Three institutions of the interactive gaming design industry, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) conference, the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Microsoft’s Kinect Group, came together on Wednesday, June 7th to host the Kinect for XBOX 360 Innovation Event at the SCA Compex on the USC Campus. Attendees included creative director of the Microsoft’s Kinect, Kudo Tsunoda, Interactive Media Division Chair Scott Fisher, incoming chair of the Interactive Media Division Tracy Fullerton and members of the media.

“We are just scratching the surface of what we can deliver with Kinect as a technology,” said Tsunoda. “The stuff that’s been the biggest shock to all of us is seeing, not just the great and creative work that’s been going on in the game development community, but seeing how much Kinect has really inspired people all around the world. We’ve got stuff made by game developers. We’ve got stuff made by independent creators. We’ve got stuff made by academic creators. All of these things [are] coming together for the first time.”

USC students had three games represented at the XBOX 360 Innovation Event. Air Hockey, created by Michael Altonaga, Hsun-Yun-Lin, Aadarsh Patel and David Sommer; Mars Racer, created by Michael Altonaga, Wei Ming Liu, Kyle Mansfield and Neelesh Savalani and Mother Nature, created by Diane Tucker and Thai Phan.

“[This event] is what this type of innovation is all about,” said Fullerton “It’s about getting interesting people together in places where they stumble, learn and grow the future of interactive entertainment.”

The Kinect for XBOX360 Innovation Event was held as part of the E3 Conference held in Los Angeles. E3 is the largest interactive media show in the country.