Kinect Fun Labs detailed, available today Date: Wednesday, June 08 @ 05:43:18 UTC Topic: Xbox 360
Microsoft is launching an Xbox 360 hub today, where users can scan in their own objects, quickly create gaming avatars and play with other technologies through the Kinect motion sensor.
Kinect Fun Labs, as it’s called, will showcase new things that hobbyists and developers in the video-game industry have engineered Kinect to do. For instance, this morning at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Microsoft showed how users could scan a stuffed animal into their Xbox and goof around with a 3D model of it.
Through Kinect, people will eventually be able to scan in a model car, for instance, and drive it around in a racing game, Microsoft said. Or scan in their own skateboard and use it in a skating game.
The Redmond-based company also showed how Kinect can scan a user’s face and body to quickly create a customized gaming avatar. And Microsoft showed how Kinect is getting better at tracking fingers, an ability that soon will allow mimed trigger-pulling in shooter games, said Kudo Tsunoda, the creative director for Kinect.
Other Kinect Fun Labs “gadgets” – they seem to be more like mini-games – include one to make a bobble-head of yourself, playing around with a “googly-eyed” character, and making posed avatar images.
Kinect Fun Labs launches today for Xbox Live members, Tsunoda said. He said it will automatically update as more Kinect “gadgets” are added to the catalog.
