kinect posts

So we know that Blizzard is at least thinking about making games for consoles again but this newly released April Fool's Day 2011 video shows that the company is further along than we might have thought. Yes, StarCraft II is coming to consoles and yes it has Kinect motion sensing support.

Seriously this video shows how people who play games with this motion controller look, well, rather silly. It goes to the extreme in this parody video where ... well that would spoil the final surprise. Let's just say that playing with a motion sensing controller can cause some physical issues.

It was only a matter of time, we suppose, before someone figured out how to get the Xbox 360's Kinect motion controller camera to work with Garry's Mod. The popular Source Engine-based sandbox PC game/mod hybrid now has the Kinect treatment via a third party hack program.

This Kinect hack comes surprisingly from an engineer who works at the Yelp web site (yep, the site that's about displaying reviews of restaurants and the like). You can see the results in the trailer after the jump where he uses the Kinect controller to mainly kick around objects and even rag doll characters around. You can also download the actual code at the GitHub.com web site.

[Via Blue's News]

Kinect is finally and officially getting some official PC support from its creator Microsoft. The motion sensing camera-controller that was released for the Xbox 360 console last fall will be getting a free Windows 7-based SDK from Microsoft. The software tools will be made available sometime this spring and will be for "academic researchers and enthusiasts".

That means that anyone can create PC Windows 7 apps for the Kinect hardware with the SDK tools from Microsoft and release those apps for free (there is no support for commercial Kinect software under the SDK). As we have reported in the past few months, lots of software developers have already created their own PC applications that support Kinect including playing games like World of Warcraft and Minecraft with the device.

So ends another week. Next week is actually kind of slow in the new game release market but we think there will be some interesting news down the pike anyway.

• Steam has new automatic updates for NBA 2K11, ProtoGalaxy,and Monday Night Combat.
• The latest PC Kinect mod lets you become Superman ... sort of.
• You can now listen to two music tracks from Dragon Age 2 from composer Inon Zur.
• A new patch for the Dawn of War II Retribution multiplayer beta test is now available via Steam.
• Will Wright's interactive TV drama series Bar Karma debuts tonight on the Current TV cable network.

We have seen what third party developers have done with PC hacks and programs for the Xbox 360's Kinect motion camera controller over the past few months. However Microsoft has yet to offer up any official PC support for the device. Now a listing of an panel for the upcoming 2011 edition of the Game Developers Conference hints strongly that Sony might be offering official PC support for its Playstation Move motion controller.

The panel, titled "Update on PlayStationMove Development (Presented by SCEA)" states that among other things it will "discuss the new Move Server project that will make it possible for academics and hobbyists to develop software using the PlayStation Move controller on their own PCs." The panel itself will be held on March 2.

[Via Kotaku]

Wow. Yet another busy day for PC gaming. I know there's a lot of people who are highly skeptical of what Duke Nukem Forever will be like when its finally released. Personally we just want to shoot things and laugh at the inappropriate jokes. If it can deliver on those low expectations we will be happy.

• Steam has a new update for Rush that adds three new levels to the puzzle game.
• Want to see the character on the front of the Fallout New Vegas cover in real life? Here you go.
• Speaking of Fallout, this video shows that the game's conversation system doesn't work in real life.
• A fan of the original Dead Space got to create one of the signature kill moves in Dead Space 2.
• And finally, the Kinect Minecraft hackers can now animate their creations. Cool.

Our apologies for the somewhat scattered news postings today. Things should be back to normal tomorrow.

• Steam has a new automatic update for the beta of Monday Night Combat as well as Star Ruler.
• PC gamers are not happy that they won't get a demo of Bulletstorm. Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski feels their pain.
• Spoiler Alert! Playing Deus Ex Human Revolution will apparently take about 25 hours or so to complete.
• Here are more "Kinect PC drivers are in the works" rumors for you.
• Everquest II Destiny of Velious pre-orders are scheduled to begin on Tuesday.
• Four words: Paper Half-Life 2.

Minecraft remains the go-to game for creating weird in-game structures and now a programmer has figured out a way to link the sandbox game to Microsoft's Kinect motion controller for the Xbox 360. Specifically, the programmer can take a Kinect snapshot and then create a Minecraft-based file to have that info show up in the game.

Nathan Viniconis goes step-by-step on how this was accomplished on his web site. It's definitely on the technical side but if you can go through the steps you should be able to make some really interesting Minecraft structures. By the way, Minecraft is getting even closer to selling 1 million units. It should reach that point by sometime Thursday.

[Via Kotaku]

We have been seeing more and more interest in bringing motion controller features to the PC platform. ASUS and Primesense announced such a product last week at CES, and Razer demoed (again) its long-in-development handheld PC game motion controllers last week as well. Even Microsoft is now hinting that official PC support for the Kinect Xbox 360 controller is coming.

Now VentureBeat is reporting that another company is entering the mix. Start-up Omek Interactive showed off some games based on its SDK which it said is being used to make up to 20 motion controlled-based games. The above YouTube video shows off one of those games, made by Omek itself. It's an arcade racer called Galactic Surfers. There's no word on when or even if these games will be released.

There are a bunch of third party PC programs that are supporting Microsoft's Kinect and we've reported on a few of them in the past few months. But will Microsoft ever offer official PC support for its Xbox 360 motion sensing camera-controller? A BBC video interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, conducted during this week's CES 2011 event, seems to say, "Yes."

When asked directly about possible PC support for the Kinect, Ballmer states that Microsoft "will support that in a formal way in the right time." Hey, we do have GDC and E3 coming up in the near future, Steve. Both sound like the perfect venues for such an announcement.

[Via Engadget]