E3 2010: Microsoft Natal Becomes Kinect and Fails to Impress

 15 Jun 2010 - By Omar Mariño+
 omar@myddnetwork.com


Microsoft promised a lot with its Project Natal and it’s been all over the news and internet media for a year since its first sneak peak leaked but does the finished product stand up to all the hype or bow down to another console that does the motion control thing much better?

The big Microsoft Press Conference at E3 was the official launch of the new console gaming peripheral formerly known as Project Natal, yet Kinect failed to impress anybody with its “casual” gameplay and lackluster graphics.  Many of the press in the audience left comparing Kinect to Nintendo’s Wii, with good reason.

Though Microsoft has all along toughted how revolutionary their Kinect camera system will be, the games they used to showcase the device looked and felt like Wii games.  There was a pet game reminiscent of NintenDogs, a sport game very similar to Wii Sports Resort, and a Yoga game that felt much like Wii Fit without the added balance board.

So what does Kinect bring that we really haven’t seen?  The ability to record video and send video as messages across Xbox live and a whole lot of promises for what could be.  That’s right, more promises.  Promises of games that will truly utilize the full-body motion control including a Star Wars game (presumably Lightsaber related), promises about what the hardware and will be able to do with as yet undeveloped software, and promises that it’s not just a Wii knock-off.

What Microsoft didn’t give us was a price tag.  Hopefully, as underwhelming as the finished product seems to be, that tag will not be too big.




One Response to “E3 2010: Microsoft Natal Becomes Kinect and Fails to Impress”
» XBox console – New XBox 360: It’s ready for Kinect - New Gadgets for 2010 says:
June 16th, 2010 at 10:27 pm

[...] Of course, this new console includes an AV port that is intended to be used as a connector for the Kinect system. [...]



Disclaimer - Category: Videogame, Xbox