After viewing the videos of Kinect (formerly known as Project Natal) my patience has been rewarded. I resisted on principle the idea of purchasing two consoles especially when one of them (the Wii) amounted to what I figured to be an intriguing, but fleeting, fad. With the advent of Kinect I am seeing a device that fulfils the promise that the Wii flirted with. A device that understands your movement not just in 3 dimensions (ala the Wii remote) but observes and understands all your actually physical movements simultaneously in a very detailed and intuitive way.

Game producer Ubisoft (see Assassins Creed, Ghost Recon, etc) appear to be the first developer to take on the fitness challenge with Your Shape Fitness Evolved. You can take a martial arts class or do some Yoga, you can even decide what kind of cardio coach you want and it seems to gauge how many calories you are burning during your work out.

The video on the site indicates that your Kinect device cannot only track your movements but give specific measurements about you (height, waist, chest) and actually evaluate the consistency and appropriate form of your movements. This is where I thought the Wii (and all its expensive peripherals) failed miserably, it could never tell the difference between a great swing or a flick of the wrists.

The detail with which Kinect appears to verify movements would surely lend itself to other applications mainly sports. Lets say I want someone to check my golf swing, or tennis form, or even my baseball stance. I cannot help but think of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall when Sharon Stones character was getting coached on her Tennis swing.

Imagine the possibilities!

I got my wife to play on the Xbox this weekend, I believe this is the first time she has tried  a video game in about 8 years, and she seemed to have a blast. It got me thinking about games I used to play when video games first captivated me. I then took that list and cross referenced it with Xbox Live Arcade list and this is what I came up with:

- Street Fighter II
- Pac Man
- Soul Calibur
- Gauntlet
- Golden Axe
- Prince of Persia
- Speedball 2

These each cost around 400 Microsoft Points ($5.00), that’s a grand total cost of $40. You cannot a buy new game for that amount these days!

The year was 2007, the location was the annual CES conference, the announcement included the promise of the IPTV on Xbox 360! 

We have had been spun a long tale and even though Mediaroom (U-verse) has made some great strides I am not seeing any of the promises being fulfilled. I am not sure who should catch the blame here AT&T or Microsoft so this serves as my small protest to both … Where is my integrated entertainment experience in the home!?

According to some reports this promise may come to Europe long before it gets state side. British Telecom is set to deliver on the promise of IPTV later in 2009, apparently their BT TV service has been flagging and they are hoping to be a barnacle on the ship of Xbox success.

I recently purchased an Xbox and I must say, considering that have yet to acquired a sports game, that I am very impressed. I got the Xbox 360 pro (with the 60gb hard drive) and this allowed me to take full advantage of the recent updates for the New Xbox Experience (NXE).

There is a metric ton of videos, demos, pictures, community games, themes and online goodness that really extend the entertainment experience of the Xbox. The interface is really intuitive and looks great in 1080p.

Netflix Instant Watch is a really significant addition and adds a really solid value, if you are in fact a Netflix subscriber. The only problem with Netflix Instant Watch is that there is a really limited movie list and it can take quite a while to find a decent movie for your Instant Queue. The HD movies streamed consistently without interruption and the picture quality was pristine.

The other problem is that you cannot add movies to Instant Queue directly from the Xbox, you have to go online via a PC, but the instant queue will update almost immediately. There was an announcement of a Netflix app for Windows Mobile so this should relieve that bottleneck (or maybe I could create a Media Center app).

The only real unresolved disappointment was the poor performance of Windows Media Center. While it only took a few minutes to connect to my home PC, once I got it up and running the controls were really slow (I mean in the order of 10-20 seconds per click). My network is running fine, it handles high def streaming with ease. So right now am I assuming there is some contention between the various apps that can share data from my Vista PC (Zune, Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center).

If the Netflix instant watch expands in a significant way this could change how I approach purchasing premium channels from my cable provider.

I am surprised that the marriage of Netflix and Xbox has not garnered more attention. The marrying of a movie subscription model (Netflix instant watch queue)with a HD enabled gaming system should be a massive game changer. Xbox gold members who are also members of the Unlimited Netflix subscription plan have access to an additional 12,000 movies. That is in addition to the approximately 20,000 titles available for purchase or rent from the Xbox Live Market Place.

If the stars align correctly this Christmas I may get an Xbox, if not there are other Netflix compatible hardware options that one should consider. This includes:

• The Netflix Player by Roku - MSRP $99.99
• LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Player - MSRP $349
• Samsung BD-P2500/BD-P2550 Blu-ray Player - MSRP $399

No matter what option you choose it should negate the need to purchase non HD premium channels from your cable provider, and it also offers a better option than mailing in DVDs. It could also save me about $150 a year.

As the closing on my house gets closer and closer I am starting to think more and more about the various digital services that are available in the greater Columbus area.  I think FIOS would have been my first option (up to 30 Mbps downloads and 5 Mbps uploads), however, this service is not available in any part of Ohio.

I am fortunate, however, to no longer be under the tyrannical rule of Buckeye-Express, who have made some kind of pact with the City Toledo to ensure that no other cable company competes on a level playing field. The two main cable providers in the Columbus Ohio area include, Time Warner (TW) and Wow Cable, with AT&T U-verse filling the role of young upstart.

I cobbled together the following information based on the cable companies web sites. TW has the advantage in the estimated download speeds and have a better price point than WOW cable. I am not much of a premium channel guy so the free channel offerings are not drawing me in to the WOW service. AT&T has 2 free receivers in addition to the DVR box which more than makes up for the $15 difference in the price offered by Time Warner cable services.

Info: As of 3/9/2008

So what intrigues me the most? AT&T U-verse! which by all accounts is powered by Microsoft Media Room. Hanselman mentioned this last year but they were not taking orders back then, they are now in full swing apparently. I am fascinated by the potential integration to my PC viewing pictures and\or music and videos, I am assuming through Media Center or some kind UPnP services.

I need to ask more questions about the potential Xbox 360 as it seems to be able to act like another receiver, I am definitely jumping the gun here as I do not have an Xbox yet, but with the current rumors about an increase in 360 storage I am tempted!

Of course the actual device software is designed to be a DVR interface with a dynamic MultiView (multiple picture-in-picture) capabilities that will allow you to have up to 16 Picture-in-Picture (PIP) ... I need to see that before I believe it.

My wife is pushing toward the AT&T solution and simply waiting for the phone service to be available in the near future. I think the choice has been made for me ;)

I am really trying to nail down my understanding of LINQ but with the current work load, MCP study (yes I am riding that train again) and trying to move into a new home, I am left with very little spare time. I would really love to get into the whole XNA development thing, however, it is tough to justify even more time in front of the PC that will ultimately result in my wanting to purchase an Xbox 360.

This is a very cool demo of the process of creating PC\360 games using the XNA framework. Unfortunately this is as close as I will get.

Video: 3D XNA From Scratch: 10 How To Access The Guitar Controller

When I was much younger I had access to a ZX spectrum (PC from the 80's, not sure if this made it state side) and was able to hack into the code of a Soccer management game (written in some derivative of BASIC), it always fun to give my self limitless funds! I would love to be able reverse engineer some the games they have out there now!

In a previous post I was wondering why microsoft had opted to use a point system completely independent of the currency that is prevalent in the governing country, which in the US would be the almighty dollar. I found this interesting explanation by Ben Barker as to why this sub currency might be useful

Why Do I Want to Use Points?
... the big deal here is that Points allow what technical types call "micro-transactions."

On the original Xbox Live, transactions had to be around five dollars U.S., the minimum for most credit cards. But with Microsoft Points, the price for most anything—maps, skins, levels, demos, and more—can be much lower than that. That's a big deal. For example, say you want to get one of the new maps for your favorite shooter, but you're not that interested in a few of the others. Lucky for you, Marketplace can offer each map individually for just a few points. Now that's savings.

In the future, you might even be able to redeem your Points for real-world objects, like hardware accessories for your Xbox 360 (note that this is speculative—at first, Marketplace will deal in downloads only).

What About User-to-User Transactions?
Though you won't be able to do it for a while yet, Microsoft eventually wants to enable Xbox Live users to buy and sell user-created content, which could prove to be the heart of the "micro-transaction" system. So, hypothetically speaking, I could create a new skin for Project Gotham Racing® 3 and use that skin when I win a tournament viewed by hundreds of gamers in spectator mode.

Big champion that I am, everyone who sees my skin when I'm racing wants it. I can then (again, hypothetically) post it up for sale in the Marketplace at, say, a dime's worth of points. Other users can get the skin for the price of a piece of candy, and I earn more points in exchange.

In hindsight I may have been prematurely critical of the points concept, I think the promise of user to user transactions is really cool, and I guess micro transactions would not be the cost effective with Visa or Master Card. I just hope this does not become a one way street. Will I be able to gain points and translate them back into real money?

PS the line up of movies and TV shows available from the Live Market Place is getting very impressive, I am hoping that the Zune gets access to this media too!