Tag: Xbox 360

Xbox 360 Kinect Produces Mixed Results on Jimmy Fallon

Xbox Kinect and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon have some history. Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda showed the device on Late Night when it was known as Project Natal. He recently returned to show the updated hardware and some new games. The results were mixed. The crowd seemed to dig it (or the applause signs were really effective), but the lag issues were obvious.

Check out the video above and let me know what you think of Kinect’s performance on Late Night (please). Remember, Natal is due out in November so there’s plenty of time for Microsoft to tighten the bolts. The question is, should the company be showing it off when it’s lag city?

John Dvorak Predicts That Xbox Kinect Will Fail

PC Magazine columnist John Dvorak — one of the most respected tech pundits in the biz — believes that Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect is “doomed to fail”. In a recent column, Dvorak wrote:

Game play is typically a sedentary activity. You typically play games while already pooped out from the day’s activities. The last thing you want to do is jump around like some ninny. The device is never going to catch on with the general gaming community for this reason alone. Kinect is also limited by what it can actually do. Serious gamers get into fine control with specialty controllers that can execute elaborate and accurate action. This will never happen with full-body control—it would be too hard to make it work, and no coders will ever put in the effort much past, “it kind of works. Ship it!”

I respect Dvorak and have enjoyed his writing for more than a decade, but I’m not sold on his prediction just yet. Gaming is outside his realm of expertise. Hell, even within his realm of expertise he’s had his fair share of bad predictions.

Still, it’s an interesting talking point. After seeing video of Kinect and its games, are any of you sold on it? Do you believe it’s doomed to fail? Or are you going to wait before you pass judgement (my personal suggestion)?

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Do You Care About Sitting Down and Using Xbox Kinect?

The Internets (there are several of them) have been buzzing about reports that Xbox Kinect doesn’t work while you’re sitting down. Some developers have said that it’s difficult for Kinect to track your skeleton while you’re sitting down. Microsoft has refuted this claim, saying that Kinect can work while you’re sitting down or standing up — it’s on a game-by-game basis.

Some writers are going nuts over the matter. Some have said that not being able to do simple things — navigating menus, for instance — while sitting down is a major flaw with Kinect. Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is and see it more as a minor nuisance than a major flaw. What do you guys and dolls think? Is it a deal breaker? Or are some people overreacting?

Grading the “Big Three” at E3 2010: Nintendo vs. Microsoft vs. Sony

Another E3 is in the bag and it’s time to judge how the “big three” did at this year’s show. Usually I just rate the companies’ respective press conferences immediately after the last one, but since I was working for the excellent people at Shacknews, I didn’t get a chance to. Using the pressers and what was shown on the show floor, I’m going assign letter grades to Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. I’d love for you to do the same thing in the comments section!

Microsoft: Kicking off the major pressers was Microsoft. The format was very strange. It kicked things off with a third-party game and close the show with a hardware refresh. Sure, it’s a pretty big deal that the Xbox 360 will have first dibs for all Call of Duty map packs and add-ons, but I was surprised that Halo and Gears didn’t get the money spots — they certainly looked fantastic and deserved the rub. Closing out the show with a new product is fine, but updated hardware doesn’t quite fit the bill. It’s cool that Microsoft went all Oprah and gave everyone free consoles, but I thought the company would have been better off plugging a first-party game in that slot. (On a side note, I found it hilarious that Epic’s Mark “Chocolate” Rein was standing up and clapping when he found out about his free console. The dude loses more money having a brain fart than I make in a year. Ha!)

On the non-gaming front, the ESPN announcement is potentially huge. Unfortunately, it’s not for everyone. Your ISP has to be on the ESPN 3 partner list, from what I understand. In something that I’ll have file as “sucks for me!”, my ISP, Time Warner, is not on the list.

Obviously Microsoft had to talk up Kinect at its press conference. Unfortunately, it didn’t play well at the presser. The good news is that the product was much more interesting on the show floor, particular with games like Child of Eden (expectedly awesome) and Dance Central (surprisingly fun).

Grade B-: If I was just going off the presser, it would have been a C+, but Microsoft had a lot of great stuff at its booth. While most of the Kinect stuff I saw wasn’t fun, the cool gamers for Kinect were better than the cool games for Move.

Nintendo: I thought Nintendo absolutely killed it at E3 2010. It had the best games and the most interesting new hardware. I was actually scared that Nintendo’s presser would have put me to sleep with a 20-minute presentation on the Wii Heart Rate Monitor Vitality Sensor. Instead I was bombarded with classic franchise after classic franchise returning to the Wii — Zelda, Donkey Kong Country, Metroid, and Kid Icarus dazzled millions of longtime Nintendo fans.

As a show, Nintendo had the best conference. Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, and Reggie Fils-Aime are the best “personality” executives from any of the big three. The presser also had the best pacing and flow.

I’m not sure how it played for everyone at home, but Nintendo was the talk of the show at E3 2010. It had the tech everyone wanted to see with the 3DS (at times the line took more than two hours) and it had the journalists’ darling game in Kirby Epic Yarn. Disney’s Epic Mickey also played well — yes, a third-party game for a Nintendo system was one of E3’s highlights.

Grade A: Nintendo owned the show. I want to hear some of you that are in the “Nintendo forgot about me” camp complain about the company’s E3 2010.

Sony: Sony’s performance was mixed. In terms of content, I thought it had a better presser than Microsoft, but it was about 30 minutes too long and cut into everyone’s E3 show floor time (which nobody was happy about). Sony did get the loudest pop of any of the E3 pressers with Kevin Butler’s performance. The company also had the biggest shock with Valve’s Gabe Newell on stage hocking Portal 2 for PS3 with Steamworks.

Sony had two pieces of new tech to push — 3D gaming and PlayStation Move. 3D gaming is interesting, but it’s probably not something that will take off this generation. It’s just too expensive for most people. Killzone 3 is okay in 3D, but I thought MLB: The Show was better. As for Move, the tech is cool, but Sony is having a hard time showing that it’s more than just Wii in HD.

In terms of games, there’s a lot for PS3 and PSP owners to get excited about. The two biggest were Gran Turismo 5 and Twisted Metal. I’m not really into the former, but the latter was way fun. The third-party games like Assassin’s Creed 3 (with the beta being PS3 exclusive), Medal of Honor (also with exclusive content), Dead Space 2, The 3rd Birthday, and Kingdom Hearts looked great.

Grade B-: Sony gets points for a wide variety of great games, solid tech, and Kevin Butler. It loses points for taking way too long, keeping everyone from the show, and failing to make the tech seem like fun. Steamworks on PS3 is huge and I’m not sure why people aren’t making a bigger deal out of this.

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Now it’s your turn! Take the poll and let me know which company had the best show in your opinion.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi Makes Motion Controls Cool with Child of Eden

Q Entertainment’s Child of Eden is — by far — the coolest motion control game I’ve seen for PlayStation Move and Xbox Kinect. The game is being published by Ubi Soft and it pretty much looks like Rez with motion controls. There’s probably more to it than that, but Rez with motion controls sounds awesome to me. As most of you know, I’m a total mark for Q’s Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Of course it would take someone like him to make motion controls cool.

Xbox 360 Kinect Listed at $149.99 on GameStop: Too Much?

GameStop has listed Kinect for Xbox 360 at $149.99. This is a pre-order price and subject to change. Let’s forget about that for a second and pretend this is the “real” price. Is it too much for this peripheral? Considering you can buy a Wii for just a bit more money, it seems kind of steep. I’m going to have to give it more thought, buy my initial reaction is that Microsoft better price this thing lower or it’s going to flop.

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Today’s Poll: Will You Buy an Xbox 360 “Slim”?

Microsoft unveiled a new version of the Xbox 360 with a 250GB hard drive and WiFi. The design is smaller, uses less power, and is allegedly quieter than its forerunners. The design is angular and totally reminds me of Alienware desktop computers. It looks like a pretty sweet machine, but will you buy one this year? Take the poll and let me know (please)!

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Microsoft E3 2010 Press Conference: What Did You Think?!?

Thanks to everyone that joined me for my Microsoft E3 2010 press conference live blog. Now that the presser is over, I want to get your thoughts on MS’ showing. As for me, I was mostly bored with the content. Aside from Metal Gear Solid: Rising and Gears of War 3, I didn’t see much that was fun or compelling. Et vous?

Microsoft (Xbox) E3 2010 Press Conference Live Blog

After kicking off its E3 2010 press activities with an extraordinarily lame event (by most accounts), Microsoft hopes for a second wind with its Monday morning press conference. While Kinect (Project Natal) was the focus last night, look for big news on games, the evolution of Xbox Live, and more. Rumors are swirling about an Xbox 360 “Slim” model and I’m personally hoping for some cool news on Windows Phone 7 connectivity with Live. How’s it all going to shake down? Let’s find out together as I live blog the hell out of this presser!

Kindly click here for the live blog.

Project Natal Officially Named Xbox “Kinect”

I left a perfectly good party and am skipping on another potentially fun party to make sure that you know that the motion-control device formally known as Project Natal has been officially named Xbox Kinect. I wasn’t invited to tonight’s press event (due to lameness) and am happy I wasn’t. Almost all my developer and journalist friends thought it was incredible lame. That said, the proof is in the pudding and I want to see Kinect in action before I make any judgements.

For now, what do you think of the name? Hip or lame?