While Sony and Nintendo decided to take a similar route when it comes to their motion controllers Microsoft decided to go an entirely different route. As you’re sure to know the Xbox 360 Kinect is nothing more than a camera capable of capturing a gamer’s movements in a 3D space. This quite literally allows the gamer to use their entire body as a controller for any game.
The concept itself is quite an amazing one, the Kinect’s price tag of $149.99 most likely will be out of reach for most – especially when you take into consideration that you’re going to have to buy some games that actually utilize the peripheral’s technology. However, if you’re looking to get down on the Kinect with a game or two but want to break the bank as little as possible you’re in luck. Amazon has just cut such gamers a deal by offering the Kinect with a select title 50% off. As you’re sure to know select title usually means that you’re going to have to choose from some pretty lame games and it seems that this promotion is no different.
Included in the batch is Fighters Uncaged, Fantastic Pets, Your Shape Fitness Evolved, The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout, Dance Paradise and Dance Masters. Check out the full list of titles here.
Kinect is without a doubt the most unique motion controller on the market today. While the PS3 and Wii feature physical controllers, the Kinect features nothing of the sort. Instead, Kinect is nothing more than a camera capable of capturing a gamer’s actions in a 3D environment. This means that your entire body is quite literally the controller.
While hackers have been doing all sorts of crazy things with the Kinect, Microsoft is doing what they can to remind us that they are in fact the ones who built the product. In fact, it was just made known that the company has added support for Kinect to the Xbox 360′s native Netflix client. Unfortunately, according to various reports it seems that the implementation is not very good as you’re only capable of browsing through a small list of recommended movies with the Kinect while you still need to use an Xbox 360 controller for everything else.
Pretty lame but better than nothing, I suppose. Have you tried it out?
While the Nintendo Wii may be viewed by some as a gimmicky console it introduced to the mass market motion controlled video gaming. Following the massive success of this console both Microsoft and Sony came forth with their own offerings in the form of the Xbox 360 Kinect and PlayStation Move, respectively. The PlayStation Move, in particular, is very similar to the Nintendo Wii in the sense that it’s a, well, motion controller. The Kinect, on the other hand, features an entirely new technology that allows gamers to utilize their entire body as the controller thanks to its 3D camera.
However, seeing how Kinect is still fairly new software developers are still figuring out what to do with it. Sure, there are some fun games on the market that utilize Kinect but in terms of ground breaking killer apps there hasn’t been much. Well, according to Microsoft, 2011 is the year where the Kinect will really shine. Microsoft’s own Neil Thompson recently sat down with MCV to say that Kinect is what the company is focused on with everyone gearing up to “really deliver” as the year goes on.
What will we see come from these efforts? We aren’t quite sure just yet but we’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Just about every console manufacturer in the game has gotten down on motion controlled gaming. Nintendo prett6y much introduce the idea to the mass market with the Wii and Microsoft and Sony followed iwth the Kinect and PlayStation Move.
While the PlayStation Move is similar to the Wii, the Kinect utilizes a camera that is able to recognize a gamer’s body in a 3D space allowing them to utilize their entire body as the controller. Thanks to this, there has been quit ea bit of attention of the Kinect and not as much on the PlayStation 3. It seems that all of the attention has managed to translate into sales numbers as reports suggest that the Kinect managed to sell. Well known analyst Michael Pachter says just 1/5th of PS3 sales included PlayStation Move while 2/3 of 360 sales contained Kinect.
Seeing how the PS3 sold 403,000 units and the Xbox 545,000 in February (where this analysis focuses on) it’s easy to see that the Kinect has outsold the PlayStation Move by a heft margin. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if trends continue or sway towards one of the Kinect’s competitors.
We honestly didn’t believe the Kinect would ever do this well, but apparently the motion sensor has sold a whopping 10 million units since its launch back in November, according to Microsoft’s Adam Greenberg, who tweeted the news. On top of that, Greenberg says the Kinect is the fastest selling consumer device ever, a record which has been indicted into the Guniess Book of World Records. We’re not so sure about that record, since a little device called the iPad, released by a little company called Apple, sold quite a lot more than the Kinect. Either way, 10 million units is certainly a great feat, and is likely to have sold quite a bit more than Sony’s PlayStation Move motion controller.
Of all the different motion controllers on the market Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect is arguably the most technol0gically advanced. If you’re not familiar with this device it is basically a 3D camera allowing the gamer to use their whole body as the controller. This is quite different than Nintendo’s idea with the Wii (and later Sony with the PlayStation Move) where you actually need a physical controller in your hand.
While the games currently offered for Kinect are quite innovative, the homebrew software created by hackers for the PC that utilize the Kinect is far more innovative than anything currently available on the market. Unfortunately, to actually develop for the Kinect you need to use some unauthorized methods. Luckily, Microsoft has said in the past that htey will be releasing an official PC SDK for the Kinect that would allow developers to official create software using the technology.
Even better, it was just made known today that Microsoft is looking to release the Kinect for Windows SDK this Spring meaning it will be coming quite soon. This is great news for the homebrew community who have already been developing for the Kinect as it will give them a chance to legitimize their software.
Angry Birds has become one of the most popular mobile games ever to hit the airwaves. Currently available on mobile platforms like iOS and Android, Rovio (the game’s developer) is looking to bring Angry Birds to even greater heights. In fact, the game studio has revealed by way of Twitter that the game will be coming to both the Nintendo Wii and 3DS later this year. We’re not sure if it will be standalone physical title for the latter or a downloadable game, but we’ll keep you posted.
Rovio also let us in on another tidbit that Angry Birds for the Xbox 360 may be coming with optional Kinect support. This, quite obviously, would mean that you’d be able to utilize your hands to sling shot an arsenal of birds as those pesky picks. Sounds pretty awesome, we’ll keep you posted with further developments.
Kinect has been a great seller for Microsoft over the past Holiday season, selling millions of units. With all those Kincets sold, it’s obvious that some of the games would have to follow suit in terms of sales.
Which is the case of Dance Central and Kinect Sports, each of which have sold over 1 million copies. Worldwide, Kinect has already topped 8 million in sales, so it won’t be surprising to see more Kinect titles reach the magic 1 million mark.
The Microsoft Kinect is quite arguably the most interesting of the three motion controllers on the market due to its physical controllerless design. However, while this point has made consumers take interest in the Kinect it’s not practical for all games, namely shooters that require precise aiming. Luckily the Kinect hacking community is on hand to remedy this as one YouTube user by the name of Demize2010 has managed to combine Nintendo’s Wiimote with Kinect to control games like Call of Duty, Max Payne and more. The results are pretty stunning which you can see in the above video.
Perhaps Microsoft will one day come out with a peripheral that works in conjunction with the Kinect to give us precision control while maintaining the innovative motion control provided by Kinect.
The guy behind this hack has a few other videos on his YouTube channel showing off this hack’s functionality which you can access here.
One of the coolest features of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect is its ability to manipulate a user interface. If you’ve used the system you’re sure to know that you can scroll through menus and make selections all by waving your hands in the air. However, due to the fact that the Kinect is still somewhat new, not all Xbox 360 applications have been able to benefit from it.
Luckily, now that CES is upon us we’re able to learn of new features coming to the Kinect ecosystem in the coming months. According to a recent announcement at this year’s CES, Kinect support will be coming to both Netflix and Hulu Plus sometime this spring. This, quite evidently, means that you’ll be able to scroll through menus and make your selection all with your hands.
