xbox 360 camera and microphone

[lcddream]

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/accessories/cameraandmicrophone.htm

You'd think that covering all things Xbox

[shmokes]

It's neat, but it's just a higher resolution Eye-Toy.  It's only neat because the Eye-Toy is neat.  Video chat is neat, but we've been doing that on the PC since the Nintendo 64.  This journalist's enthusiasm strikes me as someone coming out of a press conference all wide-eyed, saying, "I just found out that PS3 is going to have.....BETTER GRAPHICS THAN PS2!!!" 

The single example he gives of a possible gameplay mechanic seems both unlikely, and sucky if it actually were implemented.  How are you going to silently gesture where you want your squad to go with anything more specific than "over there" or "that-a-way" unless you're actually expected to learn sign language (which the camera could probably not process anyway).  Obviously, the controller itself offers a much MUCH more precise way of giving specific orders to a squad of soldiers and, guess what, the people you're playing against on LIVE can't see what you're doing with that either.

It's an Eye Toy...Gimmicky, though kinda cool, but it was cool years ago when we first saw it.