What If The Xbox Kinect Virtual Child Simulator Is Great?

[Ironman273]

What If The Xbox Kinect Virtual Child Simulator Is Great?

One of gaming's big dreamers, game designer Peter Molyneux, showed us Project Milo ? a controller-less game about a virtual boy ? two Junes ago. There was potential. There were hitches. A year later, Milo's made a lot of progress.

In a just-released stage demo of Milo, Molyneux shows how the Milo project ? which requires this fall's Kinect sensor array for the Xbox 360 ? has developed. If this pans out, it'll be hard to hate.

Milo had seemed like a know-it-all brat, Molyneux explains. Using the Kinect sensor he could see you, sort of hear you and tell you things. But what he needed, Molyneux says in a just-released video of the designer showing the game at a TED conference, is a problem. Now Milo has one. He's a British boy who has moved to the U.S. His parents are too busy to help him with his problems, so he conjures you as an imaginary friend.

Watch the video and witness how more of a game-like points system has been added to Milo. And note, as I'm sure you will, all the talk about how Milo will adapt to player input. ""We are changing the mind of Milo constantly," Molyneux said. "That means no two people's Milos can be the same."

One example Molyneux showed, was that the Milo user/player will decide whether Milo smashes a snail under his foot.

The most ambitious element of Milo will be that the simulated boy will be connected to a Microsoft data network, enabling the simulation to be more complex. Says Molyneux: "His mind is based in the cloud. As millions of people use it he'll get smarter and more clever. He'll recognize more objects and understand more words."

The Milo project will use Microsoft's TellMe speech-recognition service to allow users to use natural language to talk to Milo. Even Molyneux acknowledged that voice recognition technologies have a poor history, so let's remain skeptical about that.

The game/program will use a body-recognition program to detect how a player positions their body. As an example, Molyneux suggested that Milo will match a seated/leaned-in posture of the user. (It must be noted that this Kinect program, which seemed to be keyed to upper-body and arm movement, was played on stage at TED while the user was sitting down ? a Kinect first for a public demo that may signal Microsoft is overcoming its Kinect-couch incompatibility issues.)

There is no release date for Milo. The Xbox 360's Kinect sensor ships in November.

Source: Kotaku

[mail]

This guy can bull**** well. That said I enjoyed Fable.

[Hedon]

I'm sorry, but even as a hardcore gamer, that is ****ing cool.

Sitting while playing confirmed yet again.

[argonite]

To be honest, looks like quick time events but within the context of Kinect. I did notice that the boy's responses were generic and didn't really have anything to do with what was being said by the player, enforcing the concept of it being a trick.

Not that I expected more but... I hate Peter Molyneux for getting my hopes up again.

[carmatic]

i think the bigger news for me is that the sitting-down Kinect limitation debate could be over soon...

[Vice]

Pedophiles the world over rejoice! - Finally a games console to help you train. Where is Jack Thompson on the dangers of this.

[MR_Candyman]

I just don't understand why everybody is fascinated with "Milo". The whole thing seems retarded to me.

[Guest]

The only thing I am worried about is the amount of variety in the game. Going out to the garden squashing snails or playing with the water every day will get boring fairly fast. I love the idea of a network-connected Milo universe. Perhaps Milo and his family will have new adventures / issues to overcome every day...

[troist]

It would've been cooler if I hadn't seen the old Milo demo. This one is still actually pretty impressive and I don't know if I'd notice the trickery as easily if I wasn't looking for it.

[Hedon]

I just don't understand why everybody is fascinated with "Milo". The whole thing seems retarded to me.

It's not Milo that people are fascinated with. It's the idea of what developers are now free to do with Kinect. Thinking outside the box.

The only thing I am worried about is the amount of variety in the game. Going out to the garden squashing snails or playing with the water every day will get boring fairly fast. I love the idea of a network-connected Milo universe. Perhaps Milo and his family will have new adventures / issues to overcome every day...

Well, as Peter stated in that video, it intentionally started out slow so you can get to know Milo. He mentioned you did more and more as you got into the game and offered more difficulty.

[carmatic]

a major part of it, i think, would be the cloud ...Milo could do things like talk to you about current real-world events and stuff...

it would be the inverse of the real world, as in you have one boy in one family, but a new instance of that boy for everyone who has a copy of Milo and being his imaginary friend... contrast it with all the children in all the families, all imagining the same few things

so the real world could be every instance of Milo's imaginary world, when real kids have their own imaginary worlds

[Hedon]

a major part of it, i think, would be the cloud ...Milo could do things like talk to you about current real-world events and stuff...

it would be the inverse of the real world, as in you have one boy in one family, but a new instance of that boy for everyone who has a copy of Milo and being his imaginary friend... contrast it with all the children in all the families, all imagining the same few things

so the real world could be every instance of Milo's imaginary world, when real kids have their own imaginary worlds

Indeed. Peter did mention Milo learning more from more and more interaction around the world. That cloud idea sounds pretty cool.

[Guest]

Well, as Peter stated in that video, it intentionally started out slow so you can get to know Milo. He mentioned you did more and more as you got into the game and offered more difficulty.

Ohh yea, I know... But so much of that is pre-scripted with branching decisions. I just hope we don't get to a point in the game where we often run into the same scene.

If it was updated on a daily / weekly basic it could be a very cool game.

[Sylar0]

Ohh yea, I know... But so much of that is pre-scripted with branching decisions. I just hope we don't get to a point in the game where we often run into the same scene.

If it was updated on a daily / weekly basic it could be a very cool game.

If via the cloud its "branching decisions" can via the cloud somehow become bigger than anyone can ever get bored of or ever play though it will be amazing after all what is the human brain branching complex decisions. The video did seem like it was taking what the human said and assigning it a pre-programmed response however if it really can learn via the cloud and automatically out grow its original programming and maybe even grow up, talk back to you as a friend etc. and understand what you saying then it could become good hey it could become a sim Truman show that can actually learn. As a past poster said if it?s updated every day or even if new situations can develop via your interaction it could become amazing.

[carmatic]

this reminds me of the tamagochi craze awhile ago... but in a way, it is also an inverse of tamagochi ... as in, instead of taking a cheap piece of electronics everywhere with you, you always return to the expensive piece of electronics in your room... and instead of every tamagochi being a disparate existence, there will really only be one Milo just as there is only one cloud

but i think that they would pretty much function the same otherwise, being heavily focused on human interactions and changing with time

i wonder if they would also implement a more sublime system similar to what the Electric Sheep screensaver uses, with users indirectly 'voting' a response up or down to 'train' the program to produce the most enjoyable result

[Lexcyn]

Cloud mind .... uhh skynet?? lol

This looks cool.

[Hedon]

This indeed takes it beyond Wii HD.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Seriously cannot wait for this tech/game to be released.

[Caleo Global Moderator]

Still kind of creepy.

Also, Molyneux is renowned for being a fantastic speaker but almost always failing to deliver.

[Hedon]

He has delivered most things for me on the Fable series. No complaints here.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

^ yup.

[Sethos]

Never understood the Molyneux hatred, most of 'his' games are amazing and actually seems to try something out of the box.

[shakey]

I don't see a product like this doing well in an environment filled with loud people having a good time. Maybe more of a loner type of gadget. But normally when I am playing, and friends are over, there would be no way this would have a easy time trying to hear 1 individual with the racket that can sometimes be had. Who knows, maybe it will, but I doubt it.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

It's not really a game you'd play in a situation like that anyway.

[shakey]

It's not really a game you'd play in a situation like that anyway.

Surely. But what about other games for it? What about having dogs that like to run in the way :p, I really want to see this thing in regular use, to see how well or poor it really is. Will I have to lower the sound on my receiver enough for the mic on this to hear me, or will it use wireless headsets as well? I have a lot of questions lol.