Tag Archives | Xbox 360

Kinect’s Milo Put to Bed?

Posted by Jared Newman on September 23, 2010 at 2:21 pm

More than a year old, “Milo” is still Kinect for Xbox 360’s most impressive tech demo. Sadly, Kotaku’s unnamed sources say the project has been cancelled.

The sources say the technology behind Milo will be put to use in another game based on Fable, a series of role-playing games developed by the same studio that put Milo together. But Milo himself is, reportedly, no more.

Milo debuted during E3 2009, when Kinect was introduced under the codename Project Natal. In a video, shown at Microsoft’s press conference, a young boy on the screen interacted with an older girl in real life.  Milo referred to the girl by name, responded to what she said and how she said it, and could even recognize a drawing that the girl showed to Kinect’s motion-detecting camera.

With Kinect due to launch in November, supported mostly by simple, casual games, Milo remains fresh in the mind. It’s a sign of Kinect’s potential even as Microsoft sees fit to mimic the Wii’s stable of sports, exercise and racing games out of the gate.

I’d love to see more than just mini-games from a device that can recognize movement, facial expressions and speech. Hopefully, the supposed Fable tie-in game will do great things, but I’m sad that such a powerful and simple concept — hanging out with an avatar — isn’t coming to Kinect any time soon, even if it’s a little bit creepy.

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New Xbox 360 Controller Settles an Old Debate

Posted by Jared Newman on August 31, 2010 at 2:23 pm

Since the dawn of the gamepad, console makers had to make a tough decision with each new iteration: Disc-shaped directional pad, or traditional plus shape?

Microsoft thinks it can choose both with a new wireless controller for the Xbox 360. Like the existing Xbox 360 controller, the new model starts in a disc format, which is ideal for sweeping motions that connect one direction to the next. Players can also raise up the plus-shaped portion of the D-pad by rotating it, allowing for more distinct directional presses. This is intended to appease fans of fighting games like Street Fighter IV, who need the accuracy when stringing together button combinations.

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Xbox Live Price Hike: A Higher Cost for Microsoft

Posted by Jared Newman on August 30, 2010 at 1:06 pm

This wasn’t entirely unexpected, but Microsoft announced that it’s raising the price of Xbox Live Gold, effective November 1.

Yearly subscriptions will increase from $50 to $60, quarterly subscriptions will jump from $20 to $25, and monthly subscriptions will go up from $8 to $10. Before the price hike, Microsoft is giving subscribers a chance to get one more year for $40, effectively negating the new price until 2012. Joystiq points out that several retailers are also selling $40 yearly subscription cards, which you can stock up on now and use over a longer period of time.

The troubling thing about this price hike is not so much the $10 difference itself, but the feeling of powerlessness that it instills.

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Forget the Leak, Halo: Reach Was Downloadable

Posted by Jared Newman on August 23, 2010 at 9:35 am

If you lack scruples, you might be interested to know that some hackers found an early version of Halo: Reach on Xbox Live, stole it, and put the code on file-sharing websites.

Personally, I can wait until Halo: Reach’s September 14 launch date. What piqued my interest was the means by which the hackers took the game.

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Kinect is to Microsoft as Multi-Touch is to Apple

Posted by Jared Newman on August 5, 2010 at 1:52 pm

Gizmodo’s Matt Buchanan got a lengthy tour of Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360, the upcoming gaming peripheral that detects 3D motion with a camera and captures audio with microphones. His conclusion? This is the future for Microsoft, an idea with boundless possibilities that will spread far beyond gaming.

One project manager said Kinect’s technology could some day allow Star Trek Holodeck-style environments, no joke.

Pondering this, I can’t help but draw parallels to the way Apple has approached multi-touch. After popularizing two-finger scrolling in MacBooks, and gestures like pinch-to-zoom on the iPhone, Apple has steadily expanded the role of multi-touch in all its computer products. First came the multi-touch Magic Mouse, then the iPad, and now the Magic Trackpad. Apple put its faith in flat, pressure-sensitive surfaces, and it’s paying off. Microsoft is investing in the air, and hopes to see a similar expansion.

Motion control and multi-touch are not all that different in spirit. Both input methods are supposed to feel natural, as if there’s no barrier between you and the machine. This is especially true with Apple’s iOS devices, with which you interact simply by touching what you see. On the downside, neither input method solves the problem of physical feedback; anyone who’s tried typing on an iPad without looking at the keys should understand why that’s an issue.

For now, Microsoft and Apple are not having an input war. Multi-touch emerged from personal computing, and remains entrenched in it. Kinect’s origins are entertainment, and the technology will probably work back to the computer as an accessory for multitmedia and communications.

To oversimplify, Microsoft’s trying to kill the game controller and the remote control, and Apple wants to slay the mouse, and maybe the keyboard, but it’s clear that both companies have input revolution on the brain. They complement each other beautifully.

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NBA Jam for Xbox 360 and PS3 Includes a Dilemma

Posted by Jared Newman on August 4, 2010 at 3:22 pm

When I tried NBA Jam at E3, it seemed like a faithful remake of Midway’s classic two-on-two arcade basketball game from the mid 1990s, but the Wii’s limited processing power makes online play unlikely when the game arrives in October.

The announcement of NBA Jam for Xbox 360 and PS3, with their elegant systems for multiplayer, seems like great news, except it comes with a couple of serious catches.

First, the only way you can get NBA Jam for Xbox 360 or PS3 is with a free download when you purchase NBA Elite 11, EA’s more traditional basketball game.  That’s not such a bad deal, because you’d get two games for the price of one, but with that offer comes another gotcha: The downloadable version of NBA Jam is not the full game. Only the Wii version has the “Remix Tour” mode and “boss battles” against basketball legends such as Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. These features reportedly add another 20 hours to the game.

EA has put gamers in an tough position, where they’re deciding not just what console they’d rather play on, but which features are more important. While I agree with EA Creative Director Trey Smith playing NBA Jam against someone in the same room is part of the classic experience, playing against someone across the country is part of modern gaming.

I’m guessing this bizarre feature split was the only way EA could get NBA Jam on all three consoles, after announcing it as a Wii exclusive in January. For Nintendo, it’s a guarantee that not all buyers will jump ship to the version with multiplayer, but for gamers, it’s a lose-lose.

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Microsoft Might've Killed Xbox 360 vs. PC Gaming

Posted by Jared Newman on July 22, 2010 at 8:45 am

Ever wish you could play Gears of War for Xbox 360 against someone who owned the PC version, or vice versa? Microsoft reportedly did too, but might’ve killed the concept of PC vs. Xbox 360 gaming because console controls just aren’t accurate enough.

That’s the rumor coming from Rahul Sood, the founder of Voodoo PC and chief technical officer of HP’s gaming business. He cites “reliable sources” who say Microsoft was working on a way for PC gamers and Xbox 360 gamers to play together, but problems arose during testing. Mediocre PC gamers were able to wipe the floor with even the best console players, because the PC’s mouse-and-keyboard combination was so precise.

Sood doesn’t say definitively that Microsoft killed the project because of the accuracy issue, but he lays heavy blame on Microsoft for not seeing the project through. The rest of his blog post is a ramble on the decline of PC gaming, the threat from Apple and a strange plug for WebOS game development (“and while it may take time for new devices to start showing up, you can rest assured that the wait will be worth it”).

If Microsoft was working on a way to connect Xbox 360 and PC gamers, control differences seem like a petty reason to ax the project. Why not require PC gamers to use an Xbox 360 controller in order to dive in with the console crowd? Or limit connected play to cooperative games such as Borderlands, instead of competitive ones in which the PC gamer has the advantage?

I hope Microsoft revisits (or visits) the issue some day, especially with Windows Phone 7 presenting its own opportunities for gaming. If Microsoft really wants to unify the PC, television and phone, there needs to be a way for gamers to interact across all three platforms.

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Kinect for Xbox 360 Gets a Real Price: $150

Posted by Jared Newman on July 20, 2010 at 9:59 am

Microsoft has cleared up a couple of rumors about a new Xbox 360 model and the Kinect motion-sensing camera, revealing prices and details for both.

The Kinect camera, bundled with one game, will cost $150, the same price Microsoft posted as a “an estimate only” to its online store a month ago. The game is “Kinect Adventures,” a collection of minigames that includes jumping and ducking to avoid obstacles on a moving platform, and moving back and forth in a raft to navigate through rapids.

Microsoft also has a new Xbox 360 model coming August 3, priced at $200 without Kinect. Like the one spotted on Amazon Germany last week, the basic Xbox 360 has a 4 GB flash drive and built-in 802.11 n Wi-Fi. Later this year, the console will be bundled with Kinect and Kinect Adventures for $300. No word on whether the 250 GB console model will get a Kinect bundle.

I’m glad Microsoft went with Kinect Adventures for the console bundle. I tried it at E3, and though it’s not a shining example of what Kinect could be, it’s a better tech demo than Kinect Sports, another minigame collection that just seems too much like Wii Sports. (For that matter, running in place for the hurdles minigame was too much like the Power Pad.)

Microsoft is promising more than 15 games at launch, including Dance Central, arguably the best use of the technology yet. The game is like Guitar Hero for dance, prompting the player to perform full-body dance routines and scoring for accuracy. In another strike at the Wii, Dance Central will cost $50, not $60 like most Xbox 360 games.

Kinect is coming in November, with pre-orders available now. I’m interested in theory, but still waiting to be wowed by the software. That didn’t happen at E3.

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Microsoft Cancels 1 vs. 100, Xbox Live's First Game Show

Posted by Jared Newman on July 15, 2010 at 10:01 am

One of Xbox Live’s most innovative features, the online game show 1 vs. 100, won’t return for another season.

If you missed it, 1 vs. 100 was a trivia show in which one contestant would try to outlast a “mob” of 100 others, each of whom face elimination with wrong answers. Players who weren’t competing could still answer questions from the sidelines, with a chance to rotate into the main game. Semiweekly live shows, hosted by comedian Chris Cashman, offered prizes to the winners.

The game was included with an Xbox Live Gold subscription, and at one point attracted more than 60,000 players to the live show. Microsoft didn’t say why it canned the show, only noting that the development team will move on to other projects. It’s rumored that the original 1 vs. 100 television show, hosted by Bob Saget for two seasons on NBC, could return, so maybe that was an issue for Microsoft.

Whatever the reason, I hope Microsoft comes up with a suitable replacement. As several commenters on Kotaku wisely point out, 1 vs. 100 is a social, casual game that draws in exactly the same crowd Microsoft will try to capture with the Kinect motion-sensing camera. And Kinect support seems like an obvious choice for game shows; imagine waving your arms in celebration and seeing an avatar do the same, or raising your hand to answer a question and speaking the answer.

Kinect aside, the idea of a massive multiplayer online game show is just plain cool. Half the fun of watching game shows on television is trying to answer questions yourself, and 1 vs. 100 let spectators do that by sectioning non-players into small groups to compete amongst themselves. I think 1 vs. 100 had a chance to revolutionize game shows, but like an anxious TV network, Microsoft pulled the plug too soon.

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New Xbox 360 Arcade May Have More Storage

Posted by Jared Newman on July 14, 2010 at 9:41 am

Microsoft has gone quiet on the fate of Xbox 360 Arcade, a cheaper, feature-barren version of the main console, but that’s not stopping Amazon Germany from sharing some secrets.

The online retailer now lists an “Xbox 360 Arcade System Bundle 4 GB.” There aren’t any other details available besides that one line, which is at least enough to tell us that Microsoft could significantly boost the low-tier console’s storage capacity.

As the Xbox 360 gained better specs over the years, the stripped-down model improved as well, going from wired to wireless controllers and gaining an HDMI output while dropping in price, eventually to $200. But the Arcade console was held back by a mere 256 MB to 512 MB of storage capacity. The main console’s 120 GB hard drive and wired headset was worth the extra $100 if you planned to download games or play online.

The latest Xbox 360 model has a 250 GB hard drive and built-in wireless. That’s a pretty good deal, but with Microsoft now allowing Xbox 360 storage on USB sticks, it’s possible to have plenty of storage on an HDD-free console for cheap. Put together a 4 GB console and a 16 GB USB stick, and you’ve got the same amount of room as my late 2007 model, which has served me well so far.

Three things will be worth considering when Microsoft actually confirms a cheaper console: Will it have built-in wireless, will this bundle include Kinect, Microsoft’s motion-sensing camera, and of course, how much will it cost?

For now, Microsoft has scrubbed all mention of Xbox 360 Arcade from its Xbox landing page. If you want a bargain on what could soon be outdated goods, Amazon and Target are both selling old Xbox 360 Arcade bundles, with two games, for $150.

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