Microsoft banks on the Kinect

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Microsoft spent 3 years developing a way to play video games without holding any controller. What they came up with is called the Kinect for the Xbox. It launched at midnight, with all of the company’s hopes riding on it. Will this be a success? Or is it another one of those Microsoft products that just isn’t cool enough?

Microsoft thinks this time they got it right.

“We’re banking on it. We’re betting on it,” says Jolene Cramer, director of Xbox games.

On the Microsoft campus at Studio A, with cushy chairs and an over-sized TV screen you’d so want, Cramer shows me the Kinect.

“It’s a sensor that tracks your body movements so that literally you can jump into a game and be the controller,” she says. “It hears your voice and it sees you move. If you see a soccer ball, you can kick it, literally, in the game.”

Unlike the Nintendo Wii, which was the hot new thing in gaming a few years ago, with the Kinect you don’t need to hold a controller or have any special equipment.

“There are no barriers to you getting into the game. You don’t have to hold anything. There’s no accessories you have to own. It’s you,” she says. “The sensor has a camera in it that’s tracking your movements and the corresponding action on the screen is what you’re doing.”

Cramer demonstrates that it works on voice commands too.

“Xbox. Pause,” she says, as the device thinks for a second and stops the movie that was playing.

Voice commands, and waving your hand at the screen to control a video game. Imagine the possibilities for that.

“We can all imagine a different way that we could shoot a gun or throw a grenade,” Cramer says. Sega is working on a Kinect game called Rise of Nightmares and another action game in the works from CapCom is called Steel Battalions. Those action games are designed to appeal to the hard-core gamer.

As different as the technology is – there is nothing like this on the market – Microsoft’s magic with this is the audience they’re going for with the Kinect.

“You and me,” she says. “People who perhaps in the past have been a little bit intimated by different video games.”

Along with dance, sports and obstacle course games, the Kinect has a title called Kinectimals. Very similar to Nintendo’s franchise-brand Nintendogs for the DS hand-held gaming system and the Wii. The difference is instead of choosing a dog for a pet, Kinectimals gives you the option of training a cute, playful tiger.

I’m not a hard-core gamer (not surprised, are you?) but our family has a Wii. When I played table tennis last week against Cramer, we used our hands as paddles. She was moving around freely, while I found myself standing in front of the Kinect, as though I was still holding a Wii controller. It takes a while to free yourself mentally from a controller, but when you do, the Kinect is more fun than the usual gaming experience.

Microsoft is so confident with the Kinect, they just upped their estimates on how many sensors they expect to sell 5 million of the motion-sensitive game controllers. The stand alone Kinect sensor costs $149 bucks, or bundled with an Xbox it’s $299.

Microsoft donated 4,000 Kinect units to Boys & Girls Clubs of America at the Kinect for Xbox 360 launch event in New York’s Times Square.

Kinect will be sold at major retailers worldwide including Toys R Us, GameStop, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and more. More than 30,000 retailers in the U.S. will have Kinect at launch. Among the games available: Kinect Adventures; Kinectimals; Kinect Joy Ride; Kinect Sports; Dance Central; Your Shape: Fitness Evolved; MotionSports; Fighters Uncaged;The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout.