sequel that primarily adds simultaneous multiplayer. Worth buying? More »

Hopefully you didn't put off applying for Microsoft's Xbox Dashboard public preview, because applications are now closed. Major Nelson broke the news, noting that "we have reached our target audience volume." Those lucky enough to get into the program should be notified within the next two weeks.

The rest of us will just be over here, kicking up some dust and letting out a collective "shucks."

Despite what various montages from Flashdance, Footloose and other rhythmic movement-based 80s films may have told us, dancing by yourself just isn't very much fun. The same can't be said for Harmonix's experimental Kinect launch title Dance Central, however, the game never allowed more than one player to shake tail feathers simultaneously. Well, actually, your friends could join in, but they wouldn't be evaluated and awarded points -- really, what's the point of that?

Rhythm games -- particularly those developed by Harmonix -- have an extremely logical approach to iteration. Gameplay getting stale? Add new modes. Instruments growing tiresome? Make new instruments. In the case of Dance Central 2, the biggest addition is so glaringly obvious, it almost makes you frustrated that it wasn't incorporated the first time around: Dancing alongside a partner is infinitely more fun than taking turns.

After what appeared to be a false start, the Xbox Live dashboard is ready to be previewed by a select few of the platform's users. Major Nelson recently posted details about the preview program on his blog, announcing that the trial is currently accepting applicants to work out all the kinks.

The streamlined application system will let a few users access the newfangled dashboard well ahead of its official launch, and, better yet, is expected to let folks using the new dashboard continue to play and party chat with folks who are using the old dashboard.

Not that we'll want to party with the chosen ones, anyway. It's hard to get our Bad Company 2 on when you're gabbing about how "totally elegant and robust this new UI is, bro."

#kinect You can do lots of stuff with Kinect. You can view media with it. You can play games. You can act like a doofus in your living room. Soon, you might even be able to do banking. More »

Tech site GigaOM reports that sources close to Microsoft have revealed a few bold changes currently being incorporated into the Fall Dashboard Update, which one would assume Microsoft would have locked down by now. According to the site, the "Lakeview" code providing the framework for the dash uses a modified version of Microsoft's Silverlight technology, which will incorporate the Kinect's voice and gesture-control schemes. The site also claims that Microsoft's newly contracted third-party content partners will use Apple's HTTP Live Streaming tech rather than the company's own Smooth Streaming software.

The site also claims that Microsoft will launch the update on Black Friday. We've contacted Microsoft for a comment on the claims, and hope that they're on the money -- anything that will keep potential deal-hunters out of the malls and on their couches is a welcome distraction in our books.