Hands up, who remembers Project Milo? If you do, you probably had a keen interest in the world of gaming back in mid-2009, as that's when Xbox and Lionhead Studios unveiled Milo to the world for the first time at E3 of that year.
When Project Milo was first demonstrated alongside the original Kinect for Xbox 360, it was presented to us as a game where you could have real, lifelike conversations and interactions with a boy called Milo, demonstrated at E3 in a video that was so impressive, it generated massive mainstream attention for the game and the Kinect.
You can watch the HD version of Project Milo up above (timestamped), along with a quick snippet below:
Sadly, following this extremely popular unveiling at E3, it was all downhill for Milo from there. The game didn't make an appearance at the following year's event, and Xbox's Aaron Greenberg ended up stating at the time that it was a "technology demo" that Xbox wasn't planning to bring to market.
Nevertheless, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux ended up showing off a live, working version of Project Milo at a TED Talk in 2010. You can watch that for yourself down below as well - it was an intriguing watch for sure, but definitely not as impressive as the E3 snippet we'd seen in 2009, and unfortunately we'd never lay eyes on the title again.
With Project Milo never making it to market, some of the features that were designed for it were instead incorporated into Fable: The Journey for Kinect, which released to a mixed reception back in late 2012.
It wasn't a happy ending for Milo then, but he's still taken his place in Xbox history. That E3 2009 demonstration truly convinced a lot of people that the future was right around the corner, and that the Kinect could be the gateway to experiences that would change gaming forever. Although that didn't quite prove to be the case, Peter and his team were showing impressive ambition over at Lionhead Studios - but with a project that was just too ahead of its time.
What do you remember of Project Milo? Tell us down in the comments section below.
Comments 22
It's Microsoft thinking they can innovative 😆
Modern VR is obviously way better than Kinect, but can you look at the bottom of an avatar's shoe in VR?
yes.One has to wonder if Milo came a tad too early. Imagine if it had been demonstrated a year or two ago instead, and coupled with the current AI that we have now. I guess that it would be entirely possible to have a proper conversation with AI (I've not tired it myself, so I'm uncertain) and if that was done through something like Kinect, with an Avatar of your choice (Cortana, anyone! 😂) then it could be truly awesome...
I went to a lecture by the director of Fable 3 and Fable: The Journey and he showed off some internal videos of Milo that had to be seen to be believed. It wasn't that the tech didn't work, it was that they had no idea how to turn it into a playable game. So it was that Milo was canned and The Journey was born.
Ah Peter Molyneux at his best.
It promised so much, but sadly the motion controls turned out very hit and miss most of the time. To me it was a needless addition to the 360, up there with the 32x on the mega drive.
I also tend to recall the Kinects arrival heralded a drop off in good Xbox exclusives at the tail end of the 360 gen. While PlayStation began smashing it with the Last of Us and Uncharted sequels, we got crap like Fable the Journey and other shovelware that, as I said, barely functioned at times with that damn sensor.
On very petty personal note, I hated that purple ‘better with kinetic’ banner slapped on so many of my late gen 360 game covers!
Yeah.. was not a fan.
This could have been incredible. If this would’ve panned out, I probably would’ve gotten a Kinect, but… well, the Kinect was sort of garbage, honestly, much like, sorry, PSVR is.
@HotGoomba If you have full body or even ankle trackers, yes. Without this though, your pretty much relegated to only looking at other players' feet.
@somnambulance PSVR2 would actually be solid if it wasn't for being wired.
I enjoyed the Kinect with friends but it was like the Wii, good with others a bit rubbish alone with dogs or family underfoot.
As for this, classic Peter Molyneux, always over-promising beyond current technology - he was best when pulled down to earth by some of his better collaborators, as proven by his later "games"...
Even a decade and a bit later, we're still not fully at a place this could be made immersive and believable - maybe another decade
Oh yeaaah I memba!
@InterceptorAlpha PSVR2 is probably alright, but there’s little in the way of interesting software to sell the thing.
@HotGoomba VR and the Kinect technology are not trying to achieve the same thing. One is a video controller, the other is a virtual reality system.
Microsoft let Sony's marketing destroy the Kinect. A greatly missed opportunity. The Kinect was great for a lot of things even if it was clunky as a game controller.
@somnambulance Can't say for sure about the offerings there, but even if it was on par what you can get on PC or standalone, the wire just kills it.
Back when I had the original Oculus Rift, even had a gantry and pully setup for the cable to keep it from touching me, and was still a PITA. Sony had everything they needed to make the PSVR2 wireless, then didn't. Huge missed opportunity and the reason I won't buy it
Peter Molyneux is and has always been a snake oil salesman with verbal diarrhoea.
This is why you don't let Peter Molyneux talk about his projects as he often over promises because his ideas usually are too optimistic for the hardware and are often a generation or two from even being possible. He himself is aware of this and has often caused major headaches for the publishers he works for.
Kinect was given up.on way too soon for me so many things I'd have liked to see on kinect , microsoft should at least give us some Vr titles ,I love playing on the Xbox via my quest but I need games that will take advantage of that actual vr ,it wouldn't take much to have a game turned into a vr title ,ffs modders did it with alien isolation etc etc and they don't have lots of staff and lots of money behind em
NOBODY announces projects that are never coming to fruition like Microsoft.
@iplaygamesnstuff I know, I just wanted to make fun of the Project Natal announcement.
@Fiendish-Beaver Cortana is Hot tho
@iplaygamesnstuff The problem was that MS forced Kinect as a pack-in. That seemingly solved one problem (adoption) and created others. The price was jacked up to $500; the added cost meant "cheaping out" on the APU; ten percent of the already conservative APU (and RAM) power was reserved for Kinect.
Microsoft then and now where the underdog and can never afford to have the less powerful APU. The media jumped all over it. When they stay the course and have the more powerful APU, the media mocks them for calling it out, while simultaneously ignoring the fact.
In my own use of Kinect, it was generally useful. The instant sign-on was great. Hand tracking for hitting icons could have been better. Voice commands were cool. However, the game support was not there, which is absurd for a pack-in device that altered the course of a console so severely.
My largest gripe about Kinect's performance was that it did not recognize my voice for power on. Kinect had trouble with male voices in the sleep state. My mother and nephew would visit and "Xbox On" with no problem. I must have recalibrated the thing 50+ times. The most annoying part is when I went into the kitchen (15+ feet away), whispered, "Xbox On," and somehow it picked that up.
@theduckofdeath This is true and was short sighted. The big problems was basically Sony didn't like that they got one upped from the "eye toy" and then campaigned against it. With the PS4 Sony's whole slogan was how it did everything. The One X did everything then Sony changed their campaign to gaming first and for a short while ditched the eye toy. While saying that add-ons are gimmicks Sony released the PSVR. The Kinect was a very good device. I actually miss it.
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