In pictures: Microsoft Kinectimals upgrades the pet sim

Jump and your pet jumps with you
Jump and your pet jumps with you

Microsoft Kinect creative director Kudo Tsunoda was showing off an intriguing new 'pet sim' game called Kinectimals at this year's Microsoft E3 press conference in LA.

The demo showed a small girl looking after a pet tiger on the screen, managing to be both slightly adorable and also a bit scary at the same time.

You can see a few of the new screengrabs from Kinectimals right here.

Kinectimals: tiger hides in the glade

Kinectimals

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Tiger hides in the glade

Kinectimals: tiger jumps over obstacles

Kinectimals: Tiger jumps over obstacles

Kinectimals: lazy tiger slumps in the grass

Kinectimals: Lazy tiger slumps in the grass

Kinectimals: tiger balances on a beam

Kinectimals: Tiger balances on a beam

Kinectimals: petting your little tiger

Kinectimals: Petting your little tiger

Kinectimals: playing dead

Kinectimals: Playing dead

Kinectimals: stand on hind legs

Kinectimals:Stand on hind legs

Kinectimals: your new tiger pet

Kinectimals: Your new tiger pet

Kinectimals: your new pet and his mates

Kinectimals: Your new pet and his mates

And you can also read our in-depth run down of all the news from Microsoft's E3 Kinect reveal and the company's E3 press conference.

A truly social experience

Tsunoda said that with Kinect "you interact with Xbox 360 just as you do in the real world using your body and your voice," adding that Kinect is a "truly social" experience.

Kinectimals lets you play games with and stroke your virtual pet tiger. It was a very impressive-looking demo from the Kinect man, with Microsoft clearly looking to capitalize on the recent trend for virtual petting started by Nintendo with Nintendogs on DS.

You can see all the latest information and screens on all of Microsoft's new Kinect and Xbox 360 titles at E3 2010 over at Xbox.com

Adam Hartley