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.
Kinect is causing quite a bit of buzz not only for the innovative game play it brings to the Xbox 360 but for the whole slew of hacking that is associated with it as well. However, while there are a decent amount of games currently available for the Kinect, Microsoft has a whole other ecosystem in store that utilizes the technology dubbed Avatar Kinect.
If you couldn’t have guessed by the name, this new system allows you to utilizes both your Xbox 360 Avatar and Kinect system to hang out with your friends, chat it up and have a party – no, I’m not kidding. If you don’t believe me just check out the above trailer where an Avatar version of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shows off the Avatar Kinect system as it tracks eyebrow movement, smiles, laughter and much more.
Is this something that interests you or will it be another flop like PlayStation Live?
It’s no secret Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are the three big video game console manufacturers with the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, respectively, but one company is looking to give the three a run for their money. This company is none other than OnLive which is working to give consumers the ability to stream games over a high speed broadband connection for a cheap price.
However, in order to actually get the streaming games off your computer and onto your big screen youo’re going to need to pick up the OnLive game console pictured above. Complete with a built-in HDMI port, the OnLive game console is compatbile not only with the standard OnLive controller but any other controller that works through USB including the official Xbox 360 controller.
Normally this device sells for $99 but in lieu of CES 2011, OnLive will be dropping the price of the game console $33 down to just $66. If you’re looking to get down on this deal you better do so fast as it only runs through January 9th.
If you’ve been paying attention you may remember the Big O from Origin PC. This computer combined top notch gaming hardware with a fully functioning Xbox 360. Hardware wise we’re looking at dual Intel Xeon 5680 processors, up to 24GB of RAM, 4 SLI EVGA GTX 580 FTW graphics cards, as much storage as you want and a Blu-ray drive. Of course, like I said, it’s also got a liquid cooled Xbox 360 jammed in there so no matter the game, this beast will be able to handle it.
While the Big O starts at around $8,000, the above mentioned configuration will run you around $16,669. Yes, nearly $20,00 for a gaming PC.
Be sure to stick around as we cover the Big O during CES 2011 next week where it is expected to appear at Creative’s booth.
Netbooks in their current state aren’t exactly the best machines for gaming considering their lack of decent hardware but Alienware is looking to change all of that. At CES recently, the company unveiled their M11x gaming netbook, pictured above.
This netbook is said to feature the ability to run Crysis at 50FPS and Modern Warfare 2 at 30FPS both on high settings. While specs weren’t announced, Alienware had to pack some pretty diesel hardware into the little machine to get such results.
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has surpassed one billion dollars in sales, announced the Activision CEO, Mike Griffith, at its CES keynote on Friday. It is the first game to surpass that amount in sales.
It was only last year that the publisher announced that its flagship franchise had made one billion dollars altogether. The Guitar Hero series remains the fastest selling of all time.
You know what’s happening these days right gang? It’s CES and Macworld and we’re trying to find from the distance the best products to be released yet. As we said before, gaming-wise Logitech is a company to keep our eyes on. And it looks like other people are also monitoring Logitech’s performance. As a matter of fact Logitech won seven CES Innovation awards for excellence in design and engineering. The Logitech G13 won the Best of Electric Gaming award and the Harmony 1100 advanced universal remote won the Best of Home-Theater Accessories award. Wait a second there… Logitech has won seven awards last year at CES. And it looks like they just wanted to show them off this year too. You’ll find below the weird press release from Logitech. It starts telling us the company has won seven awards in 2008 and then it continues talking about 2009 CES awards. What do you think happened there with Logitech PR department? READ ON »
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has surpassed one billion dollars in sales, announced the Activision CEO, Mike Griffith, at its CES keynote on Friday. It is the first game to surpass that amount in sales.