xBone, iPad and NFS:R

First of all, apologies for not blogging on anywhere near a regular basis. I have been rubbish about adding updates on here. I blame the fact that I mostly use my iPad now, which is more suited to FB updates, Twittering and using our new chat box feature than writing anything more substantial.

Secondly, Xbox have revealed their next gen console, it’s the one. Our little girl was awake while we were watching the reveal and was put to bed during the COD bits at the end, so I wasn’t giving it the full attention that I probably should have.

But, this is what I took from it;

Kinect is cool! I am a big Kinect fan… at least in principle. I got Kinect for 360 and use it for gaming with our 3 year old as the controllers are way too big for her little hands. I use it for exercise and generally think it’s a cool bit of tech. But… it doesn’t always work as it is supposed to. It rarely (never) recognises me. I often do natural gestures which it picks up and reacts to unintentionally and it doesn’t understand what I say. This on top of the fact that voice control is only supported in limited regions around the world makes me wonder what new Kinect will mean for me.

Voice probably won’t be supported in Norway. Although, it does work on my account, it doesn’t work on Xandu’s. And will the voice recognition really be so much better than current Kinect, that it will be able to differentiate between someone saying ‘watch CBS’ or ‘what’s on CBS’?

Which brings me onto my second gripe about the reveal. The TV features are US only on launch.

This in itself isn’t a huge problem, if they are rolled out around the world quickly and efficiently after launch. But, as I live in Norway, I am doubtful as to whether these features will ever be available for me, or anyone else, outside of the US, Canada and the UK.

The rest of the reveal seemed to be all about sports. Not relevant for me at all.

I didn’t really see anything NEW! It all seemed to be tweaked and upgraded from what we have now, but not really new.

At this stage, I won’t be an early adopter, although I am looking forward to seeing the games at E3, and am hopeful that what we see there may change my mind.

Lastly, NFS:Rivals! We haven’t seen or heard much about this. The teaser trailer that Suffur linked to in our chat box was short, but interesting. I like the title. It evokes images of Revenge. I’m looking forward to seeing more! ?