E3 and Me: The Beginning of the End?

The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight…

I bring you the X-Box File

Sounds like the plot of a great game, but it’s actually from Terminator 2: Judgement Day; chuckle all you may but it’s a damn good film. We may have passed the date that the film’s fictional computer system, Skynet, was due to become self aware and start a nuclear holocaust against mankind by some 13 years, but the rapid advancement of technology is only a matter of time away from allowing such a fate to become a possible reality.

Less than a handful of decades ago, people may have predicted flying cars or extra-terrestrial war, but they also envisioned microwaves, laptops and mobile phones. Last week, we saw another glimpse into the immediate future of technology via the E3 Expo and the latest developments in gaming that will utilise hardware such as Kinect for Xbox 360, the PlayStation Move and the new handheld, PS Vita.

Now before I go completely ‘Mulder’ on all of you, let me just say I was sat down in front of my PC streaming coverage from the multiple conferences, getting all giddy just like the rest of you, particularly during Microsoft’s presentation. YouTube and Bing Search features through my Xbox 360 dashboard? Bring it on! And I’m hopeful that live TV streaming will be as available in Europe as it will inevitably be in the States.

During the 6 years that the 360 has been sitting in our homes, we have become used to the constant updates and downloads that are forever fine tuning our beloved consoles and the interface that lets us use them. When it came to Kinect however, I’ve been a little… reserved, in my judgements.

Initial reports of needing a living room the size of Buckingham Palace (okay maybe not that big) in order to use it properly, put me off wanting to waste money on a piece of hardware I couldn’t use to its full potential. The sceptic in me also wondered why Microsoft were still neglecting to release an official USB mouse to use with titles such as Civilization or FPS games, and were putting all of their eggs into the motion camera basket instead.

The answer: it seems you can do much more with Kinect than you could a mouse and keyboard — go figure! Going back to last Monday evening, my mouth dropped open in disbelief during the Ghost Recon: Future Soldier segment of the 360 conference. Through voice recognition and hand movement alone, handyman Chris demonstrated the potential of the Kinect to completely control the interface of the game from stripping a weapon into pieces, to test-running sights in a shooting range; we are no longer that far removed from the interactive displays seen in the likes of Star Wars or Star Trek: The Next Generation. Seeing Kinect used in what I would call a hardcore game, rather than a novelty dance title for example, seemed to give it some serious credibility.

Later in the session, we were shown another of Kinect’s new abilities when it came to reading the environment around it. Using the Kinect camera, our Xbox 360s will now be able to perform ‘People Scanning’, picking up individual details such as our faces, clothing, body type, even our hairstyle, and creating a digital replica for our avatars. Smiling Abigail Lee paraded in front of the crowd, and thousands watching at home declaring that it will even detect our eye colour. Eye colour? Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that the camera is strong enough to pick that up? Then it hit me.

If this is what they’re willing to tell us it can do, what could they not be telling us? Imagine a peripheral that not only detected what shoe you were wearing that day, but what brand of soft drink was sitting on your table, or what DVDs were in your collection on the shelves behind you? If it can detect whether you have blue or brown eyes, who’s to say (in time) that it couldn’t also give you a detailed retinal scan while dancing to Bananarama like an 80s throwback, or sum you up for army potential by judging your physical stance, aim and athleticism while playing Ghost Recon? Microsoft being the giants they are certainly would have a rather large library of stats on all of us when over 55 million consoles have been sold worldwide…

My god it’s a monster! And calling it People Scanning isn’t helping my paranoia, Microsoft!

You won't be smiling if my theories are correct, love!

My point is, while it is so easy to be in awe of technology that is revolutionising the games industry, we are slowly but surely getting to a point where the science fiction of our childhood is having an obvious development path in our present. Call me paranoid, but if my grandparents had seen Kinect when they were young, they would have thought it was alien. Maybe that’s what they uncovered in Roswell in 1947: a Kinect and iPhone 5! Is it so strange to wonder where this could all be heading?

What we are seeing now is nothing short of a leap in gaming; how long will it be until we see the leap for mankind that features killer cyborgs, government tabs and maybe even hoverboards (conspiracy theories also need a bit of fun!)? One thing’s for sure, our favourite games companies will only show us what they want us to see, but the possibilities of what is being developed behind closed doors is endless. You might consider me paranoid now but bring on E3 2021; I might just be saying I told you so!

Kinect 1000 aka a Microsoft X-Terminator

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Comments

4 responses to “E3 and Me: The Beginning of the End?”

  1. Another Tony avatar
    Another Tony

    Meh. They should focus on important things like sticking a Blu-ray drive in the 360! Then I’d be interested in one!

  2. James avatar
    James

    I walked past a Kinect display in GAME once. It was spotted two weeks later in Brazil posing as me and trying to charge plutonium to my American Express.

  3. W Bishop avatar
    W Bishop

    Bah it’s not computers you should be worried about it’s Strawberry Pop tarts!

    Death! Delicious, strawberry-flavored death!!!

    p.s Kinect was designed for global domination…. FACT!

    Spread the word!!!

    HIDE!

  4. dean avatar
    dean

    I think i’d be more frightened of the potential of Kinect to take over the world if it worked better. At the moment its more like Pinky than The Brain:)

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