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Xbox One's Kinect goes for $150 on its own October 7th
Ever since Microsoft cut its motion- and voice-sensor from the Xbox One package, the second version of Kinect has been in limbo. Sure, you could still get one if you shelled out $500 for the deluxe version of Xbox One, but there was no way to pick one up on its own. What if, say, a new Dance Central game for Xbox One were to be announced? Microsoft always said it would offer the device standalone, and now it's got a release date and price: October 7th for $150 ($50 less than the Windows version, for those wondering). Even better: Kinect on Xbox One comes with the aforementioned new Dance Central game. Not a terrible nod to the most important third-party game studio making Kinect games.
Spencer: 'I don't want the Rare brand to mean Kinect Sports'
Xbox head Phil Spencer has some encouraging words to fans of GoldenEye and Banjo-Kazooie development studio Rare. Speaking to CVG at Gamescom, Spencer said that the company is developing a new game - a new "Rare game." "I think it's about them thinking about the next game that's going to be the next 'Rare game' and really stand for what they are," Spencer said. "I know they've got some great ideas. I've not been up to Twycross for maybe six months, but I'm planning on getting up there this fall and seeing bits for the new game. But I know they're hard at work and Phil Harrison has been up talking to them." Rare was under evaluation earlier this year, after Microsoft revealed a Kinect-free Xbox One. Rare was the developer behind the Kinect Sports series, and with no more guaranteed Kinect, the studio's future seemed questionable. However, Spencer assured CVG that Rare was an "important" part of Xbox's future. "I don't want the Rare brand to mean Kinect Sports," Spencer said. "The Rare brand can be more valuable to them, to us and to gamers than that." [Image: Microsoft]
Watch the Microsoft Gamescom press conference right here [Update: It's over!]
The Xbox press conference, live from Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, goes live at 2PM CEST (8AM ET, 5AM PT, 1PM UK). In other words, any minute now. Watch the livestream right here and be sure to follow along with our liveblog straight from the press conference. Update: The stream may be over, but the good times keep on rolling. We have all the announcements from the event on hand, plus an archived version of the stream embedded below.
Microsoft Research project turns a smartphone camera into a cheap Kinect
Microsoft's been awfully busy at this year's SIGGRAPH conference: embers of the company's research division have already illustrated how they can interpret speech based on the vibrations of a potato chip bag and turn shaky camera footage into an experience that feels like flying. Look at the list of projects Microsofties have been working on long enough, though, and something of a theme appears: These folks are really into capturing motion, depth and object deformation with the help of some slightly specialized hardware.
Slim down at home with P90X for Xbox Fitness
Sure, there are already options for getting fit with the help of your Xbox console, and now one of the most popular in-home exercise options is offering more sweat soaked material. P90X for Xbox Fitness brings a 30-day version of the three-month slim down to your living room via the Xbox One (sorry, Xbox 360 owners) with five new routines to boot. The video-based workout curriculum will leverage the Kinect to keep an eye on your form along the way as well. As you may recall, trainer Tony Horton has already served up P90X and Insanity workouts for Redmond's fitness efforts, alongside Jillian Michaels and others. Forking over $60 today gets you the month-long challenge, and there's a downloadable calendar and nutrition plan coming next moth. Of course, Mr. Horton is along for every second of the action -- just in case you thought you were getting off easy.
Microsoft's Xbox revenue up 14% thanks to console sales
Microsoft reported an increase in revenue for the Xbox platform to the tune of $104 million, or 14 percent, in its fourth quarter results (ending June 30). Xbox One and Xbox 360 sales teamed with the company's Surface sales to boost its Computing and Gaming Hardware category by 23 percent for the quarter to $1.44 billion (an increase of $274 million). In total, Microsoft reported a 17.7 percent leap in revenue, from $19.9 billion to $23.4 billion in the past quarter. Microsoft says it shipped 1.1 million consoles during the quarter, which compares to one million in the same period of time one year ago. Just last week, the company said sales of its Kinect-less packages doubled Xbox One sales in June. As of April, Microsoft shipped 5 million Xbox One systems to date. Meanwhile, NPD reported a substantial lift in video game hardware sales across the board last week, an increase of 106 percent in June compared to the previous month. [Image: Microsoft]
The next Dance Central launches September 2nd on Xbox One
So the Kinectless Xbox One has arrived, and you're now left wondering if the motion sensor from your launch-era system will ever be useful for more than starting games and taking orders from Aaron Paul. Thankfully, it should for at least a little while -- Harmonix has announced that Dance Central Spotlight will be available to download from the Xbox Store on September 2nd. The $10 rhythm title will include 10 core songs from big-name artists (the full list is below), with five extra tracks purchasable from the get-go. If you're a veteran from Dance Central's Xbox 360 days, any tunes you bought in the past will carry over to the Xbox One. We can't promise that your Kinect will get much more attention in the long run, but it's nice to have a reason to keep the once-standard peripheral attached for just a bit longer.
Dance Central Spotlight shines September 2
Dance Central Spotlight electric slides through the interwebs into Xbox One on September 2. The core Kinect-required game, which includes 10 songs, will be $9.99. After that, there are another 50 songs to choose from, some of which were also revealed today. The game will be playable for the first time this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con. We've listed the 10 songs included with the game and those available for download after the break.
UK charts: Watch Dogs stands guard, market melts in heat
Watch Dogs notched its fifth UK number one this week, the most for any game in 2014, and that's all well and good. Frankly, the entire country is just too exhausted from the relentless summer heat to notice. Brits are so used to rain, clouds, rain and more rain, so prolonged heatwaves like this one tend to take their toll. Maybe the heat's even affected games retail in the country, with nationwide sales enduring a 14 percent drop in revenue from the week before as the heat ramped up. Then again, it really doesn't help when you're having a summer drought of new releases. Since the UK charts refuse to play - it's another week of tiny changes - we're continuing our run of music below the break. In the words of Avicii, wake us up when it's all over.
TMNT: Training Lair snapping at Kinect next week
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Training Lair will launch July 22, a source close to the game has informed Joystiq. Achievements for Training Lair along with purported screenshots leaked earlier this week, showing a Kinect-based TMNT spin-off reminiscent of Fruit Ninja Kinect. The Xbox 360 game is the culmination of a partnership between Paramount Pictures and Microsoft, not related to Activision as originally reported. Training Lair combines the Kinect's motion-capturing abilities with film assets to promote the upcoming film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The game launches roughly two and a half weeks before the movie hits theaters on August 8, and will be free to download. [Image @lifelower]
Hackers make Xbox One's Kinect work on a PC
Microsoft famously said the Xbox One Kinect wouldn't work on a PC, but hackers have already done the trick mere days after the release of the Kinect for Windows v2.0 SDK. As shown in the video below, they managed to rewire a USB 3.0 cable to pair it with a laptop, giving them access to the depth sensor. The pair work at Hyperkin (which happens to sell gaming accessories), and plan to make a retail version of the cable available. Kinect for Windows 2.0 is already up for pre-order, but such a cable could be handy if you can't wait to get one, or don't want to splurge for a redundant Kinect. The Xbox 360's sensor was hacked in a similar way, but the Kinect 2's hardware is far more powerful. On a PC, it could function as a motion capture device or map a 3D environment, to name just a few examples -- far more interesting applications than Just Dance.
MS: Kinect-less debut sees Xbox One monthly sales double in US
It looks like the Kinect-less line of Xbox One helped give the console a boost in June, when sales of the system in the US were "more than double" those of May. Microsoft announced the stat, revealing its internal data is based on its "retail calendar and sold through numbers," meaning they represent sales to consumers rather than shipments to retailers. The company didn't offer any hard figures in its announcement, including what proportion of sales came from systems without the Kinect motion sensor. We may get a clearer picture of the Xbox One's sales performance on July 22 when Microsoft presents its latest financial earnings release. In April, the company said it had shipped 5 million systems to date, while at the end of last year consumer sales were up to 3 million.
Disney taps Kinect 2.0 for kid-focused promotional campaign
Alongside its latest Cars spinoff, Planes: Fire & Rescue, Disney plans to unveil a promotional campaign powered by Microsoft's Kinect 3D camera peripheral. According to Dan Radford, head of digital marketing at Disney's UK office, the campaign will allow two children to control their own animated planes by extending their arms, bending their knees and leaning in various directions. That sounds simple, but similar, previous attempts using the original Kinect forced Radford to pair the peripheral with a high-definition camera capable of capturing real-time video at a quality suitable for big screens. That's no longer an issue, thanks to the high-definition camera found in the Kinect 2.0. "When you had a four-year-old kid interacting with [the Kinect] there had to be a certain distance [between the camera and the player], but it didn't always pick them up as well as we would have hoped," Radford told the BBC. "With this camera it just feels like the opportunity is there to create a more stable experience." Planes: Fire & Rescue stars the vocal talents of Dane Cook and Ed Harris, and will be released on July 18. Radford's promotional campaign kicks off "at the end of this week," though Disney has yet to reveal where this campaign will appear. [Image: Disney]
Report: TMNT - Training Lair has Kinect ninja skills, Pizza Hut boxes
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Training Lair features heroes-in-a-half-shell with Kinect power, according to recently published box art and achievements. Xbox Achievements (formerly Xbox 360 Achievements) published the cheevos and Kinect-tabbed box art this week, and it noted the publisher of the motion-controlled Xbox 360 game as Activision. The company does hold the TMNT games license, but it hasn't announced the game as yet, and there's no sign of it on any official Xbox listings. We've reached out to Activision to see if we can lure more info out of its shell.
Xbox One's Kinect sensor coming to Windows on July 15th
Microsoft's plan to bundle Kinect with the Xbox One may not have been to everyone's taste, but that's not stopping it from expanding sales of the motion-sensing peripheral. In fact, you'll only have to wait just over a week to get your hands on the second generation Kinect for Windows. We know because the company has updated its pre-order listing with the promise of shipment by July 15th. The sensor, which costs $199/£159, delivers better depth sensing, 1080p resolution, a wider field of view and various other improvements. Developers have been invited to publish their creations to the Windows Store, so there'll likely be more Windows Kinect apps to download than ever before -- good news if you're not interested in the Xbox One but have always wanted to wave your arms about in front of your PC.
Kinect 2.0 finds a home on PC July 15
The Kinect 2.0 may have split from the Xbox One, but it will be ready to find new love with PC partners soon. A Microsoft Store listing highlights a July 15 release date for the Xbox logo-less, PC-compatible 3D camera, meaning we can put Xbox head Phil Spencer's belief that people will still buy the Kinect to the test as soon as next week. The PC version of the Kinect 2 boasts a price tag of a not-insignificant $200 - $100 more than the price difference between a Kinect-less Xbox One and an Xbox One with the peripheral pack-in. [Image: Microsoft]
Forza Horizon 2 features Kinect-enabled assistant called ANNA
Road trips are a blast if you've got someone to talk to, but not everyone can just drop their life for weeks at time to attend driving festivals. You're an exception to that rule in Forza Horizon 2, but Turn 10 Studios Creative Director Ralph Fulton shared some good news with Examiner: Horizon 2 drivers will have a companion in a Kinect-supplemented AI partner called ANNA, which means the prime passenger seat real estate is open for a kickin' snack buffet. While ANNA probably won't keep your meal upright in hairpin turns, Fulton explained that she acts like a digital, navigation-savvy assistant. She'll suggest events to try, let you know when friends sign on and supply a recap when you slip back into the driver's seat. Sounds like ANNA will help you keep your eyes on the road then! When your view isn't darting between the windshield and your passenger side smorgasbord, that is. [Image: Microsoft Studios]
Just Dance is now an eSport
The realm of eSports isn't confined to fighting games, competitive FPSes, and MOBAs anymore. Ubisoft's Just Dance series has joined the Electronic Sports World Cup as the organization's first casual game. Just Dance competition finalists will be chosen during qualifying rounds taking place globally and online between June 24 and September 21. A group of 20 top players will then compete in a final round at Paris Games Week to determine the world's best money-maker-shaker. Awards will be announced soon. Players who would rather cavort in the privacy of their own homes can submit entries for the Electronic Sports World Cup through Just Dance's World Dance Floor mode during qualifying sessions on July 13, July 20, July 27, August 3, August 31, September 7, September 14 and September 21. [Image: Ubisoft]
Phil Spencer: Consumers love Kinect, they'll still buy it
Microsoft's recent, unexpected decision to offer an Xbox One without a mandatory Kinect camera peripheral will not drive developers away from the device, according to Xbox head Phil Spencer. "A Kinect game relies on the successful Xbox One installed base," Spencer told GamesIndustry. "I need to, as the head of Xbox, make sure that we've got a platform and a product offering that millions of consumers will love, and I stay focused on that." "We see millions and millions of people using Kinect today. We've had over a billion voice commands used," Spencer added. "Consumers love the device; they love the experience. They'll buy it. They'll either buy it at launch when they buy their console, or they'll be able to buy it after the $399 console; they'll pick it up and add it on later. And we'll continue to make sure that experience is great." Despite Spencer's assurances, reactions from Kinect developers have been less than positive. Staff at Harmonix, developer of Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, responded to the news with sarcastic glee, before officially stating, "As game makers, this platform change doesn't affect our strategy - it reinforces that we must continue to focus on building innovative, compelling and well-designed motion experiences to motivate consumers to buy our games."
