Microsoft Unveils Smaller Xbox 360 Model, Kinect Details

E3 kicked off today, and Microsoft took advantage of its early keynote presentation to show off a ton of new games and features for the Xbox 360. The biggest news for the very near future is that they're releasing a smaller, revamped version of the console, with immediate availability. It's black, it comes with a 250GB HDD and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi support, and it's priced at $299. Microsoft also put a release date on Kinect, the motion control scheme formerly known as Project Natal: November 4 in the US. It will launch with 15 games, mostly casual-oriented, several of which were demonstrated on-stage. Many new Kinect features were shown as well, such as the dashboard interface, video chat (with support for playing movies both parties can watch), and a partnership with ESPN to provide live and on-demand sports, all controllable with hand gestures and voice commands. (It presently includes college football and basketball, soccer, the NBA, and MLB.) Also notable is a partnership with LucasArts for a Kinect Star Wars game, a fitness game from Ubisoft, and a Forza racing game that uses Kinect and allows players to inspect the cars with an impressive level of detail. Engadget's liveblog of the event has a bunch of pictures from the demonstrations, or you can read a more detailed play-by-play at Ars.

Comments

ESPN

[tweek]

Kinect is exciting and I'll get it but the biggest announcement had to be the ESPN agreement. That's a cable killer right there depending on how blackout/regional rules apply.

Re:ESPN

[mgblst]

Yes, you are right. It is not for everybody. Congratulations on joining the camp that if it is not for me, then it is shit. Seems to be a very popular group here on slashdot.

Of course, some people don't spend all their time playing video games.

Re:Reliable?

[Pojut]

The primary cause of the old RRoD problem was excessive heat. The Falcon revision released a few years ago made great strides in reducing red rings, and the Jasper revision that came out about a year ago all but eliminated the red ring issue.

Considering this new version has better cooling and is based on 45 nm production, it will generate even less heat than the Jaspers. The chances of it having the same problems are practically nonexistent.

Re:"Custom kinect port"

[zaffir]

Yes. It'll connect to any 360. However, the custom port on the new XBox will also provide power to the Kinect, so that you don't have to have a separate power adapter for it.

Re:"Custom kinect port"

[Tordre]

The game trailer post show had that grey shirt guy on and stated the extra port is just for power, you can use it with an old xbox but you will need to plug it in to the wall separately.

Re:"Custom kinect port"

[kidgenius]

Yep, pretty much. But sony is still king of the "custom connector,"

Really?? PS3 uses standard USB cables for its controllers. It uses a standard harddrive inside you can easily upgrade. It uses standard bluetooth to connect any headset you want? Custom connector? More MS than Sony from a console standpoint

Re:nice...mostly

[Pojut]

You've got it all wrong. Kinect will be compatible with every version of the 360. The difference is, if you don't have a slim version, you need to hook it up via USB for the data and then a seperate power connector to plug into the wall. The "Kinect Socket" on the new revision would provide data and power, negating the need to plug the hardware into the wall.

That being said, I personally don't see myself spending the money on it.

Re:nice...mostly

[kjart]

That's all fine and well, except the new revision won't be compatible with external hard drives. Sooo...yeah.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you can just transfer your profile, saved games, arcade games to a regular old USB flash drive and then transfer all that stuff to a new console.

Re:Reliable?

[BitZtream]

Do you consider sounding like a small jet turbine to be a problem?

I do.

I'm wondering if that problem has gone away yet.

Re:Reliable?

[adbge]

On one hand, I own a release model 360 that is still running fine and has yet to RROD on me. Admittedly, I don't use the console nearly as much as hardcore gamers (or even casual ones, for that matter), but I don't typically take any special precautions with it other than keeping it in an open area and not leaving it on top of carpet.

I also have a part time job fixing 360s and, in my experience, the failure rate on the newer models is still significant. Probably not as high as the originals, but I wouldn't go pushing my luck by keeping the newer models in enclosed spaces. For every Wii or PS3 we get in, we get about 4-5 360s.

Kinect demo faked

[Jim Hall]

I'll admit, I was really impressed with the linked video. Until I watched it again and realized that it's faked. The person "controlling" the action isn't quite in sync with what's on screen. Sometimes the actor is slightly ahead of the "game" (could be lag, I thought) and other times isn't keeping up with what's on screen.

Even the linked video comments that the video is likely a scripted demo. But I'm not convinced it's real yet. (I'm sure it works, but clearly not ready for prime-time, nor even E3.)

Re:Kinect demo faked

[fcrick]

I also work at M$ (contractor!) but not on Kinect and those demos were definitely legit. My office happens happens to be near where it's worked on, and I've playtested it briefly on several occasions. I think today's demo and the hype doesn't nearly do the platform justice - I've already gone to GameStop to (try to) pre-order...it's frikkin' amazing.

If you watch the video carefully, you'll notice there are are essentially two types of use of the platform:

1. Most games seem to have a delay between when you move and when that movement shows up on screen. These games are either ones where you notice something you have to react to, you react, and then you see something happen after a delay, or ones where you sorta 'pre-act' moves you know are coming. If you watch the video where they are avoiding things on the track, you can see them move their bodies early, anticipating that the game won't get the move in time if they jump in time with what they see.

2. The dance game seemed to do a kind of post-analysis to see if what you did is correct - I think this is very similar to existing singing games out there - you calibrate it so you can sing with the music as you hear it, but the scoring mechanism doesn't come back with how well you're doing as fast as you're doing it. I'm pretty sure they must be doing the same thing here - you dance to what you see, and the scoring chimes in a moment later with "yup, that last move was great" or whatever. If you look on the right side you can see the upcoming moves - that's how you know what to do next - also you can see yourself moving on the right in a small box - i think if you look there you'll see yourself delayed.

Re:No blu-ray

[shutdown -p now]

Does Blu-Ray matter at this point?

Actually, yes, it does. Two of my (non-geek) friends are looking at buying PS3 specifically because of BluRay support - and said that otherwise they would have probably taken Xbox.