I have a new post over at the Critical Gaming Project on the Xbox and Kinect: https://depts.washington.edu/critgame/wordpress/2010/12/much-ado-about-no-controller/
A few months ago, there was buzz about the arrival of Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox and the revolution in gaming the controller-free technology would herald. (Now after its debut to some mixed reviews, the Kinect is still lauded as one of the most innovated gadgets of the year, including the much shared story about the Kinect and an autistic child, and people are already trying to figure out ways to augment and hack and subvert the tech.) I want to extend my earlier thoughts about controller-free gaming and propose a handful more points, particularly drawing my own experiences using the system as well as connecting (pun not intended) the liberatory rhetoric of this new “gestural gaming” (a lovely metaphor for what its currently worth) to curious and nettling resonances with things like the immersive fallacy, full body scanning, fat shaming, net neutrality, and homeland security and surveillance.