Eurogamer Expo: The Kinect Report

When reading various forum posts by avid gamers you get the impression that many people seem to want Kinect to fail, whilst many industry journalists tend to brush over the obvious issues with the device in the hope that the final experience will be on par with what they have been promised.

Complaints usually centre on the high levels of latency and inaccurate pointer tracking, both of which make the whole experience a rather flawed one. And while this is in fact very true, I can’t hep but feel that at least some have forgotten about the fun factor - the reason we actually gather round and play these things in the first place. Because whether or not Kinect actually works technologically as it should – which it doesn’t at the moment, at least not consistently – there’s no denying that the software can be incredibly enjoyable to play, especially for the casual crowd, in which latency is just another tech buzzword being thrown around in another write-up of the device.

That’s not to say Kinect’s lack of precision and pin-point accuracy doesn’t put a downer on things, because it clearly does. It does affect the gameplay, and it does reduce the feeling of immersion you get from almost being in the game.


Some experiences fare better than others. Kinect Sports for example, does in most of its games provide decent, and reasonably accurate full body tracking. Sure, there is noticeable latency, and the game does make allowances to compensate for the users actions in accordance with its own somewhat limited physics system. But it also delivers a more in-depth experience than anything the Wii has to offer in terms of similar software.

Compared to the PlayStation Move however, it feels like a backwards step. Sony’s motion control solution has completely proven itself with regards to featuring 1:1 accuracy with low latency precision. Kinect on the other hand, even now just over a month away from release, still has much to prove. And a load of promises, and conceptual gameplay ideas to deliver on.

The likes of Volleyball and Table Tennis in Kinect Sports actually shows some of that promise in the device. They’re both very fun to play, and feature pretty accurate tracking of your movements.


Table Tennis stood out more in this regard being comparative to its PlayStation Move counterpart in Sony’s Sports Champions. Latency was clearly higher of course, and like for like precision definitely seemed paired back in comparison. However, it wasn’t as far off as I originally expected. And using your entire body in combination with just your arm for movement and positioning seemed slightly more natural for me. Reaction time and accuracy was clearly reduced compared to the Move, and a lot of the time the tracking wasn’t as smooth or quite as precise as it could have been. Controlling the paddle in Table Tennis on the Move showed how much better the tracking was in Sony’s solution.


The same could be said about Beach Volleyball, in which your actions don’t always translate well into real-world physics in the game environment. The downside: It felt like the game was slightly on rails, slightly more in control than it should be. And the upside: It was both easy to get into and pretty enjoyable to play. Though, it remains to be seen how much depth each experience provides. However, this is something we won’t find out until the device actually comes into homes, away from controlled demonstrations, and limited playtests.


The worst game I played at the event for sure was Joyride. There’s very little to the experience as a whole. You play the game standing up, like with other Kinect titles, so there is no way in which to accelerate or to brake – the game does both for you. Instead all you do is steer your car around the track using both hands held out like you would when holding a steering wheel. Hardly inspiring, and overly simplistic. Occasionally you get the opportunity to boost, in which case you hold both arms close to your chest, and then thrust them forward in unison to activate it. You can also grab bonus items by reaching out to the sides whilst racing, and that’s about it.

Latency was noticeably higher than in Kinect sports, with there being a unmistakable amount of delay between your actions, and seeing them represented on screen. Whilst this may be understandable given the complexity of the full body tracking involved, and the processing required to pull it off, it was clearly apparent that most of the software just didn’t do it all that well. Joyride being one of the worst offenders.


Of course, Kinect isn’t aimed at the core gaming market. It’s currently aimed at the casual audience. And for them I think that it will work quite nicely. There’s no question that the amount of latency may be quite frustrating for some – think Motion Plus enabled Tiger Woods on the Wii and you have some idea of what I’m talking about - and that will definitely spill over into the people MS is aiming Kinect at. Though it certainly won’t be the be all and end all of the discussion.

Saying that the software on test at the EG Expo was clearly work in progress. Whilst I was surprised that Kinect was quick to scan in additional players, I was also disappointed to see how slow and inaccurate using your arm as a pointer was. It’s downright buggy at this point. In game things were noticeably better in all the titles I tried, though at this point in time, polish definitely needs to be made with regards to the smoothness in the overall body tracking, with less in the way of pre-scripted movements representing your actions on screen.

Disappointingly, nothing has really changed on the software side in nearly two years since the Kinect was first unveiled, since it turned from being a cool design idea into a workable reality.

The overall latency is still the same, and the errors in tracking are still unresolved. The only real difference is that Microsoft seems to have lost much of its initial imagination with regards to planned software for the device. This appears to have happened in conjunction with the reduction of tech powering Kinect. The lack of internal processing capabilities in the device, and a lowering in camera resolution does seemed to have limited what is really possible, to the point that many of the originally extensive, and rather creative experiences once planned are just no longer viable.

Saying that, software is still rampantly being worked on, having last minute touches added before release. Plus what we have here is just the first batch of titles taking a stab at using the technology. If it is indeed true what developers have recently said; that it’s squarely down to the software, more so than the actually hardware (though a little at odds with what we know about how the Kinect actually works), then things should change for the better with second and third generation games. I wouldn’t expect hardcore types experiences like Gears Of War and Halo however, as they would need a Nunchuck or Navigation Controller style add-on to work. But certainly something more fully featured than what we are seeing now.

Ultimately, the very nature of how Kinect works limits its potential compared to the PlayStation Move, which is not only considerably more accurate, but is obviously more versatile as well. Though it will no doubt over time find its footing with specific genre types, and different kinds of experiences outside the traditional ones expected, it has much to prove before it lives up to expectation. That is, if more developers actually get creative when working on new software for the device. Rather than dishing out the same old stuff the Wii crowd is beginning to tire of.


The one area in which Kinect currently does succeed is fun. However you feel about the latency, or mixed results of early body tracking, you can’t argue that although bizarre, and at times rather pointless, it still brings something mildly enjoyable to the table. Maybe Kinect isn’t the deepest motion control experience around, being initially quite shallow. But some of the games are in fact very fun to play, and will no doubt bring both friends and family together for some loose and decidedly non-serious gaming sessions.

I’m willing to bet that this will be one of the most popular things in gaming this Christmas. It’s different enough from the Wii in order to make it interesting, and not bad enough to be utterly forgettable. Despite not living up to it’s initial claims of truly ‘making you the controller’, and delivering on the promise of having new innovative experiences, it is far from the disaster many people on forums are making out it out to be.

Tech Report: Kinect - The Latency Question

There has been much talk about the high latency surrounding the Kinect, along with the heavy burden caused by the additional CPU usage that is needed to run the more complicated Kinect games. However this doesn’t have to be the case, and recently in an interview with CVG, Blitz Games and chief technical officer, Andrew Oliver revealed that they have developed a way around the limiting latency factor.

“There are various technologies involved. Some people are using a skeletal system, and it takes a little bit of time to calculate. It’s only a split second. We're actually using a different masking system, which can tighten things up. But this is all software-based, so where some people might see some little cracks, they're easily fixable by software. That is, the camera fundamentally works and gives you the input; game designers are running forward in a completely new area and learning this stuff. It's like any console. The first few games will look like nothing compared to second and third generation.”

He then elaborated on the question of how much lag can we expect to see using their approach, and how cleaver coding can almost eliminate it.

“It depends on what technology you're using. I have seen a few games with a bit of lag, but that is the software choice of the creators; they've programmed it a certain way, and they'll come up with new techniques. We will tighten and tighten it. There doesn't need to be a lag. We can get it down to maybe two frames behind, which is pretty insignificant; you won't notice. We're just learning new tricks. Ours is pretty tight.”

His comments make for interesting reading. Although we have always known that it was down to software in determining how the image is processed, we had no idea that the system in place was so flexible, that the developers can choose what data they want to use from the Kinect.

Ultimately, the way that Kinect works will always produce some lag, even if it is just a very small amount. There is no way around this. The device still needs to provide data to the Xbox 360 console in the form of a depth map, plus RGB camera image, whilst also performing basic set up routines with the sound sensor, before then transmitting it down the USB 2.0 cable to the machine, all of which results in a small amount of fixed lag.

In addition there is more lag added on top of this when the data gets processed by the 360 console. The amount of lag which takes place here depends entirely on how the developer chooses to interpret, and in turn use the data. They may choose not to use the RGB camera layer, instead simply relying on the depth map information, or they could just bypass any skeletal tracking altogether, thus saving on overall processing time but also resulting in lower latency but a more basic motion tracking system as a result.

Indeed, what we now know is that it’s the developer that decides which parts of the system to take advantage of. In effect they can choose to you all, or none of the above tracking methods according to what kind of experience they are looking to create. This means that they could produced a fairly basic game not too dissimilar to something you’d find on the Eye Toy, but with minimal lag. Or something which uses the full extent of the full body tracking available when using the depth map plus RGB camera image combined, resulting in a highly accurate and advanced experience, just at the expense of having noticeably more lag.

For project at Blitz Games they seem to be towing the line between the two. Although we can’t be sure as to how much complex data they are choosing to discard, we do know that to get the overall latency down to one or two frames, that you’ll effectively need to scrap most of the depth map information and forgo advanced skeletal tracking. Essentially, pairing back the image processing down to a bare minimum of what the Kinect can do, whilst also trying to maintain some of it’s more trademark features.

Having a less laggy system is always preferential with regards to any control system in gaming, whether that be a standard control pad or a motion-tracking camera. However, in this case finding a cleaver solution to the issue might also negate some of, or most of the additional features that the Kinect provides over other motion controllers.

You could argue, that what is the point in getting the lag down to one or two frames when you are having to cut back on many of the things which in essence makes Kinect so special. If you’re not going to be doing motion tracking, and just taking advantage of the standard RGB camera then why bother to use Kinect at all. Especially when a simpler solution such as the PS Eye could well be enough to handle the type of software you are trying to create.

So, assuming that Blitz Games aren’t using any kind of depth buffer at all for their title, then Ubisoft could easily convert the game over to the PS Eye with minimal issues. Effectively, if you’re only using a full-colour video stream to create image information for processing then you can do the same using other basic camera systems, thus defeating the point of using Kinect.

However, it is likely that the depth buffer is being used in some way with regards to determining specific object tracking with the final image, even if it isn’t as fully featured as the system used in Microsoft’s own titles. The depth buffer provides valuable information allowing you to single out certain objects for tracking without having to isolate them from an entire full colour image in order to pick out the specific parts in which to track. Using the depth buffer for this purpose would also cut down on the amount of processing that needs to be done. Again, highlighting another plus point for reducing latency with Kinect whilst still taking advantage of some of its advanced features.

All this is simply based on an assumption on what Blitz Games are using with their custom software solution. But without knowing exactly which parts of Kinect they are using, and to what extent, it’s a fairly moot point at this stage. Although it does beg the question of whether it is actually possible to produce a nearly lag-free experience when using any kind of advanced body tracking features with the device.

One thing we can say for sure though, is that titles featuring low latency are probably not using the skeletal tracking system, and that titles which have a noticeable amount of lag are. It’s really that simple, though not in terms of getting the low latency solution to really work effectively.

For Blitz Games solution they have taken to using the GPU of the Xbox 360 along with performing some less strenuous calculations on the CPU. So far most titles we’ve seen use the CPU to do most of the work, and according to Oliver doing it this way can be pretty slow in comparison.

“Well that's interesting, because obviously if you're trying to run your game and look at these huge depth buffers and colour buffers, that's a lot of processing. And it's actually processing that a general CPU is not very good at. So you can seriously loses half your processing if you were to do it that way. We've found that it's all down to shaders, but turning a depth buffer into a skeleton is pretty hardcore shader programming. What you tend to do is write all your algorithms, get it all working in C++ code, and then work out how to now write that in shaders.”

What he’s describing here is how the team at Blitz Games are effectively doing all the depth map processing and skeletal tracking on the GPU using customised shader routines.

“The GPU on the Xbox is very powerful but we've all only been using it for glossy special effects. A really good example of this is Kinectimals, as the most intensive thing that you can do on a GPU is fur rendering. So that GPU is doing all the fur rendering, and I can guarantee that it's also doing a lot of image processing too. It's brilliant that the Xbox has a really good GPU and can handle both these things, but actually writing that shader code to do image analysis is hardcore coding at its extreme!”

Like we mentioned earlier having the GPU handle the processing of all the image data from the Kinect can be incredibly difficult. Although the GPU definitely appears to be more suitable for such a task, it’s just that writing code to take advantage of that requires looking at the problem from outside the box. Now while this is pretty commonplace in PS3 development, on 360 it’s a far rarer occurrence. However it seems that for anyone looking to provide a different Kinect experience, that’s exactly what you will have to do.

Certainly, from the comments coming from Blitz Games’ Chief Technical Officer we can expect titles using the GPU to not only have lower latency, but also retain some of the advanced skeletal tracking feature specific to Kinect. Oliver describes how he and his team are already working within two frames of latency, which should translate roughly to around 132ms lag on top of what your HDTV is already adding to the signal.

Comparatively, top titles which run at 30fps, such as Halo3, are displaying 100ms of lag on top of your HDTV processing delay, and Sony’s own Killzone 2 is said to feature at least 150ms on top of that also. By contrast many first-party Kinect titles are operating at 200ms plus input lag.

When looking at these numbers it is clear that having around 132ms lag in a best case scenario is actually rather good, and is inline with what we expect from most ordinary games running at 30fps. Even Criterion Games’ Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit exhibits at least 100ms of lag at present, with the developers hoping to reduce that down to below the 90ms mark.

Playstation Move also operates within the same basic threshold, with the system capable of delivering games with only around 1 or 2 frames latency; that’s around 66 to 140ms lag on top of your HDTV. This means that through a custom approach to processing data, Kinect is more than capable of matching the Move’s higher numbers with regards to latency.

So, what has become apparent today is that games specifically created for Microsoft’s Kinect don’t necessarily need to have high levels of latency, with the overall complexity of the motion tracking method used signalling just how much lag will or won’t be present.

This also means that there will be a correlation between the kinds of games you can expect to have high latency on the Kinect to the ones that don’t. Titles which use the full potential of the device’s advanced body tracking capabilities, such as yoga or fitness games, are also the ones which will feature noticeably more lag. However, they will also be the ones to really demonstrate how different Kinect is compared to other motion control solutions.

Replicating your movements and translating them to your TV screen accurately is exactly why most people will be buying a Kinect, regardless of the latency. If the experience provides something far in excess of what was possible on the Wii, or on PS Move to the same degree, then it won’t really matter all that much.

What does matter however, is that developers have finally confirmed that they do indeed have a solution to the problem. Performing image analysis on the GPU is clearly said to be faster than MS’s own CPU solution. Plus, there’s always the choice of circumventing some of the full-body tracking in order to use a simpler system whilst still taking advantage of the device’s ability to generate a depth map.

In the end gamers will be sold on Kinect not simply by how much lag they encounter, but by the types of experiences on offer. And if those experiences do indeed manage to bring something fresh and innovative to the table, then adjusting to a little lag here and there isn’t likely to influence their decision to jump in. So, whilst the device might not be suitable for the types of ‘core’ gaming experiences we know and love, that’s not to say that other ones which can possibly cater to those, and casual users, won’t in turn come along and provide the best of both worlds with regards to low latency and advanced body tracking.

Ultimately, it’s going to take one or two years to really see the benefits of this technology, and like when learning new console hardware for the first time, cracks and small niggling issues are going to have to be worked out. Perhaps fittingly, this is also a statement echoed by Blitz Games, who believe that the kinds of experiences that you’re going to be getting in second or third generation of software will be far over and above what we are currently seeing today.

All that’s now left is for developers to really spurn their creativity by fully taking advantage of the various coding tricks and optimisations they’ve learned. And of course, for Microsoft’s marketing department to convince people that Kinect is really worth that £129 price of entry.

New Xbox 360 Announced, Kinect Pricing Revealed

Yesterday we brought you our in-depth hands-on with the new 250gb Xbox 360 S, and a few days before we reported that a potential replacement for the 360 Arcade was on the cards. Well, today Microsoft officially announced not only the brand new version of the ‘Arcade’ console, but also full pricing details and bundle information for Kinect.

For the latest version of the 360 Microsoft have dropped the ‘Arcade’ suffix instead naming both the current S and the new machine by their memory capacity. The 4gb Xbox 360 becomes the new entry level console, and will be released on 3rd August in North America, priced at $199.99, and 20th August in the UK for £149.99, with the rest of the world taking delivery of the unit sometime later this month.


This new 360 will have 4gb of flash memory instead of a 250gb hard drive, whilst keeping the full functionality and other features of the 250gb model, including the built in Wi-Fi adaptor. The hard drive used inside the 250gb slim will also be compatible with the new model (in which the expansion bay is empty), although Microsoft currently have no plans to release it separately, or in any other sizes at this point in time. You can probably expect another announcement about this later on down the line.

Like with the 250gb 360 S that launched last month in the US, and last week in the UK, the 4gb version will feature the very same slimmed down design, complete with the trademark chrome highlighting and touch sensitive buttons. However the shiny aesthetics of the 250gb S model has been discarded for a more favourable matt finish, much like the old model 360’s and PS3 Slim.

Along with confirmation of the Xbox 360 Arcade’s replacement Microsoft also announced full pricing details for Kinect, both as a solus bundle (Kinect + game) and as a package with the new 4gb 360 console.


Kinect will be released sometime this November (date to be confirmed) and will come bundled with Kinect Adventures. The device will retail at $149.99 in the US, and £129.99 in the UK. All first-party software will retail for of $49.99, and £39.99 respectively. Third-party games will have no baseline retail price, with the publishers of individual titles being able to set their own price brackets accordingly.

Both the Kinect and 4gb Xbox 360 S console will be available as a package. It will be available the same day Kinect launches and will retail for $299 in the US, and for £249.99 in the UK.

Microsoft also confirmed that around 15 games will be available at launch, with a large selection of first and third-party titles being available.

On a final note, the revelation that the console and Kinect bundle will contain the 4gb version of the machine is perhaps unsurprising.

Previously many people suspected that the Kinect + 360 would contain the higher-end model of the console. However, this simply isn’t the case with Microsoft opting to instead package their entry level model with the device in order to maintain a cheaper price point. Interestingly this puts the machine and Kinect in the same bracket as the stand-alone 120gb PS3.

Editorial: Kinect - The Price Of Admission

The price of any new product is always hotly debated, especially when the item in question is being positioned for consumption by the mass market, the largely mainstream segment of gaming society. This is exactly what has been happening this past week with Microsoft’s Kinect. Ever since the estimated launch price for the US was revealed, people have speculated on how much the device would cost in the UK; how much it should, or would need to sell for in order to be successful, no more so than when ShopTo.net revealed what it believed would be the price for the unit here in the UK.


North American retailers have been pricing the Kinect at $150 for the last couple of weeks, which roughly translates to around £100 in direct conversion, and allowing for other market factors to effect overall cost. At the end of last week UK site ShopTo.net started taking preorders for the device set to cost £129.99 in the UK. Or so they are estimating. Many other retailers have also spoken out on how much they think Kinect will retail for when it hits the UK in November this year. A vast majority believe that anything from £100 to £150 is possible, squarely in the range of Nintendo’s Wii console, and firmly ahead of Sony’s PlayStation Move.

The price then, roughly equates to a direct, or near thereabouts conversion between US and UK, with the overall bracket set to ensure the best return for Microsoft but not the most value for money for consumers. Playstation Move on the other hand, is relatively cheap. It has a confirmed RRP of just £59.99 for both the Move controller and PlayStation Eye camera. The Navigation controller will go on sale separately for £24.99, taking the total cost of getting the complete Move experience to just £84.99, some fifteen pounds less than the £100 entry price so many retailers believe is necessary for the Kinect to have widespread success at launch, outside the standard core Xbox 360 user.

Speak to any retailer, or in turn most market analylists, and they will tell you that a sub-£100 price point is absolutely essential to drive forward sales aimed at the casual market - the Wii’s market. Many in that market won’t already have a 360 console, so in essence Microsoft would need to provide both to the consumer at an almost impulse buy price, something below £200 but confortably above the Wii. Though, for this to happen they need to have the base Kinect unit selling for somewhat lower than the £130 ShopTo.net seem to be suggesting.

£79.99 for the Kinect on its own, or maybe with one bundled set of mini-games is exactly the price tag most retailers in the UK, both on the high street and online want to see. A price tag that appears instantly more affordable to the casual user - something that isn’t going to break the bank, and that will tempt them in on there own accord. Suffice to say, that might not be happening, and might not actually be possible, as various sources have stated that the Kinect actually costs close to $150 dollars to make, meaning that Microsoft will be loosing money on every sale, or at least only just breaking even.

In that sense you can see why the company is being rather coy with UK pricing. Perhaps it is testing the waters, seeing how much interest there is for the device if it was to be priced up at over the £100 mark. And in this regard the low amount of preorders as reported by ShopTo.net seems to show that there is very little.

Of course it may not just be the price putting people off. At E3 most hands-on reports of software for the Kinect was poorly received, plagued by a high amount of lag, and a lack of any real precision when tracking player movements. Now, whilst this is unlikely to matter to the mainstream consumer – who is likely just to see the device and think ‘that looks like fun’ no matter the technical issues – it does create a negative buzz around the unit somewhat, especially when the PlayStation Move has already started to prove its worth in games like Socom, in which the response time and accuracy is said to be incredibly impressive - a substitute for the standard DualShock controller. You then begin to see just how important it is for Microsoft to get the launch price right. Too little, and they loose too much money for it to be viable as a way of propping up 360 sales, and too high, and they’ll fail to attract the mainstream consumer.

And that’s the point. Unlike PlayStation Move Kinect isn’t designed to be some kind of hardcore device that also plays up to the casual market. It IS designed and aimed at precisely that particular market, and in order to meet the needs of that market has to be priced accordingly. The Move can been seen as a premium product as such, tied in with the PlayStation 3 brand but at a fraction of the cost of what ‘premium’ means to most people. Microsoft on the other hand, seem to be aiming Kinect at everyone but at a higher more premium-like price tag, if ShopTo.net have in fact got their estimations right.

So, I think it’s clear that in order to guarantee the success that Microsoft would like it is essential that the price of Kinect stays low, around £100 would just be the clincher, though at £79.99 everyone can be tempted in for a go. And ‘guarantee’ they must, as Nintendo’s Wii can be picked up for as little as £149.99 in most places, and for £169.99 with a game in others. Move also looks very attractive in its £59.99 guise, and especially at around £85 for the whole set.

Microsoft definitely needs to consider these things in addition to their target audience – they don’t appear to have the sometimes fanboyistic nature of the core gamer behind Kinect – and perhaps should meet at some kind of compromise. After all, while the device sounds promising on paper it has failed to back up any of its initial fanfare with any revolutionary, must-have pieces of software, something that the Move is slowly heading towards with the likes of Killzone 3 and Socom.

At the end of the day both companies need to come out flying, and so far neither of them has done anywhere near enough to justify a massively successful, sell-out launch. Pricing aside, the quality of software for both Kinect and PlayStaion Move leaves a lot to be desired. You need more than just a bunch of Wii-too mini-games, or a singularly impressive, hardcore experience in order to make this work. You arguably need a bit of both, coupled with the right price tag to boot. Just look at the Wii as an example, it’s a perfect combination of brilliant marketing, and some solid, but overly sparse, high-quality software.

The price given for Kinect on ShopTo.net is just an estimate, and not the final RRP of the unit. Microsoft have yet to set a final retail price for the device, although most reports strongly place it in the £100-£150 price bracket.

'Project Natal' Evolves Into Kinect

At last year’s E3, Microsoft gave us a tantalising glimpse at their entry into the world of motion control gaming with ‘Project Natal’, a control system which foregoes the actual use of a physical controller and instead places you, the user, as way of directly manipulating the action on-screen. The demos for the unit showed members of the associated press and readers alike just how much further the concept of motion could be pushed, taking the game literally into the living room. Finally that concept has been given a name.

Last night at their Cirque-du-Soleil event in Los Angeles Microsoft pulled back the curtain on ‘Project Natal’, revealing the final name for the device as the ‘Kinect’ referencing both motion and the idea of bringing people together for new gameplay experiences. They also showed off the final ‘Kenect’ hardware, which looked smaller, and slightly sleeker than the early prototypes demonstrated at previous events.


A list of titles for the ‘Kinect’ was announced, with games varying from family sports titles, a multi-game action title, a racing game, and a virtual pet simulator of sorts.

First was Kinect Sports, in which MS showed off bowling, tack and field, soccer, and volleyball. It appears to be direct competitor to Nintendo’s Wii Sports, but somewhat more advanced, although not always completely accurate with some journos sighting a lack of 1:1 movement and lag as the main cause.

Next up Kinect Adventures. This looks to be a compilation of on-rails action mini-games, and both a rafting game and mine-cart ride were shown. The aim of the title appears to be collecting various goodies by reaching out to grab them whilst maintaining the speed of the raft or cart. Jumping speeds up the raft, and at certain points in either game players have to strike a pose for the camera adding to the fun.

Kinectimals is the resident virtual pet game for the device, featuring an array of big cats instead of cute little pooches and bizarre fictional critters. Users were able to pet and play with the on-screen cats, along with trying to teach them tricks and throwing them a ball. It looks like a glorified Nintendogs-meets-Invisimals from what I can see, definitely something that could catch on with younger gamers.

Kinect Yoga & Tai Chi was Microsoft’s answer to Nintendo’s Wii fit. The demo shown saw an avatar guiding you through how to do certain moves, and an outline of yourself next to it demonstrated how well you were doing. From what we’ve heard, the Kinect’s full body tracking will allow far more precision in the game’s monitoring of your movements compared what is available with the Wii fit and balance board, although only a sample of stuff was shown.

Joy Ride was the obligatory racing game, though apparently one of the least impressive of all the titles showcased. A simple arcade racer, you hold your hands out like you would when holding and real steering wheel and turn them to move left and right. Leaning in either direction pulls off a powerslide of sorts, and waving your arms around makes you do tricks.

Dance Central: Self-explanatory really. The game uses the camera to track your moves as you attempt to follow the prompts on-screen.

By far the most interesting title revealed though (and the one likely to be most wanted by hardcore gamers at the event) was non-other than a compatible Star Wars game.

Kinect: Star Wars visually looks much like the Clone Wars CG series aired on Sky, and is an on-rails light sabre battling experience. The player looks to be moved around on-screen automatically whilst they wave their arms around to perform Light Sabre slashes, (blaster shots can be repelled like in the films) and can use force powers by thrusting their hands back and forth. The demo ends in a cool duel against lead villain Darth Vader.

Outside of compatible games, Microsoft also revealed a brand new Dashboard interface that used the ‘Kinect’. Various applications such as Facebook, Twitter and a program that allowed both photo sharing and video chat with friends were shown. Icons on-screen showing the different programs could be selected by simply pointing at them, and control once in the selected program was handled using motion and gestures with the ‘Kinect’

Lastly, Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda announced that the ‘Kinect’, along with six separate software titles would see a release on 4th November in the US with a worldwide launch thereafter. No indications of pricing structure or a hardware and software pack were revealed, with such information likely to be forthcoming closer to launch.