My thoughts on the #XboxReveal of Xbox One

I have now watched both the #XboxReveal conference and the GameTrailers aftershow twice, and am conviced the Microsoft has built exactly the system that I wanted the next gen Xbox to be.

Of course, I'll be honest... there was little doubt that I would be excited. I own most of the fame systems out there, typically preordering them for launch day. Inhad the 360 before it was available to the general public, got to be at the launch of the Vita in NYC, and am back #2353 for the OUYA. I even used an N-Gage.

FOR ALL ENTERTAINMENT

The Xbox One is positioned not just as a gaming system, but as an entertainment system. Already we use the Xbox 360 for media more than we use our cable box... the new X1 will just further cement that. Why?

The X1 is developed to be always on, always at the center of your complete entertainment experience. You feed ypur cable box into the X1's HDMI IN port, and suddenly the X1's UI is layer on top of your tv experience. Want to pull up an app while watching tv? No problem, the screen can snap two experiences to the screen at once, just like Windows 8. Playing a fame and suddenly realized Doctor Who is on? No biggie, just say "Xbox play TV" and the screen will pause your game and switch.

The Xbox One makes gaming a normal part of your everyday home emtertainment, not something silo'd and seperate.

THE KINECT

When the first Kinect came out, I was just enamored with the technology. It was clear that Microsoft had reduced the Kinect down to its minimum viable product... but it was still awesome. (If you've never read the Wired.co.uk feature on the development of the Kinect... stop reading my silly blog and go read it. It's an incredible case study for the development of a product.) After about a week of beta testing Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures, my friends and I decided two things:

1) It really needs to be HD

2) I really wanted to say "Xbox On"

And now, both of those things are coming true.

I don't know what more to say that this is a gamer's dream come true. The true capbailites of the Kinect (a product that I have been so impressed with I even bought the Windows version to develop with) is finally being realized.

With the new Kinect, the resolution has gone from SD to full 1080p HD (which will be used for Skype calls, too). The new sensors can track 6 people, the angles of their joints, and via some magical voodoo can even tell how much pressure/weight/power you are putting on/into your movements. The Kinect can tell if you are smiling or looking away... and now can even determine your pulse by watching for color changes in your skin.

This, simply put, is going to be amazing. Since these tools are seemlessly integrated and ever XBOX One comes with the ne Kinect, developers can easily use the Kinect to augment normal gameplay with a controller or create new experiences using your whole body. I might have to buy a boxing game for the first time since Punch Out.

CLOUD GAMING

No one has any idea what this will actually mean outside of Microsoft and their partners. But, Microsoft always tends to do a live beta test with things as an actual product. The first Xbox could easily have been seen as a real life beta test for the Xbox 360. The first Kinect, in my opinion, was a live beta test for the new Kinect. So where can we look for a beta test of cloud gaming?

A game called Galactic Reign for the Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8.

The game's graphics on my phone are very simple. Nothing special. Kinda like a turn based board game. But then you have a battle with your opponent... and you get this amazing video of the battle. All of the ships (literally thousands) have their own AI, their own flying patterns... and it's all rendered beautifully. The video gets downloaded to the app and you can watch it all unfold with graphics at an Xbox 360 level, on my phone.

That's the power of cloud gaming, today. My little Windows Phone gets the benefit of cloud gaming to create amazing graphics. Now, obviously, the Xbox One probably won't need to offload graphics to the cloud... but what else could it offload? The AI for a crowd? The stats for a weapon? The weather in a game? I have no idea... but I think this is the biggest game changer for the consoles in 5 years from now. What if in 5 years our networks are so fast that the Xbox One could offload graphics or all the logic of a game? What if the local system only had to be bothered with rendering pixels, and all the logic is done in the cloud?

Endless possibilities.

E3

And all this... before we really get to see the games. Microsoft made a great move in announcing the console, the UI, and the entertainment features ahead of E3. Now they get to focus on games, games, games. I've bought into the strategy and tech: now just deliver the gaming experiences worthy of a new console, Microsoft. Then you can take all my monies.

October 22, 2012

I didn't mean to stop blogging. And yes, it's been over a year. But early last year I found out such amazing, exciting news that I knew I couldn't possibly keep blogging without blerting it out and we had to keep it a secret for a while...

So. Just in case you didn't know, on October 22, 2012 this guy came into our lives:

 And all I can think is, "My God. Thank you."

My son is just over six months old now and it is simply overwhelming. My love for him is overwhelming. Watching him smile in his sleep is overwhelming. Having this little boy-to-become-man projectile poop on me is overwhleming. Seeing my wife so readily and courageously grow into a mother is overwhelming. Having him cry and cry and cry until suddenly he is asleep in my arms is overwhelming.

I have never been so overwhelmed in so many great and wonderful ways.

This child looks to me for safety. He looks to me for comfort. He looks to me for affirmation.

This son of mine looks at me.

Every moment of life is a miracle. Every cell being stitched together to form him, every organ doing its job, every breath sustaining his very life. His eyes. He looks at me and he smiles and maybe giggles and sometimes he is crying because he. just. wants. me. to. hold. him.

This son of mine is my son.

This is my son, and I love him.

Why Chris Pirillo is Wrong About "How Real People Will Use Windows 8"

A friend of mine sent me a link to to an article about this video and wondered what my thoughts on it were.

I'm not saying there isn't an issue here... but it's not a real world example at all. We're still at the beta stage, and there's no tutorial at all in the product. With as big of changes as Micrsoft is making, I'd expect there might just be a tutorial or so on the first set up. But even so, even if this is a real world experience, that doesn't mean it's a real world problem.

More than once, when showing somone an iPod touch or iPhone for the very first time, they don't have a clue how to exit an app. They have to be taught, and taught once. There's no tutorial for that. Someone shows you how... and I don't care what you say, it's not intuitive. I've seen babies know how to turn on an iPhone, how to swipe to unlock... those are intuitive. But that very first time (unless you've seen it before), a person has to be told to presss that random button in order to exit an app.

So how do you get back to Metro?

Press the Windows key.

It's that simple. If Chris had just told him what to do, like he would have in a real world situation, his dad would have learned it right away. His dad would have gotten back to the screen with all the boxes that, from what I could tell, he seemed pretty interested in. Normally, people would just say "hit the WWindows key." It's learned behavior, and you only have to learn it once.

Nevermind the fact of how obvious it will be on a table device... since the button will be right there next to the screen... just like an iPad or iPhone. And guess what? They'll probably still need to be told to press it to get back to Metro... the first time.

On Our Trajectory

Today, one of my friends from college, whom I haven't talked to in years, discovered that I helped put the Bible on the XBOX 360. She then raved about it on her Facebook wall, telling her friends... and another of my friends from college discovered it from her post.

It is so amazing to see when your friends follow their calling in life; I always knew Jenny was meant for way more than a stage in Campbellsville, KY. I'm so glad she followed her dreams and has made NYC her home.

Campbellsville, the middle of no where

 I'm so proud of my friends who were artists and High School and went on to work for Disney, and so proud of my friends who knew they were meant to be a pastor's wife and wouldn't settle for less. I'm so proud of my friends who simply wanted to find work so they could provide for their families... and so proud of my wife who's been published as a Bible teacher and now gets to serve the church by publishing - and spreading - other leader's messages.

It's so crazy to think that now, in this season of life, we are all on our trajectory. We are living out the stories and dreams of our lives.

It's so humbling to think that someone might stumble upon my profile, discover my work on utilizing technology (and the XBOX) to spread the Gospel... and then they might think: "yeah, that's right for him. That's Aaron."

I think I'm going to love this stage of life.

Yes, we're developing a Kinect App

So... a few weeks ago, Microsoft came out with the Kinect for Windows. I did a review of it at launch, here. And, like I suspected, this really is more or less a public beta for the device. It's enabling the various developers around the world to officially get their hands on the device to program for it, it's allowing Microsoft to get back some of the costs for developing an SDK, and it's... just sitting on my wall.

And, unfortuantely, I have yet to find anyone who has actually released a full-on, available in final form, piece of software for the Kinect for Windows. So, I grabbed my buddy Tim Eicher, and we're doing what any real nerd with some time on their hands and cool device sitting on their wall doing nothing but throwing infra-red light at you would do...

We're making an app!

Of course, we're not really ready to talk too much about it... still in the early stages of development... but I got so excited when Tim sent me this test video that I simply had to share it on here.

This little device can sure create some magic. We've got some cool things planned... hopefully they turn out as awesome in real life as they are in my head!

If you could make any kind of Kinect app... what would you build?