AllThingsD » Project Natal

Microsoft Loses a Top Kinect Researcher to Google

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:59:28 +0000

Microsoft Research’s Johnny Chung Lee, a core contributor to Microsoft’s Kinect, the highly successful gaming sensor, has joined Google to work on a special project.

Lee’s departure was first reported by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, who discovered the update on Lee’s Web page, where his title is listed as “Rapid Evaluator” for Google.

In a Jan. 18 blog post, Lee had very little to say about his new position, and spent most of his time praising his former babies, the Xbox and Kinect: “I look forward to seeing all the creative and unexpected ways that game developers will use the data from the camera to create fun experiences. The Xbox is exceptionally well positioned to do great things in the entertainment space.”

Microsoft’s Xbox has been selling well, compared to the other consoles in the space, led by eight million Kinects that flew off store shelves during the holidays.

If his past record is any indication, there’s no telling what Lee will do next. Among the projects he’s dabbled in, he lists: The Wii remote, giant paint-balloon slingshots, brain-computer interaction, kinetic typography, a poor man’s steadycam and more.

A CNET story about Lee’s contribution to the Kinect project, back when it was called Project Natal, explains how Lee gained attention for his projects using the Nintendo Wii to work as a head-tracking device, a multitouch user interface and more.

Another Wiif for Nintendo

John Paczkowski — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:51:29 +0000

Nintendo warned last month that its first-half results would be lousy, and this morning the company delivered on that promise, posting its first half-year loss in seven years.

For the six months to September 30, the Japanese gaming giant reported a $24.7 million loss as sales of hardware and software slipped. Nintendo sold 6.69 million DS units during the half, down significantly from the 11.7 million it sold during the same period last year. And it sold fewer Wiis as well–4.97 million, down from the 5.75 million it shipped last year. On the software side, things were equally dismal. DS software sales declined to 54.84 million units from 71.15 million units in 2009; Wii software sales fell to 65.21 million units from 76.21 million units in the same period a year earlier.

The beginnings of an ugly trend for Nintendo, which is fast losing momentum in a motion-enhanced gaming market in which its rivals are gaining it. With Sony’s PlayStation Move motion controller already at market and Microsoft’s Kinect for XBox 360 (Project Natal) headed there next month, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Wii–now about four years old–needs a full-on refresh.

Full D8 Demo: Microsoft's Project Natal (Now Called Kinect)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:15:50 +0000

As promised, All Things Digital is posting the full videos from our eighth D: All Things Digital conference, held in early June.

Today is our final video post, and the honor goes to Microsoft (MSFT) for its innovative Project Natal, which has recently been renamed Kinect.

The new gesture-based controller for the Xbox requires that consumer use hands, arms, legs and even heads to interact with the game, but nothing else.

To show it off, Walt Mossberg and I employed the services of my No. 1 son, Louie Swisher, who was aces at trying out the games. Me–not so much.

Here’s the video of the Project Natal/Kinect demo at D8:

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it bigger? Click here.

From the Branding Geniuses Who Brought You Zune, Bing and Kin: Kinect for Xbox 360

John Paczkowski — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:55:12 +0000

Microsoft’s Project Natal motion-control gaming system has a new name, Kinect for Xbox 360, and an official release date: November 4, 2010.

Announced along with a new, slimmer Xbox 360 on the eve of the Electronic Entertainment Expo during a special Cirque du Soleil performance said to be inspired by its technology, Kinect uses a 3-D camera and an array of motion sensors to track 48 points on the human body and translate them into in-game actions. Its official name, an amalgam of “kinetic” and “connection,” is intended to reflect that.

But like many brandings, “Kinect” is being met with criticism by some observers, prompting the inevitable “Kinect 4,” “you spelled connect wrong” and “should have called it the ‘Mii Too’” jokes. But as Stephen Tolouse, director of Xbox Live policy and enforcement at Microsoft (MSFT), noted in a blog post last night, Nintendo was widely mocked for choosing the name Wii, too.

“It’s interesting to me how much is put into a technology’s name,” Tolouse wrote. “I, like many others, decried Nintendo naming their new console the Wii. And yet look at how many units it’s sold. The trick is in the magic of the experience….”

Explaining his preference, Tolouse says, “I really like the name Kinect….Sure, it’s a made up word, and others have used it (try and find any pronounceable combination of six letters using the English alphabet that the Internet hasn’t combined). But I like that it isn’t something more common or mundane. The experience of using Kinect is deserving of its own descriptor.”

Expounding, Toulouse dissects the challenge of naming a new product, especially one already known by a code name: “It’s really hard when you have a cool ‘code name’ that lasts for so long to replace it with its true name, a name that it really deserves to communicate why it’s desirable. Code names are meant to be cool, as code names. True product and technology names are far more difficult. Marketing people get a really bad rap when they face a challenge like that and there’s often a lot of eye rolling and ‘what were they thinking’ that goes on. Coming up with these things is a high wire act with no net.”

Full D8 Tech Demo Video: Microsoft's Project Natal

Kara Swisher — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:15:16 +0000

Since Microsoft will be officially unveiling its Project Natal at the Electronic Entertainment Expo gaming show next week in Los Angeles, take a preview gander of it in action at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference recently.

At E3, the software giant will give the innovative gesture-based controller for the Xbox a spanking new name and will likely announce other related features.

We already showed off Natal at D8 last week, saying “the experience is somewhere between the Nintendo Wii and Tom Cruise’s computer in ‘Minority Report,’ with hands, arms, legs and even heads interacting with the game.”

As we also noted, the system works using cameras and microphones, along with some fancy programming, to remove the controller pad from play. With Natal, Microsoft (MSFT) aims to include groups outside of the typical young male demographic in gaming.

Here’s the video of the full session of the demo, which includes the game-playing stylings of my No. 1 son, Louie. And, yes, me too–as you will see, I stink at online games.

Enjoy:

[ See post to watch video ]

D8 Tech Demo: Microsoft's Project Natal

Drake Martinet — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:42:28 +0000

Microsoft takes the D8 stage to live-demo Project Natal, its new gesture-based controller for the Xbox. The experience is somewhere between the Nintendo Wii and Tom Cruise’s computer in “Minority Report,” with hands, arms, legs and even heads interacting with the game.

The system works using cameras and microphones, along with some fancy programming to remove the controller pad from play. The device has been compared with the rival Nintendo Wii in target markets as well. With Natal, Microsoft (MSFT) aims to include groups outside of the typical young male demographic in gaming.

[ See post to watch video ]

Liveblog

Microsoft takes to the stage for a live demo of Project Natal.

9:42 am: Kara joins Walt on stage, and Walt asks the audience to think about gesture as a way to interface with devices in general.

9:43 am: Molly O’Donnell joins Walt and Kara to talk about Natal.

9:44 am: O’Donnell says there are 23 million members of Xbox Live, who are doing all kinds of things on their devices.

9:45 am: O’Donnell says the company is trying to invite new consumers in.

9:46 am: She demos the “skeletal tracking,” how Natal tracks the joints on the body.

9:47 am: She says there is both a 3-D camera, an RGB camera and a wide-field microphone to capture the player’s voice and the other voices in the room.

9:48 am: Kara’s son, Louie, joins them to help with the demo.

9:49 am: The onstage group is demoing a “concept game,” that looks like one-player dodgeball. Not an actual production game.

9:51 am: Kara has a try after Louie and quickly makes Louie take over.

9:52 am: O’Donnell, pressed by Walt and Kara, says games will be announced in a few weeks.

9:53 am: She hints that there will be online sharing with Natal.

9:54 am: The real name will be announced, along with games, at Microsoft’s E3 event coming up in three weeks.

9:54 am: O’Donnell announces that everyone at the conference will be getting a free Natal when it is launched.

9:56 am: Demo over, D8 goes on a 30-minute coffee break.

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as possible. It is not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

Nintendo Wiifs; iPad No Threat to DS, Says Exec

John Paczkowski — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:43:48 +0000

Surging sales of its Wii and DS led Nintendo to three straight years of record profits. But with the appeal of those devices now waning, the company needs to refresh them both lest it continue to post financials like those it announced today.

This morning, the videogame company reported its first full-year drop in revenue in six years, one in which revenue fell 22 percent to 1.43 trillion yen and operating profit dropped 36 percent to 356.57 billion yen.

Driving the declines: Wii sales that were down 21 percent year-over-year to 20.53 million. With global sales of the console expected to fall again this fiscal year–to 18 million units–the company is in desperate need of something to revive them.

Though it still leads in this generation of gaming hardware, Nintendo is struggling to maintain its momentum. With rivals like Microsoft (MSFT) working on Project Natal and other innovations, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Wii, now about four years old, needs a full-on refresh and not just new peripherals like the silly vitality sensor the company showed off last year.

With Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPad making big inroads in portable gaming, the new 3-D version of the DS Nintendo is planning can’t come to market soon enough, though the company’s executives insist it’s holding its own.

Said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime: “We have not seen any impact on our DS business [from the iPad]. In the first three months, we’ve set two new sales records for the Nintendo DS. We think that through April, we’ll have the best four-month time period to kick off a new calendar year that we’ve ever had with the device. So we’re certainly seeing momentum, they’re seeing momentum–I think two products can succeed at the same time.”

Microsoft: Want to Learn About Our Secret Tablet? Read Engadget.

Peter Kafka — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:58:16 +0000

Want to get the latest news on “Courier,” Microsoft’s rumored-but-not-confirmed answer to Apple’s iPad? Microsoft doesn’t want to talk about it. But Redmond does have a suggestion for you: Read the gadget blogs.

That’s the advice offered via the company’s JobsBlog, an HR site aimed at Microsoft (MSFT) job seekers. It comes in a post touting Microsoft’s overall awesomeness and the fact that the company is “constantly pioneering the future of technology.”

From the post (thanks to Joseph Tartakoff for spotting):

Do you already know everything about Project Natal and the Cloud? Is Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ jaw-dropping TED talk on augmented-reality Bing Maps and Photosynth last month’s news? Then check out some of the online chatter surrounding new releases of Window Phone 7 series handsets, Internet Explorer 9 and the upcoming Courier digital journal.

The blog hyperlinks “Courier digital journal” to this Engadget post offering “exclusive pictures and details” about the device. There’s a video too, which you can see at the bottom of this post. Looks pretty cool.

Is it the real thing? Device companies and gadget blogs play a weird game about new product releases, and the rules change depending on the company. Apple (AAPL), notably, gives out almost no information to any outlet about what it’s up to, right up until the release of whatever it’s working on. Other companies beg the blogs to promote their stuff. And a middle tier of companies promote their stuff via surreptitious “leaks” they’re happy to see published.

So maybe this is Microsoft’s way of putting its seal of approval on something it can’t officially approve. On the other hand, we should note that the company’s job site is written by a group of Microsoft recruiters, who may not be fully looped in to the company’s device plans and/or communications strategy.

Maybe we’ll find out. I’ve asked the company for comment and will let you know if it has anything to say.

UPDATE: That was quick. Microsoft is sticking with its long-running “no comment” stance.

Microsoft Second-Quarter Earnings Call: Put on a Happy Face?

Kara Swisher — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:40:27 +0000

It was back to normal for Microsoft, at least if you looked at its stellar results in the second quarter, which the software giant reported earlier today.

BoomTown liveblogged the company’s call with Wall Street analysts, which began at 2:30 pm PT today.

Microsoft (MSFT) has been through the financial wringer over the last year, announcing the first mass layoffs in the its 35-year history a year ago.

But after the markets closed today, Microsoft said its earnings for its fiscal second quarter handily beat expectations.

Net income for the period rose to $6.66 billion, or 74 cents a share, from $4.17 billion, or 47 cents a share in the same period last year. Meanwhile, revenue rose 14 percent to $19.02 billion.

Analysts had been expecting earnings of 59 cents a share, and $17.9 billion in revenue.

It’s hard to tell if Microsoft–which has been one of the grumpier tech companies publicly, due to its weaker results over the last year–would start to put on a happy face or not.

2:31 pm: Welcome to new CFO, Peter Klein (pictured here) for his first earnings call. He replaced Chris Liddell, whose kiwi-cute New Zealand accent will be missed.

Klein gave a big hello, which was made happier by the news he got to deliver. “We reported record revenue and record profits,” he said.

Thank you, consumers!

But Klein also noted that Microsoft did “not see return of enterprise spending growth,” which was the big bummer.

No thank you, business folks!

But working the cost side made that all okay, for now at least.

Then the call was turned over to investor relations dude, Bill Koefoed, who also noted that the results were “phenomenal.”

Koefoed went through the numbers reported, which were all in the press release.

2:47 pm: Klein came back, discussing the outlook, which is not as glum as any of the Microsoft quarterly calls over the last year.

Then it was onto questions.

The first was on what will drive sales going forward, besides the success of WIndows 7 operating system software.

Microsoft’s future results would depend on and be “in line with PC” business, said Klein.

What about costs–will Microsoft keep the screws on?

We’ll see!

Next question: More details on enterprise?

We’re working on it! “As the enterprise [business] picks up…we are very well positioned,” said Klein.

More enterprise questions. “We have a great product pipeline,” he said, but we can’t predict what will happen.

2:57 pm: How’s the shrink-wrapped retail business going?

Great!

I became numbed into a stupor by the dullness of the next several questions, all internal chair-moving queries and repetition of previous questions.

Finally, one about exactly what Microsoft might be increasing spending on!

Well, the still-unapproved search and online advertising partnership with Yahoo (YHOO), for one, said Klein.

Back to more dull ones, until one on when the MicroHoo deal will be approved by federal regulators and how Bing is going to keep growing market share, which it has been doing admirably.

Klein said nothing on either, but very politely.

Another sleep-inducing question and then one on Microsoft’s giant pile of cash and whether the compay would hand it back to shareholders.

Klein gave another nonanswer.

The last question was about the flat performance from the gaming unit.

Well, there is the upcoming Project Natal, said Klein, to look forward to. But–keeping up his newly hatched CFO equanimity–no news to report here either.

CES: Steve Ballmer Keynote

John Paczkowski — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:00:01 +0000

Steve Ballmer is delivering his annual state-of-Microsoft address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight–his second since assuming the duties of former CEO Bill Gates.

If anything like last year’s, Ballmer’s address will offer a broad overview of Microsoft’s (MSFT) consumer strategy for the year, touching on everything from the company’s hardware-software ecosystem to its home entertainment offerings.

Likely to figure prominently in tonight’s address: Windows 7 and the new touch-enabled PC form factors it has evidently inspired; Bing; and Natal, Microsoft’s controller-less game control system, which will launch in time for the 2010 holidays.

The keynote begins with, what else, some introductory remarks from Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro: “Happy New Year and welcome to 2010 CES, the World Cup of innovation. The past year has been a challenge. The global recession has affected all companies. Fortunately, signs are pointing upward, and I believe CES will be remembered as a turning point.”

Let’s hope so.
Shapiro welcomes Steve Ballmer to the stage, and the Microsoft chief begins by noting that 2009, in case you hadn’t noticed, was a year of profound economic turbulence. But innovation persisted. And with that, he rolls a first video designed to demonstrate his point. It features “one random guy’s” experiences with technology this past year, namely Seth Meyers of “Saturday Night Live.” Seth talks to his grandmother on a Web cam. He plays videogames with a kid and loses. “Before texting existed, I never sent the wrong person a letter telling them they’re a jackass. Thanks, technology….Before Twitter, if I knew what someone’s cat was thinking, I would have had to be an idiot.”
Ballmer: “We’re going to focus on three things tonight. The [first is the] increasing importance of the small screen, the ever-evolving PC and the future of TV. The second is the cloud. Third is natural user interface–NUI technology. The last few decades have been absolutely stunning in the changes they’ve brought.”
And here’s the sound byte of the evening: “We Bing. And we Bing. And we Bing Bing Bing. At least in my world.” Ballmer says 2009 is a year in which the company has made incredible progress with Bing. “We added 11 million new users….We redefined what search should do for users–we work to understand user intent and anticipate what users are really looking for. We know we’re at the beginning of a long journey, but we think we’re off to a good start.”

There’s some news about Bing today, a distribution deal that makes it the default search engine on HP PCs in 32 countries.
Also figuring prominently in 2009: Xbox. Microsoft first launched it at CES in 2001. Today, there are over 39 million Xbox 360s around the world. And more than 500 million games. The console has generated $20 billion in total game revenue.
Ballmer is moving on to the mobile space now. Windows Phone–technically Windows Mobile 6.5, a necessary stopgap on the path to 7.0–which debuted last fall in a nimbus of disappointment. Ballmer notes that Microsoft is announcing a new Windows Phone partnership today with T-Mobile, which is bringing HTC’s HD2 phone to the U.S. He says little about Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft’s “modern” mobile operating system, which at last check was scheduled to arrive at market sometime in late 2010.
Ballmer is talking up Windows 7 now. PC sales jumped 50 percent the week the OS debuted, he says. And according to research outfit NPD, sales of Windows PCs grew 50 percent over the 2009 holidays and retailers sold 63 percent more PCs than they did this time last year. Gartner (IT) now sees three percent PC unit growth in 2009–nearly 300 million PCs shipped in 2009. For 2010, Gartner sees a jump of more than 12 percent.

“Windows 7 is by far the fastest-selling OS in history,” says Ballmer. “Clearly, consumers are saying there’s never been a better time to be a Windows 7 PC….Windows 7 is a rising tide that’s lifting all boats in the PC business.”
Ballmer calls Ryan Asdourian, senior product manager for Windows, to the stage. “We’re going to see some of Ryan’s favorite hardware and software,” he says. Among them the Sony (SNE) Vaio L–an all-in-one built for high-definition entertainment–and the Asus NX90, a slick-looking laptop designed with help from legendary audio firm Bang & Olufsen.

“Being in Vegas, you’ve got to look sexy,” says Asdourian. Ballmer: “Good thing we brought some PCs.”
Next, some software demos–Ray Kurzweil’s Blio Ereader App?, then a new Skydrive collaboration in Windows Live. Ballmer: “Developers baby! Developers! I love the people who’ve built this stuff.”
Ballmer moves on to Windows Media Center and Mediaroom 2.0, which will now deliver live and on-demand TV through set-top boxes, PCs, and Windows Mobile devices like the HD2. It is coming to AT&T’s (T) U-verse. Streaming video on the HD2 looks pretty slick.
“The world of entertainment and content will come in different forms and flavors. But no matter what the source, Windows PCs will offer the greatest entertainment experiences in the world,” says Ballmer. And with that, he shows offs some new slate PCs. Sadly, the Courier–the dual-screen multitouch device that many had been hoping to see–is not among them, as BoomTown reported earlier today. There are, however, some cool-looking offerings from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Archos.
Ballmer rolls another Seth Myers video, “Milestones in Technology.” Not funny. Yeah, I don’t really miss “Saturday Night Live” at all anymore.
Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, takes the stage. “Computer science is the only science bounded solely by our imaginations,” he says, referring to Xbox. “2010 is going to be a landmark year for Xbox customers. We’ll be offering the best line of Xbox 360 games.” Examples: Mass Effect 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction. Also an episodic “psychological action thriller” called Alan Wake. “Imagine ‘Lost’ written by Stephen King, filmed by David Lynch,” implores Bach.
Bach: “What ‘Star Wars’ is to film, what Harry Potter is to fantasy books, Halo is to videogames.” And with that, he rolls some video of Halo Reach that I can’t see because I’m watching the event remotely. The game is coming in the fall of 2010, but will be available as a multiplayer beta on Xbox Live this spring.
Bach announces Game Room for Xbox Live! More precisely, a vintage gaming service that offers 30 classics from Atari, Intellivision, etc. The company plans to add over 1,000 games to Game Room over the next three years.
And here comes the pitch for Project Natal: “We’re at an exciting inflection point in tech, where we can create an experience that is more intuitive. With Natal we’re freeing you from the last barrier, the game controller.” Bach rolls a video of the folks behind the Xbox’s new natural user interface, or NUI, which is due out later this year. “Project Natal will be available this holiday 2010….It will work with your existing Xbox 360.”
“When I said 2010 was going to be a big year for Xbox 360, I was lying: 2010 is going to be the biggest year in Xbox history!”
Bach wraps things up with some big-picture remarks and–well, I guess that’s it. He leaves the stage and the house lights come back up.

The ABCs of Wii, Xbox and PlayStation 3

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:47:12 +0000

With holiday shopping comes anxiety about getting the right gifts. Does Dad already own a copy of “Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits”? Was Mom expecting a new pepper mill, or was that Aunt Carol? It’s even worse for people shopping for the video gamers in their lives: Understanding the technical specifications of each console can seem as difficult as getting to the highest level in a game of Halo.

This week, I’ve done the dirty work for you: I’ve amassed a collection of vital details about the three most popular systems—Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii—so that you can get a handle on what each offers and what it will cost you.

Nintendo Wii

Nintendo recently dropped the Wii’s price, for the first time, to $200 from $250. The Wii Console comes with a controller, an additional controller called a Nunchuk, and the Wii Sports game, which includes baseball, tennis, golf, bowling and boxing. It holds 512 megabytes of flash memory, but you can increase this by inserting SecureDigital memory cards. It also accepts high-capacity SD cards, or SDHCs, of up to 32 gigabytes.

The couch-potato world of videogamers was shaken up when the Wii, with its motion-sensitive remote control, was introduced about three years ago. Users can play Wii Golf, for instance, by swinging the remote like a golf club. In September, Nintendo added to its lineup a $20 remote-control accessory called Wii MotionPlus that was designed to add more precision to game motions. I tested this snap-on piece and found that it did make the Wii’s motions feel more realistic. But it works only with Wii MotionPlus games—and there are only six of them; 10 more are planned for 2010.

Wii encourages users to move around in more ways than just waving a remote: Its Wii Balance Board, which comes with the Wii Fit Plus game in a $100 bundle, works like a digital exercise step. It records the body’s weight shifts and movements for activities from yoga to wake-boarding.

The Wii accesses the Internet and lets users compete online against others. About 655 packaged games are available for between $30 and $50. Also, you can use pre-purchased Nintendo Points to buy and download about 150 WiiWare games and over 325 titles from the older Virtual Console library. Each game costs between 300 and 1,500 points, or between about $3 and $15.

WiiConnect24 can send messages from one Wii to another over the Internet, as long the two users exchange “Wii numbers.” Users can also surf the Web with Wii’s Opera browser. But beyond this, no other Web features—like downloadable movies, social-networking applications or streaming music—will work on this system.

Parental controls can be set on the Wii to restrict kids from using the Web browser, playing games that have a certain rating or communicating online.

Microsoft Xbox 360

Microsoft recently stepped up its game by adding features to its $200 Xbox 360 that make it well-rounded rather than strictly geared toward serious gamers. People who buy the Xbox LIVE Gold membership, for $50 a year, get applications for Facebook, Twitter, the Last.fm music-streaming service, online multiplayer game play, video chat, Netflix (Netflix subscription required), photo sharing via the Xbox, and movie or photo “parties” that allow users to watch a movie simultaneously with seven other friends.

Xbox LIVE Silver membership is free and includes basic features like voice and text chat, as well as access to the Zune video library’s 20,000 TV shows and movies to buy or rent. The Xbox also allows media-streaming over a home network. To wirelessly connect to the Internet on your Xbox, you’ll need to buy a $100 Wi-Fi adapter. By contrast, the Wii and PlayStation 3 have built-in Wi-Fi.

Anyone who owns a Microsoft Zune media player can buy a TV show or movie and download it to an Xbox or PC as well as the Zune. Zunes can be plugged into the Xbox to play music, as can Apple (AAPL) iPods.

The base Xbox comes with a wireless controller and 512 megabytes of memory. For $100 more, the Elite Holiday Bundle includes a 120-gigabyte hard drive, headset, wireless controller, and two games: “LEGO Batman: The Videogame” and “Pure.” More than 1,200 games are available for the Xbox, mostly costing between $29 and $60. About 350 of the games can be downloaded from the Xbox LIVE Arcade (costing 400 to 1,600 points, or $5 to $20) or the Games on Demand library.

Microsoft confirmed plans to introduce Project Natal, a system that lets people operate games with gestures and body movements rather than remote controls. Natal will work with all Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft won’t confirm a date.

Family settings let parents control whether their kids play games online and with whom they play, as well as the ratings of the games. A Family Timer regulates how long kids play.

Sony PlayStation 3

Sony’s PlayStation, like the Xbox 360, is designed with serious gamers in mind. Its base version costs $300 and includes a 120-gigabyte hard drive and a DualShock 3 wireless controller; $50 more buys a version with a 250-gigabyte hard drive. Both systems can be upgraded with any standard 2.5-inch hard drive. The PlayStation is also a Blu-ray disc player.

Like the Xbox, the PlayStation 3, or PS3, now offers extra features, but these features are all included in the PlayStation Network, which is free (not $50 yearly like Xbox LIVE Gold). These PlayStation Network extras include Netflix (NFLX) instant streaming, a Web browser, photo slide shows, the ability to stream media over a home network to the PS3, a Facebook application that shares game information with friends and the PlayStation Network video-delivery service, where users can purchase 2,400 high- and standard-definition movies and 15,000 TV episodes.

The PS3 and the PlayStation Portable, Sony’s portable gaming device, are married in many ways. A new feature called Blu-ray Portable Copy lets users make a free standard-definition copy of some Blu-ray movies for transfer to a PlayStation Portable. Remote Play lets people stream media files from the PS3 to the PlayStation Portable in Wi-Fi hot spots or remotely turn the PS3 on or off using the PlayStation Portable. Movies and TV shows from the PlayStation Network can be transferred to either system, so you can start a movie on a big-screen TV and finish it on the PlayStation Portable; the same can be done for games.

About 400 games are available on Blu-ray for the PS3; these cost between $30 and $60. More than 150 titles, costing between $3 and $40, can be downloaded directly to the PS3. Sony confirmed that it will release a motion-sensing controller, but it hasn’t set a date.

Parental restrictions for the PS3 include the ability to restrict games, DVDs and Blu-ray discs with certain ratings. Parents can also limit monthly spending or Web browsing.

Games: A Cheat Sheet

Here are some of the key differences among three popular videogame systems.

	NINTENDO WII	XBOX 360	PLAYSTATION 3
Price	$200	200 or $300*	$300, $350
Includes	Wireless controller, Nunchuk, Wii Sports	Wireless controller/ Wireless controller, headset, 2 games	DualShock 3 wireless controller
Additional remotes	$40 wireless; Nunchuk is $20	$50 wireless, $40 wired, $20 headset	$55 DualShock 3 wireless controller, $50 Bluetooth headset, $40 PlayStation Eye, $25 Blu-ray disc remote control, $50 wireless keypad
Memory	512 MB, can be increased with SD cards	512 MB, $300 Xbox comes with 120 GB	120 GB or 250 GB
Built-in Wi-Fi?	Yes	No. $100 Wireless adapter sold separately	Yes
Games	1,100	1,200	550
Cost of Games	30-$50; $3-$15 for downloads	Most are $29-$60; $5-$20 for downloads	$30-$60; $3-$40 for downloads
Other features	Web browser, ability to message other Wii consoles	Netflix, Last.fm, movie parties, MSN Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, photo sharing, online multiplayer gaming	Netflix, Facebook integration, photo slide shows, PlayStation Network videos, online multiplayer gaming
Extras	$100 Wii Balance Board and Wii FitPlus, $20 Wii MotionPlus	Xbox LIVE Silver is free, Xbox LIVE Gold is $50/year	Blu-ray disc playing, multiple tie-ins with Playstation Portable
Family Settings	Restrict online browsing, communication, game ratings	Restrict online play, with whom users can play, game ratings, time spent playing	Restrict online play, games or movies with certain ratings, monthly expenses, Web browsing
Relationship w/portable device	Wireless, free demo downloads from Wii Channel onto DS or DSi	Play videos bought anywhere on Zune, PC or Xbox 360	Blu-ray Portable Copy gives free copy of some movies for transferring to PlayStation Portable
Media streamed to console over home network?	No	Yes	Yes
* for Elite Holiday Bundle

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

Xbox LIVE Gold costs $50 a year. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated in the second reference to the price that it costs $50 monthly. Also, the Xbox 360 can be connected to the Internet via an ethernet cable for free, as well as via Wi-Fi. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that connecting your Xbox to the Internet would require the purchase of a Wi-Fi adapter.

Microsoft’s "Minority Report" Predictions

Andrew LaVallee — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:30:12 +0000

In the near future, consumers will be playing videogames without controllers, giving directions to lifelike avatars and waving files from screen to screen a la “Minority Report,” according to Microsoft (MSFT).

Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the software giant’s online audience business group, made these predictions during Mixx, an interactive advertising conference in New York. His first demo was of Project Natal, an Xbox 360 initiative that focuses on controller-free gaming.

Gamers kicked their opponent by making a roundhouse of their own, and drove in a racing game by air-steering. Some videogames, like soccer, will take advantage of full-body motion capture, and a skateboarding game will let players scan their own board, which their avatar can then step on.

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Playing With a More Sensitive Wii

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:18:02 +0000

Nintendo’s Wii gaming system motivates first-graders, senior citizens and everyone in between to get off their couches and play video games by swinging a motion-sensing remote control. These motions are similar enough to those used in real-life games that people find the Wii less intimidating than other video games with confusing controls.

After almost three years of Wii success, Nintendo recently reported it sold in its first quarter less than half the Wii consoles it sold a year earlier. The Wii needs a shot in the arm, and Nintendo thinks it has just the solution: the Wii MotionPlus remote accessory.

[ See post to watch video ]

This small piece plugs into the bottom of Wii remotes and costs $20 by itself or $50 when bundled with the Wii Sports Resort game, which includes 12 sports that take advantage of Wii MotionPlus. The Wii console costs $250 and comes with a remote and a Nunchuk. The Wii MotionPlus has a gyroscope that helps the remote detect slight twists or rotations made by one’s wrist and/or arm and reflects these movements on the screen. It adds more precision to games like bowling and golf, so you don’t feel like you accidentally made a good—or bad—shot. And it lets you add spin to a ball while swinging a golf club or ping-pong racket or while bowling.

I’ve been playing games with the Wii MotionPlus, and this small accessory adds a much more satisfying, realistic element to Wii games. In some cases, this meant that I played a game with less success than with the original Wii remote because the MotionPlus add-on is more responsive and sensitive. But I eventually got used to it and liked it more than the plain remote.

However enjoyable, the Wii MotionPlus is more of an evolutionary change than a revolutionary change. If you’ve never played video games on a Wii before, you wouldn’t know what you were missing if you used the remote without MotionPlus.

The real excitement in video gaming and general broadcast TV controlling will come when we don’t need any remote controls at all and cameras will sense our movements, reflecting them on-screen. In June, Microsoft (MSFT) announced its Project Natal, which would potentially work with all Xbox 360 consoles to directly sense movements and sounds, and to recognize faces. This would encourage users to swing, throw, run and jump in a completely natural way without the need to learn anything about how to hold a remote control or operate its buttons.

On a similar note, Sunnyvale-Calif.-based Canesta Inc. wants you to use your hands as remote controls for your TV. The idea with Canesta is that users could, for example, walk into a family room and wave at the TV to turn it on, move a hand in a rightward circle to turn up the volume and flip through channels using motions like those used to page through a large book. I tried Canesta in a demonstration and can testify that doing things like turning the channel with your hands is a powerful and somewhat magical experience. But of these, Nintendo currently has the only product on the market to use technology that echoes natural movements, albeit with a remote control. Project Natal is still just a research project that isn’t used in any products, and it won’t be coming out any time this year.

[ See post to watch video ]

Canesta has a partnership with Hitachi (HIT) so that it will be used in the company’s TV sets, though Hitachi says these TVs won’t be available until 2010 at the earliest and would likely show up in Japan first. Canesta is also building other partnerships, or it could work as a standalone product for TVs, computers, set-top boxes or other devices.

Wii MotionPlus makes the remote smart enough not to require as much button pressing. For example, shooting basketballs in a three-point shootout only required holding the remote in my right hand so it followed my shooting motion. Bowling no longer requires letting go of a button just in time to release the ball, a former menace to Wii’s beginner bowlers. And I threw a Frisbee by moving the remote with the same motion as if I were tossing one in real life. At first, my friend and I found ourselves trying to make stiff motions that seemed more video-game-like, but when the on-screen instructions encouraged us to move naturally, we did so and had much more success.

Wii Sports Resort includes 12 different sports but omits some of the old favorites from the original Wii Sports. Tennis has been replaced with table tennis, boxing has been replaced by sword fighting, and though bowling and golf remain, baseball is gone. New sports include wakeboarding, Frisbee, archery, basketball, power cruising (jet skis), canoeing, cycling and air sports like parachuting.

I bowled and put a little extra spin on the ball by twisting my wrist just before letting go. The ball was surprisingly reactive, so much so that I had to tone down my spin before I got the hang of it. Wakeboarding works by holding the remote horizontally like it’s the cross bar you hold onto and use for steering in the water. The Wii MotionPlus works with the Nunchuk attachment, and my friend and I attached this piece to the remote to compete against one another in several rounds of archery (he won by seven points). With the Nunchuk attached to the remote, we held the remote like it was the bow and slowly pulled the Nunchuk attachment back as if it were the arrow—stretching sound-effects and all.

The MotionPlus can stay attached to the remote while playing games that aren’t made specifically for its use; those games won’t be affected. However, a regular remote can’t be used with games made for the MotionPlus. Along with Wii Sports Resort, three other games are made to use the Wii MotionPlus: Sega’s Virtua Tennis 2009, EA Sports’ (ERTS) Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10.

If you’re hoping to give your tired Wii a boost, you’ll like what the relatively inexpensive Wii MotionPlus accessory brings to your game—though you’ll also need to buy new games that work with it. Generally speaking, it’s exciting to know that technology is almost advanced enough that we could very soon stop letting our remotes have all the control and take some of it back with just the wave of a hand.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Live From Redmond: Microsoft's Turner, Bach, Mundie Talk Strong, Play Games and Introduce Us to HAL

Kara Swisher — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:11:45 +0000

While Microsoft COO Kevin Turner did a kind of modified cheerleading act at Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting, Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach played the teenage boy and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie the voice from the future.

During his presentation at the event at the Microsoft (MSFT) HQ in Redmond, Wash.–a series of presentations for Wall Street analysts and the media–Bach showed off the Xbox’s new Project Natal motion-sensing technology, which lets you play games and more without a controller.

Bach spazzed out nicely playing a game called Ricochet, with a storm of virtual red balls coming at him, although I was slightly worried the exertion might cause him to collapse on stage.

Turner was on before Bach, pretty much doing cleanup after CEO Steve Ballmer’s presentation, talking up all of Microsoft’s various businesses, while talking down its competitors’.

Said Turner, whose mantra was building market share for Microsoft: “Strong innovation, strong innovation investment, as well as strong operational excellence that we’re driving to compete and grow our market share.”

Strong, got it? (Frankly, I know companies always put their best foot forward at events like this–but after Ballmer’s own He-Man speech, BoomTown is a little worried that Scary Microsoft could be making a comeback, after a few post-antitrust years of Kinder-Gentler Microsoft.)

Bach, given his job, was a lot more entertaining and had more to show off, although he could not be as positive about the software giant’s mobile experience, given the juggernaut of the iPhone from Apple (AAPL).

“First of all, in Windows Mobile, as Steve pointed out, we had a challenging year from a share perspective,” said Bach. “Much tougher competition in the U.S. and certainly there is plenty of competition in this space.”

No kidding!

Natal is, of course, the pretty one for Bach’s division.

“It is about technology innovation and experience innovation. I think it will lead to a bigger and better business as well,” said Bach. “It is certainly an opportunity for us to build something new.”

Mundie also showed a lot of new futuristic stuff, which borrowed from the Natal technology, including a demo of a gesture-rich “office of the future” experience.

Said Mundie: “But as far as Microsoft, one of the greatest opportunities going forward is to realize there will be a successor to the desktop. It is the room. It is the fixed computing environment. The question is what can you do with computing when you have a much more robust man-machine interaction model and you don’t have to fold it in half and move it and run it on a battery.”

In the midst of it, though, he chit-chatted with a very scary “digital assistant” named DAG (I think it must stand for Digital Assistant Golem) on the screen, whose voice freaked me out in the exact way HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey” always does.

After helping Mundie with a bunch of stuff, I am guessing DAG went off into the computer to work on a secret plan to kill off the human race.

Well, it was nice being here for this long on our little blue planet, Earth!

So, while we wait for DAG to destroy us, here’s the video demoing Natal that Bach showed to the audience, which is not new, but still pretty cool:

Do You Have a Reservation at the Virus Bar or Are You Here for the All-Day Workshop on Printer Drivers?

John Paczkowski — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:08:34 +0000

Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) have long competed for market space. And soon they’ll be competing for retail space as well.

In remarks at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference today, COO Kevin Turner said Microsoft has settled on a location for the retail stores it announced earlier this year: Within spitting distance of Apple stores. “We will have some retail stores that are opened up right next door to Apple stores this fall,” he said.

There goes the neighborhood, right? Anyway…

So Microsoft is going to play McDonald’s (MCD) to Apple’s Burger King (BKC). Makes sense. Apple’s retail locations are very well chosen. Microsoft, if it’s going to go this route, would be wise to have stores there as well. As economic theorists Charles ReVelle and Harold Hotelling once observed, “The best position for a new vendor is back-to-back with the well-positioned first vendor, allowing an even split of the market. Any other position of the new vendor would have given that new entrant a smaller market share.”

And one could argue that Redmond might benefit from a retail presence that brings all its wares together in a single “shopping experience”–Windows, Xbox, Zune. All that partner hardware. Surface. Put a Project Natal booth at the back of the store to draw foot traffic and who knows what might happen?

Nintendo Hard at Work on Wii Catheter, Wii Hip Replacement

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:40:04 +0000

Nintendo really should have cut its losses yesterday and cancelled its E3 press conference after Microsoft’s (MSFT) Project Natal demo. How could it possibly have trumped Redmond, Wash.’s controllerless game control system? Certainly not with the Wii Vitality Sensor it showed off today.

The peripheral’s big gaming advancement? It records a user’s vital signs. A nice addition to the Wii Fit, but a far cry from Microsoft’s efforts to turn gamers themselves into controllers.

As I said yesterday, “sucks to be Nintendo.” And today, it most certainly does.

China a Twitter Quitter

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:00:36 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]