So when we left you yesterday evening the first part of Microsoft’s conference was done, and they were moving onto Kinect. The new motion controller dominated the Microsoft’s event, easily taking up half of conference. So what did TSA’s staff have to say about the new camera? Well let’s start with Microsoft showing off the new UI you’ll be using if you decide to purchase Kinect.
Peter: hold on, Kinect isn’t magic. The iPad is magic. Which is magic? I’m so confused.
Lewis: These people are so dull
Kris: I don’t want a cursor. I wanna swipe up and down. That’s what I hate about the Wii
Nofi: He’s a terribly attractive man.
Kris: Everyone will use voice then. But effortless? Compared to a remote?
nofi: He’s papping himself. Someone in the audience should shout “Xbox, Porn Folder”
Greg: What happens if you’re playing an Xbox video and it says “Zune”?
Chris: I move a finger on a remote, or move my whole body… :|
Peter: so to select something you have to hold your hand over it for an age? How will I switch between episodes of “Barely Legal Cheerleaders”?
Kris: Ok this is getting cooler I will admit. Voice control is good. Hardly a revolution, but I’ll buy it
So it looks like we’re not exactly in favour of the on screen hand they showed. What happened to swiping through menus? That was pretty cool. Of course the voice control worked pretty well, and might be more useful than the hand gestures anyway. Once they got the UI changes for Kinect out of the way video chat was up next.
Murdo: FaceTime? :)
Peter: Is it really magic though? Really? I think that kind of undersells the hard work that all those engineers put in with actual science…
Kris: Wait so they just said ‘We bundled headset with everything’ and now you don’t need a headset?
Lewis: Hellooooooooo Laur…oh no she started speaking
Peter: Twins. Alight, you have my attention.
Kris: Oh god most scripted conversation ever
Greg: Yeah! Postage stamp video!
Peter: This video chat coupled with one of those “vibrate someone’s controller over Live” Indie apps is going to cause some spill damage to Xboxes all over the world.
Kris: Head tracking is not amazing. My £5 webcam does it
Kris: Windows Live Messenger already has video chat. Xbox Live already has video chat. WHAT IS NEW?
Chris: Basically re-announcing everything the system already does
So yeah, that was a little underwhelming then, it just didn’t feel like they had anything brand new to show us. However the ESPN on 360 announcement was next on the show, and hopefully things were looking up.
Peter: ESPN on 360! Give me the fecking baseball and I’ll throw my PS3 in the river!
Greg: Oooh ESPN. I get several channels of that on my cable box.
Murdo: US only. Probably.
Kris: Why is everything a skit? You can just say words. Someone could come out and say “We’re bringing ESPN to 360”
Chris: this will be US only, they don’t have a broadcaster onboard like the UK & France
Greg: Wow the graphics on NFL 2011 are good!
Michael: Doesn’t the Internet and Sky+ do this already?
Greg: Oooh, America gets the equivalent of the “red button” features we get on sports over here.
Lewis: Lost the stream…Blank screen is actually a lot more fun
Kris: So ESPN was probably the best bit so far and I don’t think we’ll get it
Chris: no additional cost is odd, because that will eat into Disney/ESPN revenue
So yeah things picked up a little, but this is all reliant on us getting ESPN over here. As far as I’m aware Microsoft are yet to confirm it for their international audience, so we’ll have to wait and see. Moving swiftly onward Kudo Tsunoda was the next presenter on stage, showing off some games. For the sake of length I’m going to try and compress most of the games we say into one section, so apologies if it seems to jump around.
Kris: Why does Kudo’s avatar have pig tails?
Peter: He’s like a 1990s rapper with all the coolness sucked out.
Peter: oh, it’s invizimals!
Peter: Microsoft encourages kids to tickle tigers? The Daily Mail is going to have a fit.
Murdo: Yeah, you like that. Have you been naughty?
Chris: Wow, this looks like EyePet but it actually works
Peter: oh this looks like Wii Sports, I’ve seen that already so I’ll take the opportunity to go for a wee.
Nofi: Aw, look, Joy Ride. I’ll bet she was so chuffed her game got pulled to bits for Natal.
Peter: Oh, JoyRide, this looked like it would be good before they butchered it for Natal
Kris: I don’t think I actually want my 360 that much any more
Michael: No way do I want to play a kart game like that.
Chris: Auto splitscreen… that a big deal
Michael: Kinect looks rubbish. They are not even jumping over that stuff. It keeps hitting them.
Peter: I’m sold, I think I’ll buy another Wii.
Nofi: Graphics are fab, mind, but I can’t stand these presenters.
Greg: Oh a fitness game. More innovation.
Michael: Ok, if she *ahem* comes with Kinect, I’m in.
Murdo: Oh, if he comes with Kinect, I’m in.
Peter: Just to be serious for a moment This all looks like it might be fun and I might like playing with it but I don’t really want to see over-enthusiastic sepctics shouting about it.
Kris: Picks up clothing? I can do strip poker with kinect?
Murdo: TSA strip poker night?
Nofi: Remember when Xbox was all about games? We had like 5 minutes of games.
Chris: Dance thing is a huge system seller
Lewis: I’ll only buy if it has MC Hammer
Greg: It makes Dads dancing at weddings look cool.
Nofi: Star Wars game is funny.
Peter: I love Star Wars. This is not Star Wars.
Michael: Why do they keep missing him!!!!!!
Kris: This looks like “What if Star Wars was a fitness game?”
Peter: Turn 10! Another Forza before GT5?
Nofi: Forza Lite. This is ridiculous.
Murdo: What have Microsoft done?
Murdo: THIS IS NOT GAMING
Peter: Please, Microsoft, Forza 3 is an exceptionally good game… please stop it.
Peter: If they don’t end this press event by announcing that it’s all been a dream I’m going to be disappointed.
Greg: If that’s the future of racing on the 360… GT5 FTW!
So we were nearly at the end, and Kinect’s chunk was over. Of course there was Microsoft’s leaked announcement still to come, the 360 redesign. Once the dust had settled here’s what the staff had to say.
Nofi: Seen it, buster.
Greg: Shiny! Must be rendered with Unreal 3.
Peter: i like it.
Nofi: i do too, actually.
Murdo: So do I. Buying.
Greg: Looks better than my current Elite.
Greg: Fastest wifi until tomorrow…
Nofi: To be fair, that’s one hell of a secret keep.
Rob Wagstaff: So people not only asked to payout for a camera they don’t already own, but also a whole new console if they want to make things easier…
Michael: They’re clapping for a machine that plays stuff that doesn’t make you clap.
Nofi: Ha, that’s it.
And that’s the Microsoft in all of it’s lack of glory. I hope you enjoyed reading our instant reactions to the conference. I’ll let Peter have the final word for now.
Peter: right, really going now. I’m a bit tipsy and my hope has been crushed. G’night folks!
Bilbo_bobbins
sorry to be a bit rubbish, but I found this hard to read. I gave up half way through.
Raen
It’s ok, it’s rather long but there wasn’t much else I could cut.
Bilbo_bobbins
lol I can get what you were going on about anyway, pretty much saying it was a bit….meh !?
Apnomis
I enjoyed it, sort of mirrored a MSN conversation I had with a mate during the conference. It’s a shame you guys removed the chatroom function, would have been fun for us all to be in a chatroom reading/making comments like this in real time…
Winkle
I found the whole MS conference very underwhelming
jimmy-google
So did I, even Gears of War 3 was a bit of a let down. It was about as interesting as the world cup has been.
EA were far better and they kept their show quite simple.
Winkle
Yes EA were easily the best show so far!
cc_star
Yeah, the World Cups opening games except for Argentina have been utter crap so far
Winkle
The Gerries first game wasn’t bad. Shows they are always a force to be reckoned with.
Carl
Pretty hilarious reactions.
The voice recognition though…Easy way to piss someone off. “XBAWKS…QUIT!” “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU”
Raen
I’d include the whole thing for full hilarity, but it’s about 7 and a half thousand words long.
FoxHoundGabe
I found it really funny, would gladly read more!
And yes, the whole thing was SO dissapointing! And im afraid Sony is going down the same road, maybe thats why the “got rid” of the big games in the weeks before….
cc_star
There’s to many swears
BioEye
I was only included once. :(
upselo
I liked the section with the girl who was so happy to be licked all over by a tiger (!). Also, when they played the rafting game and the girls said “oh we can go anywhere !”, it was quite fun.
I’m a bit disappointed I missed the intro, but this article recaps exactly what I saw.
theshockwave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWCDKyNd4Pk
Utterly embarassing. And I’m pretty sure she’s only acting along to that, her hands weren’t in the same positions as the on screen hands for some of it.
X_Yoshy_X
yer shes not realy doing that. so its a fake tec demo ( 80% were) which i find realy anoiing becaue how are we ment to be able to see what its like if its all pre recorded
*Disapointed*
theshockwave
Were you guys really that impressed with the new Xbox? I don’t think it looks that great.
Raen
Yup, although I think part of it was being relieved that there was something left that wasn’t Kinect.
Kovacs
I like the look of it. It’s like they tried to make as much like a PS3 as possible. Which is a good thing. One (of many) problems I’ve had with the 360 is that it looks too plasticy. I wouldn’t want that NEAR my Bravia.
:)
3shirts
Brilliant. You guys totally summed up the whole event here and made me laugh too.
DrFreeman
HAHA I love your reactions!
Sums up my thoughts as well, except I wasn’t that excited for the new 360.
bunimomike
The revamped Xbox looks a lot smarter but everything, and I mean everything, has left me woefully unimpressed. Are we about to see 2010 as the year that forgot gamers.
Winkle
Its starting to feel that way and this is what worries me.
aphex187
Yeah i thought the EA show was way better than MS’s casual experience! Oh and did anyone see Ubisoft’s? lmao!!!! their presenter wanted nutting!
Roll on Sony!
Raen
EA was great, Ubisoft was a bad acid trip
jimmy-google
He was very irritating. I gave up watching the Ubisoft one becauase of him.
Raen
But you missed the dancing!
jimmy-google
I turned it on just as they were playing around with the gun and they kept running backwards and forwards. I gave up when they started showing the fitness stuff from MS press conference.
I was a little suprised to see a Michael Jackson game as Sony secured the rights to Michael Jackson games after he died.
theshockwave
Summary of the conference here:
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/e3-2010-microsoft-highlights/345768?playlist=featured#comments_top
:D