Last night, we journalists signed a non-disclosure agreement with Microsoft that stipulated we could not write about -- or name -- Project Natal’s new brand name, Kinect, until 8pm today. However, several bigs media companie sensibly ignored this stricture, writing in detail about the new product last night. Acknowledging this, Microsoft itself has now press released it. So I think it’s fair enough to briefly run through a few items that we saw at a bizarre -- though visually impressive -- display last night, featuring Cirque Du Soleil.
First, a recap on Kinect: it’s a motion-detecting gadget that allows you to play a game using hand, feet and body gestures. In other words, there’s no physical controller: the gadget sits beside the telly and follows your movements.
The demos we were shown involved car racing games, fitness games, a rafting game, a football game, a dance game and a very, very brief snippet of a Star Wars game. Whether any or all of these games are ready to go, or will eventually make it onto the shop shelves, we can’t say. But that’s what we were shown.
What's clear is that Microsoft is going after Nintendo in a very, very big way. The Wii came out of nowhere and created an entirely new market for the video games industry: families, young kids and women. Microsoft has spent a fortune setting this up.
Incidentally, we Irish journalists didn’t make the cut for the important after-launch event/party. (Although we understand that other journalists did make the cut.) Hence we all felt a tad foolish in our (required) ‘smart dress’ when we were put back on the bus.
Nintendo wii is one of the best I have ever seen, I have a DSi and a r4i sdhc carte, now I have wii!!
Posted by: Carte ds | July 28, 2010 at 01:15 PM