Kinectimals

Microsoft has announced the first wave of Xbox Live games to be released for Windows 8 devices, playable on any PC, laptop or tablet.

Microsoft has launched its first game on the Google Play store: an Android port of Kinectimals.

Snuggly wild animal sim Kinectimals was Microsoft's first title to launch on iOS, too.

Kinectimals on mobile devices is a pared-down version of the Kinect original, which taught children everywhere that lions, tigers and bears were perfectly fine to cuddle up with.

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Fur the win.

Kinect Sports: Season 2 leaves the blocks on 28th October, Microsoft has confirmed.

The Rare-developed follow-up to last year's mini-game compilation adds six new sports, voice control and a new Challenge Play mode.

Microsoft has also diarised Kinectimals Now With Bears!. You'll be able to pick it up on 11th October, either as a standalone disc or, if you own the original, a DLC expansion.

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A mobile version of Xbox 360 pet sim Kinectimals headlines Microsoft's impending slate of Windows Phone 7 releases.

Xbox 360 pet sim Kinectimals expands later this year with the addition of - yes, you guessed it - bears.

Kinectimals Now With Bears! adds five new creatures to the game: a Black Bear, Grizzly Bear, Cinnamon Bear, Glacier Bear and Polar Bear.

There's a new adventure mode which sees you exploring an uncharted island in an attempt to track down a mysterious device thought lost 200 years ago.

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Ten million selling Xbox 360 motion-sensing add-on Kinect is the most accurate analogue input device gamers have ever had, Elite creator David Braben has said.

UK game developer legend David Braben is known for creating Elite, one of the most influential games of all time. But these days he's one of the brightest minds in Kinect game development.

A US company has sued Microsoft because it believes motion-sensing add-on Kinect infringes its patents.

There's a Kinectimals demo lurking in the bushes of Xbox Live Marketplace. Its poised hulk measures 1.52GB.

A demo for Frontier's cute motion-controlled pet sim Kinectimals hits Xbox Live next month, Microsoft has announced.

As revealed on Major Nelson's blog, you'll be able to try out the Kinect-only title, which won 7/10 from Eurogamer last year, from 5th April.

Nelson's Xbox Live round-up also revealed impending price cuts for Fable III and Fallout: New Vegas DLC, as well as a release date for Stacking's The Lost Hobo King expansion.

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PS3 hackers who cling to misguided 'I own the console so I can do what I like' arguments are hurting game developers and buyers and publishers - the lot.

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Kinectimals developer David Braben ruffled a few feathers this week when he suggested that game reviewers should be subjected to a Metacritic-like system to judge which of them are the most reliable.

"The best reviewers give spot-on reviews pretty soon after a game is released," he said. "They do not wait to see what others say, but nevertheless consistently come very close to the final average score. There could be a prize for the best each year."

But what does review score aggregation website Metacritic think?

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Game reviewers should be subjected to a Metacritic-like system to judge which of them are the most reliable, Elite creator and Frontier Developments boss David Braben has suggested.

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING! Microsoft and Jakks Pacific have announced that the King Cheetah and Maltese Tiger WERE ONLY THE BEGINNING.

Update: Number cruncher GfK Chart-Track has explained to Eurogamer why sales of Kinect Adventures - the game the Kinect camera is bundled with - haven't been included.

Kinect is every bit as accurate as a traditional controller, if not more so, claims Kinectimal's David Braben.

Microsoft has insisted Peter Molyneux's rumoured to be cancelled Kinect title Project Milo "was never a product" and "was never announced as a game".

It's here. Finally. We won't bore you with the palaver involved in bringing you this bumper presentation of Kinect launch coverage – let's just say it's been an interesting, and exhausting, few days.

But even if you knew the story, it wouldn't explain why the eventual arrival of Microsoft's magic camera was met with such drama and excitement chez Eurogamer. Nor would the level of hype whipped up by the ringmasters at Microsoft, although that certainly helped (it's not every day we feature an Oprah clip on our website).

Maybe it's the large and lavish line-up of launch software. Maybe it's the contrast with the softly-softly approach Sony took for PlayStation Move. But the fact is, this doesn't feel like a mere peripheral. It feels more like a new hardware launch than anything we've seen in years.

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The new Viva Pinata? FIND OUT.

If you're looking for just one game to buy with your new Kinect unit, you might feel like you're in a difficult position. Would you rather race pretend cars, or play imaginary football and tennis? Without spending upwards of another £70, you're not surely seeing the full range of the camera's potential. But you don't have to buy all of them to see everything that Kinect can do. There's another option, and Kinectimals is it.

Here's the thing: Kinectimals actually does pretty much everything that the other launch titles do (alright, except Dance Central), and in a much more adorable way. Want to race a car with an imaginary steering wheel, like in Joy Ride? You can drive a remote control car around a track with a tiny tiger balancing on top of it. Want to flail your limbs at balls, like in Adventures' Rallyball? You can do that, too, playing kickball with a prancing baby cheetah.

You can knock over skittles and dominos by throwing things at them, feed giant frog mouths with tennis balls, kick footballs at targets and explore a surprisingly large, varied and beautiful fantasy island, all in the company of extremely cute, believable virtual animals. It's an adorable pet simulator, a charming adventure and a minigame collection, all in one, for the same price as all the other launch titles.

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Microsoft is bundling stuffed Kinectimals toys with special edition copies of the game for its November launch, according to US retail listings.

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Microsoft's decision not to have a gamescom press conference may have robbed us of the sight of Kudo Tsunoda doing stage demos by leaping around like a lunatic, but the mile-a-minute spokesperson for Xbox 360's new control system was still buzzing around the "Play Day" the platform holder organised on the edge of town - and still had a lot to say about Kinect ahead of its 10th November launch.

Kinect Sports developer Rare has moved to quell concern over the amount of space required to use Xbox 360 add-on Kinect.

UPDATE: Microsoft has confirmed that Kinect WILL launch with voice control.

In a statement given to Eurogamer Microsoft said: "Voice control is an exciting part of the Kinect for Xbox 360 controller-free experience and we can confirm that it will be available at launch in November 2010.

"Only on Xbox 360 will you be able to navigate the Kinect Hub using your voice to control your movies, TV shows and music. We do not have additional details to share about local voice availability at this time."

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UPDATE: Microsoft has confirmed Kinect will be released in the UK on 10th November. Glad that's cleared up.

ORIGINAL STORY: Xbox 360 sensor Kinect will be released in the UK on 10th November, Microsoft has announced.

Or is that 17th November? We're not entirely sure.

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Fable III and Project Milo head honcho Peter Molyneux has told gamers to judge Xbox 360 motion sensor Kinect not on its launch titles but what follows.

And they still unnerve us slightly.

The Milo & Kate merry-go-round continued this afternoon after it emerged that the tech used to create the Lionhead-developed Kinect game isn't being used to create Kinectimals as well.

It's the day after the night before, and a chance to reflect on our hands-on playtest of the new Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 platform, contact our sources and attempt to put together some semblance of the technical picture behind the device formerly known as Project Natal.

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Microsoft has announced that Kinect for Xbox 360 will launch on 4th November "starting in North America". According to the press release that accompanied the news, "Kinect will roll out to the rest of the world thereafter."

We're on our way to the conference... Not long now!

New name, new games, and a new beginning for Microsoft's motion controller: Kinect. In the immediate aftermath of the Cirque de Soleil "Project Natal Experience", we had a chance to get hands on, or hands-off as it were [we did that joke last year - Ed], with a small selection of titles set to launch with the camera.

Microsoft has been showing off the Xbox 360 add-on previously known as Project Natal at a pre-E3 event in Los Angeles. No date or price was discussed at the event, although marketing materials pointed to a November launch.

Update: Check out Ellie's report on Kinect's unveiling for more details.