Turns Out Milo’s Not a Real Boy After All [Update]

Update: So, scratch all that as Aaron Greenberg is now massively backpedaling from his earlier statements, claiming “Project Milo absolutely continues in development at Lionhead Studios. It is just not a product we plan to bring to market this holiday. The team at Lionhead has always been a center of innovation and will continue to deliver against that charter.” So it looks like Milo may yet live, just not anytime this year.

Last year one of the major demos used to showcase what was then known as Project Natal was a segment known as “Milo and Kate.” Lionhead Studios, the company behind the Fable franchise, had a digital boy interact with a real human through facial recognition, object scanning and motion control. It was creepy yet cool at the same time, and a big question on everyone’s minds was what exactly this tech demo would become. Sadly, it appears that Milo will never have another playdate, as Lionhead and Microsoft have no plans to release the program to the public.

When asked whatever happened to Milo and why he didn’t appear at E3 Xbox’s director of product management Aaron Greenberg said, “Last year we unveiled the Project Natal technology, we showed a bunch of technology demos as part of that. And obviously [Milo] is a technology demo that continues to exist, but right now it’s not a game that we’re planning to bring to market.”

Winner and still champion bitches

So it seems that rather than an actual product, Milo was just a sort of “proof of concept” piece to show us all what Kinect (nee Natal) could potentially do. To draw a parallel, it’s sort of like the PS3 Final Fantasy VII tech demo; it looks cool, but it’s obviously too good to be true.

It may all be for the best though, as how could an application such as Milo (we hesitate to call it a game) be made into a fun and compelling experience? A lot of the interaction between Milo and Kate seemed akin to having a little brother or a child of your own, and as anyone who has a little brother or a kid will tell you they’re only fun for about 5 minutes, then you’re stuck with them for 18 years. Maybe that’s the game; “see how long it takes Milo to resent your very existence in spite of the fact that you’ve given him the world.” That would be more depressing than Heavy Rain.

So go ahead and cancel that Milo pre-order and use the money to buy a bottle of whiskey to keep the crippling depression of loneliness at bay. You almost finally had a friend to play with, but now he’s been ripped away forever.