I have to start this post with a whinge, I pre-ordered Xbox Kinect from JBHifi. When I pre-order something I do expect it to get to me on the day it gets released or at least the day after. We finally got our Kinect here at the office after it was already released for over a week. I could have just walked down the street and picked on up.
but that is not what I want to talk about here. It is all setup in our reception area and we already had a lot of people trying it out and loving it.
There are some very smart people out there and it only took 3 hours before the Kinect was hacked and an open source driver was created so you can use it on your PC, a little later on your Linux box and then on your Mac.
and what are people doing with it? They are creating some awesome things. Here is a small collection of the things I came across:
Best interactive Puppet
Have your own lightsaber
Capture yourself in 3D
same guy in 3D with a little awesome surprise at 0:53 – watch it it’s worth it
Xbox Kinect is hitting the market and I pre-ordered the one for the office yesterday. And then I saw this today – someone hacked it for the greater good to bring us gesture based multitouch using Kinect and sitting on the couch.
Full body tracking Microsoft Surface Style – Simply awesome
Here’s a little something we worked on recently for Xbox Australia that was pretty fun. We kidnapped a bunch of Xbox gamers, stuck some probes on them and then left them alone in various locations at the Quarantine Station at Sydney’s North Head. Oh, yeah, they got to play Alan Wake before anyone else in the country.
Interesting to see how the body responds to intense situations in games. Alan Wake has its share of them too. I’ve had a go myself and I’m in no hurry to go wandering in the woods at night any time soon.
There are no hot princesses, beautiful space-scapes or even inter-species saloons where man and alien can put aside their differences (tentacles) and relax over a stiff drink. No, the life an inter-galactic soldier – or Orbital Drop Shock Trooper – is an action-packed, dangerous and often short-lived existence.
Or so I’m led to believe from this awesome short for the new Halo 3 ODST game on XBox 360 titled ‘The Life’.
I’m not a gamer but I sure as hell want to be one now.
I came across this 6 month DIY project where a guy, who calls himself ghostavel, spend all his time taking the old Xbox and creating his own mini case for it.
And I have to say it looks awesome.
Dimensions: 23.5 x 21.65 x 2.5 cm
I reckon the next gen Xbox should have a form factor like that.
Update – this campaign has been confirmed as a FAKE (here)
I spotted a tweet (here) from @danteteam a few minutes ago which is the Twitter account for the new game Dante’s Inferno (here). The game is said to be controversial, so I was quite interested when they tweeted an image of people protesting about the game.
Now I can’t quite figure this out. There are also a lot of images on the official Facebook page (here). It’s either a marketing stunt set up for E3 (yes the protestors look a little stereotyped) or a brand being very honest allowing very anti-brand statements to be published freely through social channels. Maybe no news is bad news when promoting a controversial product but I wouldn’t think ‘Electronic Anti-Christ’ would be something EA would actively sponsor.
If this was not a PR stunt then this is the first time I can think of that a brand has shown a negative image of itself using its own social channels.
Update: Article with most comments saying it’s fake (here) Article saying it’s all true (here) and (here)
Anyone have any comments/thoughts/witness? Leave a comment!
Having worked on the Xbox account for 5-6 years and being part of Microsoft you’d probably expect we knew all about this. Nope! They kept this one under tight wraps and surprised the lot of us today. Of course there have been rumours on the web, but the fact is we did not expect to get an announcement this exciting! Most expected a ‘me too’ Wii catchup controller – but instead we have something truly groundbreaking.
What is it? Best to watch the videos, but in summary the hardware is a new breed of sensor for the Xbox 360 that can recognise a persons body movement accurately within a 3D space, full facial recognition and voice – without a controller. The potential is amazing… just watch. We understand that all the footage shot are real demos. Nothing canned.
The Ad: When Microsoft figures out how to make a decent ad, the competition will be in trouble – it’s the only thing we didn’t like.
Meet Milo – the virtual boy. (below)
Painting Demo
The ‘Sensor’ that lives under your telly:
More juicy videos and gossip from the rather raw Xbox staff blog at www.insiderx.com
It monitors your Live account and automatically generates entries about what it’s been up to that day
The tone is very much American geek, but it’s a fun record of your own gaming habits, and of keeping an eye on what your chums are up to. Get set up at www.360voice.com.
And here you can find some other things you might not have known about your Xbox.
Gametrak Freedom can be used with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, featuring “proprietary and cutting-edge patent-pending ultrasonic technology to provide a true motion capture gaming experience. Unlike other motion sensing gaming systems, Gametrak Freedom accurately tracks the true 3D position and precise movements of up to four players, anywhere within a given environment, giving total control and unrivalled game play opportunities.
The first game to make use of Gametrak Freedom’s latest controller is In2Games’ own Squeeballs, which you can check out here.
We just returned from the Avenue A Razorfish 2008 client summit. Here’s a couple of quick videos (taken with mobile phone) demonstrating Microsoft Surface.
First Clip: Bidding on the guitar signed by Sir George Martin (of Beatles fame). The way this worked – you placed your attendance card onto the table – up comes your details then you are able to bid on the guitar by dragging your card onto it.
Second clip: Demo of me using my attendance card and entering the draw for an Xbox 360.
The Red Team has already won but now there’s insults on our injuries as the bombs come raining down once more. Shell shocked and unsuspecting, the Blue Team runs for cover. But will there be revenge? If so, it will hardly be sweet as Mr Moldan holds the dark key to full motion and audio retaliation.
Incidentally, the video’s creator was also the recipient of the coveted People’s Choice Award with this fine overhead smash:
Offset the evil is an anti-violence website, ironically promoting the extremely violent game Condemned 2 on Xbox 360. We thought it was really clever and well executed …although it did remind us a little of “Happy Tree Friends” which has always been the benchmark for adult cartoon gore / black comedy.
(Heard the site was made by Clemenger Australia? [to be confirmed]). Anyway watch the video below then go and OFFSET YOUR EVIL!
Watch the first of three videos below. It’s one of many similar examples that are spawning from EA’s recent game Crysis on the PC. Nerd stuff (physics, havok, quad core, SLI etc) aside what I think we’re seeing unfold are new art forms being created in new ways …by people that are unlikely be top of their art class. It’s very raw but highly visual and engaging.
It’s not exactly new. Games like trackmania spawned a lot of these type of clips where users discovered they could simultaneously replay 1000 games (here) at once …beautiful to watch. The original 2002 Halo ‘Warthog Jump’ gained major popularity at the time, this may take credit as being the ‘mother of user gen video game art’.
It’s an important part of marketing for gamers now. Companies like EA know that if they provide the right tools for gamers, they will create content. Quick maths on YouTube accounts for over 10 million views of user generated content from Crysis alone.
Classic from the Vaulthttp://testyoursenses.archive.amnesia.com.au/ we’ve just put this site back up for a bit of fun. There are plenty of screamers around these days (eg: scary maze). But we were quite happy with the ridiculous premise of a full senses test, something different. Stupid – but many people still fell for it at the time 🙂
Posted by stephanlange 
