LOS ANGELES—Hardcore Kinect games, a Halo 4 tease and the addition of live TV were the big announcements at Microsoft's E3 news conference Monday about all the new things coming in the next year for the Xbox 360.
LOS ANGELES—Hardcore Kinect games, a Halo 4 tease and the addition of live TV were the big announcements at Microsoft's E3 news conference Monday about all the new things coming in the next year for the Xbox 360.
Of the big-three console makers, Microsoft is the only one not unveiling new hardware at this year's gaming industry event, so the company focused on rounding out product offerings for Kinect, their motion-sensing peripheral for the 360 that turns it into a rival of the Wii and PlayStation Move.
While more than 10 million Kinects have sold since its arrival last November, there have only been 23 games released for it, and most are more family-oriented. In the next year, though, voice and gesture controls are coming for games like Mass Effect 3 and Ubisoft's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier games.
“The Kinect gives a crazy new level of strategic control,” said Ray Muzyka, CEO of Edmonton's Bioware, which is creating the much-anticipated Mass Effect 3. Onstage he demonstrated how to use voice control to control teammates in a firefight; with Ghost Recon, a way to customize weapons with gestures and voice was also shown.
Other new games with Kinect support coming out include the Madden 12, Tiger Woods and Star Wars Kinect, which lets you brandish a virtual light sabre and use Star Wars' fabled Force.
