One of the more tangible selling points of Microsoft’s new smart TV is Kinect That Actually Works – a lagless version of the movement-tracking tech first introduced for PC at the beginning of last year. Thankfully, you won’t have to buy a new console at launch price to get access to the updated device.
While no mention of Kinect for PC was made in the ceremony proper, Microsoft representatives were quick to spread the word after the event.
“We will bring this to PC,” Kinect program manager Scott Evans told Shacknews. “We will have more information soon.”
Microsoft corporate vice president of interactive entertainment business Ben Kilgore* confirmed the same with Polygon. Specific timeframes weren’t discussed, but Kilgore promised a Windows release “at some point down the line.”
In last night’s show, the new Kinect was used mainly as a substitute TV remote. We’re told, however, that it “understands the slightest rotation of wrist, shift balance, transfer of motion, and when you’re exercising it can read your headbeat.”
Here it is, as tested by Wired:
There were two reasons for owning a Kinect for Xbox 360: to play Dance Central, and to find out what Double Fine had been up to. Neither of those reasons were valid on PC, of course – instead, we’ve been subject to all the homebrew gestural solutions we can handle. Also, Garry’s Mod.
How would you like to see Kinect for Windows play out this time around? Would you like to see actual games for it?
Thanks, MCV.
*That’s a real, all-American surname? As in Colonel Kilgore? I thought Coppola simply had a flair for Dickensian literalism.