Like I said in my previous post, after talking about the upcoming releases for the Xbox 360, they then moved onto talking about the new features that would be coming to the Xbox in the next few months.

The first thing they talked about was mainly entertainment based. Starting off with the announcement that they will be integrating Last FM music features to the Xbox dashboard. It will allow you to browse and listen to millions of tracks on your 360, all of which will be free for Xbox Live Gold members.

They then continued onto film. Currently you can download films through the xbox 360 dashboard, which takes time, or you can use a disc, which can be noisy. But now, they are improving their movie service by bringing you 1080p HD compatibility with movies, they are bringing the movies to 18 countries instead of just the current 8, and possibly the biggest change is that all the movies will be instant downloads, you will simply be able to click and play.

You will even be able to watch these movies with your friends, by joining up with them just like an Xbox Live Party chat, you will be able to watch all the movies in a cinema like atmosphere with your friends. This feature will also be included with the Sky feature that they announced the other day, so you will be able to watch sports with your buddies all from your Xbox 360 in different living rooms.

The next big thing which will be popular with social networking fans is that they have joined hand in hand with both Facebook and Twitter to bring both of those features to your Xbox 360. You will be able to check your friends statuses and get lives updates through Facebook, aswell as being able to upload photos and game screenshots directly to your Facebook profile. As for Twitter, you will also get live updates via your Xbox and you can update your status from the comfort of your couch.

Both of these features will be coming to the Xbox 360 this autumn.

Now, the biggest and best announcement that was made, and that is, no controller gaming. They’re calling it Project Natal and it is very similar to the technology used by the Nintendo Wii, but this time, there is absolutely no need for any controllers. All you need is a simple strip, like the Wii, that you place either on top or below your TV which works as a 3D camera and registers your every movement.

But it doesn’t just register your movements, it also has voice recognition which allows you to control the dashboard by voice and use all the dashboard tools by using the power of your mouth.

That’s not all, you won’t just be able to play games using the tech in Project Natal, you will be able to scroll through the dashboard by the flick of your hand, and even login to Xbox Live simply by standing infront of the camera. It has the ability to register your shape and match it with your Xbox 360 profile.

If that’s not good enough, you can then play games with your avatar which is controlled by your movements infront of the camera. Or you could simply enter the avatar wardrobe and see your avatar mimic your movements, like the guy showed at E3, if you have ever wanted to see an avatars foot, simply lift your own.

And finally, if that’s REALLY not enough, Peter Molyneux, brains behind the Fable games, told us that his studio, Lionhead Studios, have been testing with this new technology, and they have come up with something very, very special. They have developed a computer animated child called Milo who can recognise your voice and your emotions in your voice and react to them.

In the demonstration at E3, it showed a woman interacting with Milo and having a full conversation. At one point in the display they were looking at water, then woman could, what it looked like, reach into the water and touch the fish and see her reflection in the water, all using the Project Natal tech. That’s not all with Milo though, Peter managed to wow me some more by having ask Milo to draw a picture, Milo then asked to have some help. The woman then drew a fish, showed it to the camera, this was then read by the game and it registered what the picture was and what colour it was drawn in, and then was then passed onto Milo who reacted to it. Absolutely amazing.

I simply can’t wait to have a go at this techology because it looks amazing and a whole new step in gaming. Unfortunately no release date was given for this awesome new feature, we were told that when it is released, it will work with every Xbox 360, and it will then be shipped with every new Xbox 360.

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