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Kinect Can Be Used For Real Games After All
The first bunch of games for Microsoft’s Kinect were…crude. Resulting in a fear from many gamers that the peripheral may not be cut out for more complex titles. Well, this Dead Space 2 footage might convince you otherwise. In it, you can see the guy – if this is legit – is almost literally playing…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 10, 2011 -
The Xbox 360 Experiences A Mid-Life Crisis In Japan
The Wii is easy to peg — family-friendly and fun. The PS3 is also easy to categorize — slick and high-tech. But in Japan, the Xbox 360 has a category of its own. And that’s starting to change. It was former Dead or Alive designer Tomonobu Itagaki who is quoted as saying that nobody buys…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 9, 2011 -
Gears Of War For Kinect An On-Rails Shooter, Says Source
Microsoft’s Kinect may get its first taste of hardcore flavor—made a little bit softer—in the form of an on-rails Gears of War shooter, pictured above, said to be in development for the Xbox 360. According to sources claiming to be familiar with the project, the previously rumored Gears of War Kinect project is indeed real.…
By Michael McWhertor Published February 8, 2011 -
Xbox Live Arcade’s House Party Priced & Dated
Microsoft’s next big Xbox Live Arcade push, the “House Party,” kicks off next week with the release of Contra spin-off Hard Corps: Uprising. When can you expect the rest, like Beyond Good & Evil HD and Torchlight? And how much? The five XBLA games arriving over the next five weeks will run between 800 Microsoft…
By Michael McWhertor Published February 8, 2011 -
Boy’s Xbox Spending Spree Bleeds His Single Mother Dry
This is Brendan Jordan. He’s 11 years-old and he racked up £1082.52 (US$1,743.90) on Xbox Live. And now, his 37-year-old mom, Dawn, is working two jobs just to make ends meet. “When I put my card details in 18 months ago I thought it was just for his membership to play online with his friends,”…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 8, 2011 -
Fanboy Or Gaming Hardware Loyalist?
In the first post-everything-changes edition of Speak-Up on Kotaku, GiantBoyDetective wonders who else sticks with one hardware maker for their video game platform needs. Anyone else only buy one brand of gaming system? I’ve only ever bought Nintendo consoles. The 3DS is next! I can imagine some people out there grew up on strictly PlayStation…
By Mike Fahey Published February 7, 2011 -
Why Conan O’Brien Isn’t Hosting An Xbox Live Show
Talk show Conan 0’Brien landed at cable network TBS after a brouhaha broke out on the Tonight Show. As previously posted, O’Brien could’ve inked a deal for Xbox Live, but didn’t. His producer now finally explains why. “The Xbox thing — a lot of the conversations were ‘well, it’s a show, but it’s not a…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 7, 2011 -
Draw Your Own Controller With This Kinect Mod
The march of mod progress has steadily delivered many cool things during the Kinect’s short lifespan to date. We can add another breakthrough: The ability to recognize hand-drawn buttons. This hack, by Garratt Gallagher, won Willow Garage’s recent open-source Robot Operating System contest. Here he draws four buttons with a piece of paper and a…
By Owen Good Published February 5, 2011 -
And Now A Spooky Kinect Ghost Story
In today’s spooktacular edition of Speak-Up on Kotaku, commenter HeyCarl relays the twisted tale of the Kinect player that wasn’t there. Okay, my sister was telling me about her friend who has a Kinect. One night recently she was playing it (not sure what game though) with her son and after some time the son…
By Mike Fahey Published February 4, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallMicrosoft’s First Console Adventure Was A Lesson In Failure
Like most other things associated with Sega’s ill-fated Dreamcast console, it’s been largely forgotten that the ahead-of-its-time machine featured the first ever console appearance (at least in terms of the console itself) for a company by the name of Microsoft. While Microsoft would of course enter the console business properly with the Xbox in 2001,…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 4, 2011 -
2010’s Most Popular Xbox Live Titles
Halo: Reach finished second to Call of Duty: Black Ops among the 2010 video game releases played most on Xbox Live. The annual rankings dropped yesterday courtesy of Xbox Live community guru Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb. In downloadable titles, LIMBO trailed Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, and Baby Maker Extreme was the top Indie game.…
By Owen Good Published February 3, 2011 -
Is This The First Kinect-Created Music Video?
Some music video directors spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on fancy special effects. Filmmaker Dan Nixon just spent $150 on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect to create the music video for Echo Lake’s “Young Silence.” I don’t know about the song, but the imagery in Echo Lake‘s “Young Silence” is quite eerie and haunting, thanks…
By Mike Fahey Published February 2, 2011 -
Mad Catz Is Making Official Wireless Headphones For The Xbox 360
Finding a quality set of headphones for the Xbox 360 just got a lot easier, as Microsoft teams up with peripheral maker Mad Catz to create a line of co-branded wired and wireless stereo headphones under Mad Catz’s Tritton brand. Mad Catz and Microsoft will be working together to design the headphone line, which will…
By Mike Fahey Published February 2, 2011 -
The Xbox 360 That Thinks It’s The End Of The World
The Xbox 360 was recently redesigned to make the thing look better. More stylish. If, instead, you’d like to lock it away behind a giant (and slightly terrifying) sci-fi gas mask, well, have we got the deal for you This is the C11 XBOX360 MLG Vault, which may look like an Xbox 360 case mod…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 31, 2011 -
Autistic Boy Branded A Cheater By Xbox Live [Update]
Julias Jackson is an 11-year-old boy living with autism, whose only real social interaction comes from playing online multiplayer games on Xbox Live, an activity that became more difficult when the Xbox Live team labeled him a cheater. Autism is a neural development disorder that is often associated with a lack of social and communication…
By Mike Fahey Published January 26, 2011 -
What’s The Best Game For Disabled Gamers?
That may sound like a tough one, but actually, the AbleGamers Foundation has an answer, and that answer is Forza 3. The Foundation, which exists to promote awareness and accessibility in video games for disabled gamers, selects once a year a recipient for its “Accessible Mainstream Game of the Year”. This is awarded to the…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 26, 2011 -
Kinect Delivers Its Ultimate Slap To The Face (Of A Small Child)
Start at 1:00 in. It’s OK to laugh. Because she survives. Actually, she doesn’t just survive, in the accompanying YouTube commentary her mother says “my daughter is fine” and “she doesn’t even have any bruises”, and commands us all to “watch it and laugh now!” If you say so, lady. The game in question looks…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2011 -
Hey, These Guys Are Playing Gears Of War 3
A seemingly harmless report from UNCTV in North Carolina on the local video game business has an unexpected treat: quite a bit of footage of people playing Gears of War 3’s multiplayer. It’s scattered throughout the clip, so there’s no one single spot you can jump to and see it all, but there’s plenty of…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 22, 2011 -
PS3 Missing Homefront DLC Because Sony’s Focused On Killzone 3, Says Studio
All downloadable content for the America-under-siege title Homefront will come to the Xbox 360 first, similar to extensions for other major titles in the past. Homefront’s developer said the PS3 missed out because, well, Sony’s not interested. “Sony really didn’t come to us and say, ‘We want to support you and get behind you.'” Kaos’…
By Owen Good Published January 21, 2011 -
Microsoft Offers PS3 Hacker A Present
George Hotz hacked Sony’s PS3, and then told everyone how to do it. That pissed Sony off, and the company is taking him to court. Rival Microsoft is ready to play nice, though. With a gift. Hotz, who also cracked the iPhone, blogged that he’s keen to get a Windows Phone 7. And Brandon Watson,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 20, 2011