Gaming History You Should Know – Milo April 23, 2023

It’s Sunday. Welcome back to an all-new Gaming History You Should Know, where we highlight some of the best independently produced content on the history of gaming from across the web. Today, we’re going to be talking about a subject from our recent past.

One of the first major gaming news event this website reported on was the announcement of Project Natal, which eventually became known as the Xbox Kinect, at E3 2010. A decade later, we understand the Kinect as being a motion control camera capable of offering simple gesture based controls in conjunction with offering an extra way to have Skype conversations. However, when it was first announced, Microsoft was invested in pushing Project Natal as this magical device that could do so many things (including things it absolutely could not do).

To push that narrative, Game God Peter Molyneux took the stage of the Microsoft E3 2010 and demoed Milo. Milo, as we later discovered, was a technical demo video which featured an actress interacting with a virtual boy. They were able to hold a conversation, he was able to read out drawings she presented him, and she was even able to manipulate the game environment with her body. The public went crazy for it and it made major news, even by mainstream organizations.

With the eyes of the world on the game after that E3 reveal, people were excited to see more. However, we really didn’t hear too much about Milo in the gaming space. It didn’t preview at E3 2011, and by the time a final Kinect peripheral was ready for previews, it was clear it was not as capable a device as Microsoft originally promised. The last time I remember anyone talking about it was hearing a reference to it at E3 2011 from the team who worked on the Kinect Fable title had also worked on Milo. Sadly, I couldn’t get them to tell me how he was doing when I asked.

So what happened to Milo? YouTube channel slow start produced this television quality document detailing the known history of the project, and looks into the question of WAS THIS REALLY MEANT TO BE A GAME? Watch and find out!