Ok, firstly… yes there’s a new trailer for the Star Wars Kinect title that was introduced at last year’s Kinect unveiling – if you didn’t already know.
Never mind that the trailer tries its hardest to convince us that this game is going to basically bring the Star Wars universe into our living rooms, almost literally – I was too busy noticing something else completely.
Is it me, or did Microsoft just out a new console-on feature for Kinect?
Ever since the Kinect came out, one of the biggest issues has been that even though the peripheral allows controller-less control over the dashboard, it can’t control everything, and can’t even activate the Xbox 360. This means that the whole point is still pretty much pointless if you have to walk up and switch on the Xbox or grab a controller to turn it on and/or control some other settings.
Here’s the trailer in question:
You will see shortly into the video that the young boy is seen walking in front of the television, and then we get a nice close up of the Xbox power button lighting up… except that he didn’t press the button, and there was no evidence of a controller being involved.
Now… with ads being what they are, it’s very possible that we are simply just not shown a boring, unimpressive little moment of video where the boy uses a controller to switch the Xbox 360 on.
That said, Microsoft really promised a lot with Kinect and so far the results have been underwhelming overall. Everyone knows that this year, Microsoft has to really impress with big announcements and major advancements, not to mention giving everyone what they want.
I want to be able to walk into my TV room, tell my Xbox 360 to switch on, select a home video off of a flash drive and play it using voice or motion controls – all of which are things that I can’t actually do with the Kinect right now.
Is this an unintentional slip of the new functionality or are we just being subjected to more marketing nonsense? I certainly hope it’s the former.
What do you guys think? Is it possible? Is it necessary? I think so.
Last Updated: June 6, 2011
