I’ve just finished watching the live presentation by Microsoft Xbox at E3 on live streaming.  Wow.  I mean, a geeky, geeky wow!  Watch the media briefing, and also consider how this technology can be applied to the “User Interface” experience not only in gaming, but in computers.  Because this is coming to PCs – you can bet on it…!

In the meantime, look at my geeky setup that I had while the broadcast was taking place:

(Yes – I did specifically wait for the Halo: Reach logo to appear before taking the screenshot, because I am that much of a Halo fanboy.)

Highlights for me were…

• Live streaming of the event to New York Times Square!
• New Xbox 360 brand tweak (green wave thing)
• Halo: Reach – almost peeing with excitement for this one…! 🙂
• Scary tech – Kinect allows you to log onto Xbox Live merely by waving at it (facial recognition)!
• Ahhh!  Scary tech 2 – Kinect has voice recognition for Xbox Live navigation as well!  Just say what you want to access, and it launches it!
• “Xbox – pause”. “Xbox – play”. I’m going to be uttering this all the time when I first get my hands on Kinect!
• Video Kinect – enabling consumer videoconferencing across both Xbox and Windows Live Messenger!
• I like the neat weather status as part of the videoconferencing window, as well as shared video and web browsing!
• Kinect also tracks you, so will follow you if you wander around the room! 🙂
• Meh – ESPN on Xbox Live.  Not for us non-American folk, I guess…
•    An aside – I notice that Charlie Brooker is providing Twitter updates as the briefing happens live!
• Kinectimals – I’m sorry.  Too…  Cute…!  (Yeah, I like Pokémon, so I’m going to like shit like this…)
• Holy crap – the technology is cool…  A 10-year old mutters “Go get your jump-rope”, and the animal avatar comes back with a skipping rope!
• Kinect Sports looks far too tiring for a lazy, inactive person like me…
• That’s scary! Ubisoft demo a game that scans your body metrics – height, waist size, arm and leg length, shoulder width, etc. The clothing-penetrating camera can be used for nefarious purposes…!
• Holy crap – online car brochures taken to a whole new level with a pitch for Ferrari.  You can “walk” around the car, view at any angle, and pick up technical specs by tapping on the appropriate part of the car!

Gaming interaction is about to be changed – some demos look like cheap novelties, but the new User Experience is genuinely exciting.  And I can’t wait for this to hit the PC…!