Yes people the future is a big ass table.

Dammit. Given the title I was hoping for a game based on the prematurely killed sci-fi tv show.

@Darth Navster: Yep. Some browncoat's gonna come in here and get pissed.

i don't understand, this is a sarcastic gamer video, but nothing about this is sarcastic?? It is a video showing off the REAL MS Surface and a REAL app for it...maybe Sacastic Gamer should change its name to Factual Gamer and then make stuff up, thus being inherently sarcastic...

Oh yea I much rather play that then.....anything else.
There is a plus side though. When the table RROD's its still usable as a table.

I could see a lot of people getting their fingers broken if this was in an arcade...

There was simply nothing impressive about that demonstration.

If it wasn't a new or cool technology, there would be no appeal to this lol. This is like hungry-hungry hippos only you don't get to smack the lever. I guess it's ok to pass the time while all hanging out at a coffee table but... >.>

It's really cool technologically, but obviously I don't think that in five years we will all be sitting around playing it.

That's a game? Hmm, didn't seem like there was a point to it

@Darth Navster: That's exactly what happened to me.

if that becomes real i expect someone to smash the table because they got frustrated.

I like the idea of bringing physical interference into gaming. In the sense of trying to cover someone in basketball, for instance.

But does it have Achievements?

Am I the only one who thinks this is actually really cool?

Considering the lack of depth, I'll bet EA had a hand in making it =)

that was so unimpressive, I almost want to say "well done".

Needs more Joss Whedon.

Really, what "casual gamer" would buy Mircosoft Surface just to play firefly?

Would be pretty cool to make a warhammer 40k table top game, cept no expensive minis.

well, i guess one cool thing about that is that my mom could play it.. my grandpa could play it... etc.

it could be fun, and i saw like 5 jars... maybe 5 people could all play at once.

and once you started squishing other peoples fireflies.. that would add a fun element to the game as well.

there are definitely other games that i think i PERSONALLY would find more fun, but i do think msoft Surface does look pretty fuckin cool.

I dare say that the Surface table would make an excellent Hentai Game Console.

@Modus_Operandi: Zing!

Also, count me in the "disappointed browncoat group." A real firefly game needs to be more like this: [xkcd.com]

Looks nice, but that's about it.

Oddly enough though, this is still far superior to the show.

@Darth Navster: My eyes lit up when I saw the word "Firefly", and then they filled with tears when I saw it had nothing to do with that shiny show.

@Darth Navster:
I kinda knew it wouldn't be that, but hoped it would... Actually when I was watching Firefly was the same time I played Eve Online for a month...

Still, this looks like an ok casual title. Too bad Surface costs a zillion bucks and doesn't exist anywhere. :/

MS should use this technology to port board games into this format it would be kinda cool for those people who like playing board games.

oh my its old galaga nothing new.

Wow, this totally bores me.

I see this being useful for corporate brainstorming, maybe one of these the size of a boardroom meeting table, but that's about it.

Not impressed. There is a mini game in that "New Super Mario Bros" Nintendo DS game that basically involves the same idea, except using the stylus instead of your fingers. You try to collect a ton of like-colored little bomb guys and move them into pens.

@Darth Navster: Me too. When I realized it wasn't, I stopped caring.

They should have ported flaming finger.

Wait, so this has nothing to do with Firefly the show?

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Not shiny.

That's like Hungry Hungry Hippos in slow motion and sans hippos.

Curse the person who named this game D*:

Its totally a less-fun hungry hungry hippos. lame.

://www.hiptechblog.com/2006/04/02/video-multi-touch-table-demonstrated-with-warcraft-iii/

warcraft is much better on it.

@lifeinthefridge: No, it's just "Microsoft sucks" season. I like the squashing and blocking stuff, that's kinda neat. It'd be a keen little party game. I could see a Monoply-style game working on there, letting you "throw" the dice, move your piece, and pick up your cards. Tron cycles. Some kind of Tetris knockoff. Something along the lines of Mariopaint (especially the bug minigame). There's definitely potential, people are just being pessimistic and missing the point that it's just a tech demo.

"Aggressively integrate all 10 fingers"? Sounds kinky.

I'm ruttin' pissed.

I feel like Jayne Cobb when...well, on any given day.

This has nothing to do with the show!!!

@Rajio: To be fair, the Sarcastic Gamer guy did mention the possibilities for RTS games using a surface-like interface.

It's just a glorified tech demo.

@Darth Navster: my hopes have been quashed as well.

Merit the rumored firefly mmo is still out there with the White wold WoD mmo

Horrible game idea and execution. I saw this thing having some potential for the RTS genre where you could deploy your troops from your corner of the table. Not some lame "gather pixels into your circle" game. I hate it.The end.

wow what a stupid idea for a game... how about going outside during summer with a jar? that would be like super high def 3d!

@Darth Navster: Is there room for me in your club?

@Darth Navster: I have been deceived.

Goddamn you people are a bunch of miserable bastards...

If you people can't imagine this kind of thing in a bar, for one example, and the potential it has for games and gaming and bringing people to the gaming table (pun intended), then I suggest you stop playing video games for a while because it's obviously destroyed your imaginations.

I swear Kotaku had to be the inspiration for this:

If you payed attention, you might have noticed that this is still a rather 'newer' form of technology. As in 'not used much, especially commercially'. The new macbook will be the first real affordable thing that might incorporate multi-touch. But I might be wrong on this.

So there. Does that suffice for a reason why they just made a tech demo of a game that might never be deployed. To show off capabilities. To open new perspectives. It's a start.
Really funny how some people expect an rts, or a full fledged game for that matter. Almost no one has surface yet. It costs a part of your pure soul to get one in your home, but still they should have made a 'proper' game?

Personally, I found this quite interesting. I'm still waiting OLED and multitouch together, where they belong. But as far as new games and techniques go, this has me interested.

Dammit Microsoft and your misleading game titles

For a tech demo, it exhibits some cool ideas.

BUT if there WAS a game based off the firefly TV show, I would be the first to buy it.

hungry hungry glass jars??

He stated that this was a very simple tech demo to test the surface multitouch functionality and highly doubted it would ever be released. Why then would you guys express your complete disappointment and hatred for it. It is a little goofy tech demo is all, nothing more.

I personally think surface is awesome and I look forward to using it at the office in a number of ways.