The lights are on
UPDATE: Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg has clarified on Twitter that: “Project Milo absolutely continues in development at Lionhead Studios, it is just not a product we plan to bring to market this holiday.”
ORIGINAL STORY: When Microsoft debuted the then Project Natal at last year's E3, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux showed off a centerpiece demo for the device called Project Milo. Milo wasn't at this year's E3, and now we're getting conflicting info about the status of the demo/game/thingamajig.
Microsoft's director of product management, Aaron Greenberg, says that while Milo continues to exist, we shouldn't expect to see him anytime soon. "[Milo] is a technology demo that continues to exist, but right now it’s not a game that we’re planning to bring to market.”
Although Milo wasn't at E3, there were reports that Molyneux himself confirmed that the project continued to exist, and that it was looking better than ever. The thing is: Who's right? While we totally believe the man himself -- Molyneux -- that Milo is still being worked on, it looks like Microsoft might not release it anyway.
Project Milo was named after a kid in the Natal demo who players could interact with, including speaking to him and showing him objects that the peripheral would recognize and incorporate into the experience. It was a key element towards making the technology credible at the time, and not just making Natal seem like a me-too peripheral.
It seems odd that Molyneux would continue to devote time and resources to something that would never see the light of day, so perhaps while we won't see a Milo game, per se, at least we can see the fruits of Lionhead's labors at some point in some form.
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I was never sure how much of an actual game they had with Milo anyway. It's better that it just stays a tech demo, I think.
I'm confused why more resources are being devoted to Project Milo if it may not see a release. Personally, I don't see the lasting appeal of this game beyond a few hours. Releasing this game would probably be a huge waste of time.
Obviously it was not a game, lol.
The tech if it has improved to a respectable level, would be excellent for any RPG during dialogue scenes.
Well if it is still just a tech demo then yeah I have to agree also, Milo shouldn't be released. But what makes me wonder too is that why (as everyone has been saying) devote resources to something that isn't going to make you profit in return?
As a tech experiment/demo, I could understand why more resources would be going into it. It's a conceptual sandbox that allows them to tinker with and try out ideas for other Kinect projects using an already established program to refine techniques to transfer to other projects. The two statements from Molybabes and Microlimp do not necessarily invalidate each other if looked at in that way. PM never says it's going to be released, only that it's being worked on and looking 10 times better, which could be very good news if that level of interactivity is being developed for a future game (ala Heavy Rain type of thing).
i think project milo would be a great experience in gaming, expensive or not, in my opinion it would be a very cool game to have, it adds so much more to natal than the games that are going to be released with it, project milo really takes it to the next level
Anyone really surprised? Molyneux is usually full of crap anyway.
I really hope that this does see the light of day as it looks like it would be really fun.
I would like the tech demo actually. It was the only thing that made me interested in Kinect so far.
I don't believe it could be feasibly delivered as a game anyway. Look at the size of the custom hard drive they have attached to the xbox. This thing probably is being run on some Terabyte of space or at least more space than what you get with your existing drives.
As far as interactivity goes, it would be an amazing product to play around with just to see the limits of the AI on the 360 itself.
Oh my. I'm not sure how I feel about this... or if I really care. Talking to an AI seems like something I'd rather watch and not do myself. I'd feel really silly... like when my dog ignores my request to sit or fetch... or speak.
Yeeeah... if I had to guess, it won't be released because it's more a list of scripted events than the "do whatever you want" deal they said it is.
I always thought it looked more like a tech demo than an actual game. It looked interesting but probably nothing I'd get if it did ever come to the market.
There is no reason for me to get this (if it does exist) other than to see how Milo reacts to getting bi**h-slapped a few times.
That's ok, that little dude was super creepy to begin with.
I still can't see any type of gaming without a controller. If Milo is not a game though, then I wonder what it is.
Maybe it's not really a game, maybe it was just something that was a prototype for some Kinect mechanics. Maybe something to do with avatars? I don't know, all I know is if Molyneux is involved, it will probably be awesome.
Molyneux is a visionary, and pratcically a genius. If he believes in something he's going to follow it through as much as he feels the need to, despite Microsoft's plans with the product. I think they could use Project Milo as a gimmick and have it come with every Kinect system, making it this cool thing you can play around with right out of the box since it's not really a full game.