It’s been a while since I’ve posted about the world of Xbox fitness, and that’s largely because of the demise of motion gaming in general. The death of the Kinect had been long rumored after Microsoft stopped requiring it to be bundled with the Xbox One, and Microsoft made it official at the end of October 2018. One company that never lost the faith was Virtual Air Guitar Company. I’ve [ Read More ]
In a bit of surprising news, Microsoft announced today that their Xbox Fitness product is being discontinued. Effective immediately, you won’t be able to purchase Xbox Fitness content, although existing users of Xbox Fitness will be able to continue to play the content they’ve purchased for a year, through June 30, 2017. But on July 1, 2017, Xbox Fitness will be removed completely and not available for anyone to download or play. [ Read More ]
Kung Fu for Kinect A video game starring YOU, and a fantastic daily workout. Now in its third incarnation after earlier releases on the PS3 and Xbox 360, Kung Fu Live is a polished and incredibly fun game that uses your actual video image in the game itself to put you in the middle of an old-school side-scrolling video game. In the course of doing actual jumps, kicks, and punches [ Read More ]
As most of you can tell, this blog has fallen into a bit of disrepair. The main reason is that the same is true of the state of fitness on the Xbox One. Yes, the “Xbox Fitness” feature for the Xbox One is still available, but aside from that it feels like developers are staying away from the Kinect. The bad press that the Kinect got when Microsoft tried to [ Read More ]
It seems that with the exception of occasional titles from Ubisoft, pretty much all game publishers have all but abandoned the Kinect for not just fitness gaming, but motion gaming altogether. As someone who’s been following the evolution of fitness gaming since 2009. this is a crying shame, especially given the amazing potential that Kinect technology offers. Interest in using video games for exercise peaked in around 2011 with the [ Read More ]
Another year, another version of Just Dance from Ubisoft. At this point Just Dance is clearly a cash cow–each year Ubisoft will put out a new version with a whole set of new licensed tracks and a few technical improvements to all platforms from the Wii to the PS4 and Xbox One. This year’s offering, Just Dance 2016, is pretty much the same as last year’s, with a few minor improvements. [ Read More ]
I’ve talked about a company called Virtual Air Guitar a few times on this blog, first in my review of a 5-star game called Kung Fu High Impact for the Xbox 360, and then in their first entry for the Xbox One called Boom Ball, which I said at the time was probably one of the games that best demonstrated the true capabilities of the Kinect 2.0’s motion detection capabilities. [ Read More ]
Shape Up for Xbox One Reviewed by Steve on Dec 13. Finally, someone *gets* what exergaming is all about! The holy grail for exergaming is a game that’s so much fun to play that you almost forget you’re exercising. Shape Up for Xbox One is the closest yet that anyone has come to that ideal. Rating: 5 I’ve been blogging about exercise gaming for years, but to this day it’s [ Read More ]
Boom Ball for Kinect Reviewed by Steve on Dec 13. Probably the best true demonstration of the Kinect 2.0’s capabilities to date. While derivative of other “breakout” games dating back to Pong, Boom Ball for Kinect is a refreshingly smooth, crisp, and responsive game that demonstrates the potential of the Kinect 2.0 much more strongly than full-priced games like Kinect Sports Rivals. At $9.99, it’s a must-have for any Kinect [ Read More ]
Fantasia: Music Evolved for Xbox One and Xbox 360 Reviewed by Steve on Dec 6. In the spirit of Walt Disney’s original Fantasia, lets you experience music in a whole new way. An interesting concept that extends Walt Disney’s original concept of “Fantasia” to video gaming. The game gets an “A” for ingenuity and effort, and while actual gameplay is mostly solid, a few quirks and annoyances prevent me from [ Read More ]