Microsoft's IllumiRoom peripheral projector (new Xbox's feature)

[VulgarDisplay]

I think most people are not at all taking into account how cluttered the space they were demonstrating this in was. It would look much more incredible if you dedicated a room to running this with minimal furniture to have the projector compensate for. I would imagine the illusions would be far less distracting.

This is something for the social aspect of gaming. Everyone in the room can see the effect. However I see this as a competitor to the occulus rift, and in that respect for a hardcore gamer illumiroom will fall flat in comparison. Very cool, and the most innovative thing I have seen for gamers in a while but I highly doubt this will be cheaper than the Occulus Rift, and it will not be 3d while providing the illusion. This will be incredible for movies, but I'd take the rift for gaming any day.

 

[Chaoticlusts]

Wow...

I remember seeing this last year and thinking it was a neat idea with some potential but they've really turned it into something impressive since then.

I hope they remember what made the Kinect such a success and leave this completely open for people to play with and program for without a Durango(720).

I do agree that some of the effects seem distracting more than immersive (purely extending the game being the worst example) and it seems like the excess light from the projector washes the TV screen out a bit when it's displaying a lot. But changing the aesthetic of your rooms surroundings to match the game I think is actually quite awesome (the contrast lines one to go with Borderlands would be great and the wash out effect for Noire fans would be brilliant), also some of the 'reality warping' effects would be amazing along with music games or similar.

In the end though it'll come down to support, if this is locked down to MS's console and costs say $300 so few games will support it (along with the costs of extra processor overhead etc) that it will become a paperweight. But if they leave it open so any indie dev can write support in for random PC games/apps etc it could actually have some great uses and I'd love to grab one, although price will still be a huge factor and I think is the biggest unknown as to whether this thing will ever really be more than a cool tech demo.

Get the feeling we'll find out a fair bit more in a couple of weeks when Durango is released, that or they'll hold back the next info release for something to show off at E3.

*edit*

As for competition with the Rift, I kind of agree with Vulgar. Obviously this is way more social because of how isolating a headset is. There is a couple of extra factors to take into account though, some people have already reported having major motion sickness type nausea while using the Rift which isn't surprising. I think if this succeeded it could happily live side by side with the Rift, there will be people who love one and hate the other and some who hate both. But I don't think either renders the other obsolete/superfluous. Not to mention that I don't think the Rift is going to support consoles (or consoles will support it depending how you want to look at it) and like it or not there is a *ton* of console only gamers.

 

[Aikouka]

I think it's pretty nifty, but it would come down to price and developer acceptance (which includes how they use it). I've always complained about how much wall space that I have around my TV, and now I can put it to good use!