E3 2010 is about to start and Microsoft have come out of the blocks early and officially announced that their motion controller peripheral for the Xbox 360 will be named ‘Kinect’.
Kinect has a release date of November 2010, right around the time for Santa to start getting orders. Along with the official name, a few games were announced that will be released with the Xbox 360 motion controller:
- Kinectimals — This is a game that will let you play and train your pet cats, which will include Lions and Tigers. Not one I’m interested in, but I’m sure those who were Nintendogs fans will love it.
- Kinect Sports — This will be Microsoft’s answer to Wii Sports-style games. Games like bowling, boxing, track and field, football, beach volleyball and table tennis. It’ll be interesting to see if this raises the bar for motion controlled sports.
- Kinect Adventures — This is an ‘on-rails’ game which will include river rafting and mine carts.
- Joyride — A racing game where you’ll use your hands for the steering wheel which requires you to use your whole body for controls. Move your hands forwards and backwards to accelerate and break and your body to pull off tricks. Could be some interesting YouTube videos from this one!!
- Dance Central — This one leaves little to the imagination. I’m guessing it will involved dancing to a beat and making sure you pull of the right moves! I’d rather pull my finger nails off, but I’m sure a lot of people will find this one fun.
There’s even been a Star Wars game that has been shown off, with the user wielding a lightsaber and facing off against Darth Vader! Put anything that can break away for this one. With no controller limiting gamers, this could get out of hand quicker than a bar fight on Mos Eisley. But great fun none the less.
There’s still no definite price but from the rumours that have been going around about the price tag, I think the £50 tag that was mentioned in our original post about Project Natal’s price may have been wide of the mark. It’s looking like ‘Kinect’ will be nearer £100 but could still worth it.
Hopefully the AI Milo character interaction will be making another appearance at E3 2010 as I was very impressed with it last year and it was nowhere near completion, presumably it’s gone through a lot more development, perhaps we’ll see it featured in Peter Molyneux’s Fable 3 game in the coming days at E3.
So are you looking forward to the release of the Xbox 360 motion controller formerly known as Project Natal, now officially named ‘Kinect’? Are you still a bit sceptical about the concept? What do you think to the new name?
Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for our daily reports live from E3 2010 gaming expo, also be sure to follow Zath on Twitter to get our latest update tweets from inside E3 itself!