Topic: Microsoft's Xbox Kinect - Nov 4th 2010

[BranDonk Kong]

I think a Kinect-like device would be pretty good for doing presentations and stuff. I think I might actually get this thing because my daughter would really like it. She loves to just take the analog sticks and move around the Avatar I made for her, and she always says "can I get that?!" when the Burger King Kinect commercial is on.

[Chozo Ghost]

Imagine the military applications Kinect would have if it could be hacked to pilot predator drones and/or giant robots.

[Ian Sane]

Imagine the military applications Kinect would have if it could be hacked to pilot predator drones and/or giant robots.

Yeah, I would LOVE to have dangerous weaponry controlled by loosey goosey motion controls. 

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well obviously the military would be using the $150million version and not the $150 one.

[nickmitch]

Imagine the military applications Kinect would have if it could be hacked to pilot predator drones and/or giant robots.

It'd be just like G-Gundam.

[DAaaMan64]

Imagine the military applications Kinect would have if it could be hacked to pilot predator drones and/or giant robots.

lol how would this help over a joystick? maybe my imagine sucks?

[BlackNMild2k1]

Looks like MS has spent that $500mill pretty well so far

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-09-first-blood-for-kinect-in-sales-war

After less than a week on sale, US retailer GameStop has picked Kinect as the first round winner in the Great Motion Controller War of 2010.

When asked whether Microsoft's Kinect add-on or Sony's Move would come out on top this Christmas, senior VP of merchandising and marketing Bob McKenzie told Eurogamer, "I'd say right now Microsoft's Kinect is looking to be the winner of the two for us.

"We're very happy with the sell through over the weekend. It has met our expectations and actually exceeded our initial forecasts."

"I do have them both obviously and the Move sports bundle is a great option," he added, "but I knew for my family – with an eight-year-old daughter and ten-year-old boy – that Kinect was really going to be the thing that was more geared towards my household."

[Ian Sane]

I find it funny that all these people are all "well this is perfect for my kids" as if shallow junk casual games are the only thing your kids can play.  Uh, didn't most of us play videogames as a kid?  I don't recall us having to play dumbed-down shovelware.  We were playing Final Fantasy and Contra and Legend of Zelda.

As people my age have kids I see them giving their kids the exact sort of garbage they used to complain that adults would buy them.  As kids they were upset about being bought crappy games based on licenced properties and stuff like that.  If you know games you know that something like Mario is kid-friendly but also has a great game behind it.  But they'll buy their kid junk games while they themselves play only the best games.

Kids are the most hardcore gamers of them all.  They'll play a videogame for an entire Saturday if no parent prevents them from doing so.  They have the time to game much more than any working adult.  And due to a lack of funds to buy new games they'll stick with a handful of games they do own and master them.  Or at least that was common when I was a kid.  I don't know how things work now.  But the idea of having to buy shallow gimmicky bullshit like Kinect for your kids when your kid knows a controller front and back and probably knows your cellphone and computer better than you do is laughable.

[Stratos]

Are an 8-year old and 10-year old tall enough for Kinect to register? What was the height limit again?

[KDR_11k]

Three feet something.

[Chozo Ghost]

I noticed there are a lot of 8-10 year olds playing M rated games like Call of Duty online, even though that game is rated M and for that reason they're not supposed to. I think kids like to play the same sort of games as adults, so I agree with Ian. Shovelware is never cool no matter what generation you belong to. Its like when people turn 30+ they stop being cool and they turn into the exact same boring tools that their own parents used to be, so the cycle continues....

[NWR_insanolord]

I noticed there are a lot of 8-10 year olds playing M rated games like Call of Duty online, even though that game is rated M and for that reason they're not supposed to. I think kids like to play the same sort of games as adults, so I agree with Ian. Shovelware is never cool no matter what generation you belong to. Its like when people turn 30+ they stop being cool and they turn into the exact same boring tools that their own parents used to be, so the cycle continues....

Yesterday's Penny Arcade was about pretty much exactly that:

[Ian Sane]

I should mention that I don't think kids should be playing M-rated games.  And when I was a kid games like that didn't really exist until I was about 11 or 12 and titles like Mortal Kombat were coming out so it isn't the same world.  We don't live in a world where 99% of the games made are suitable for kids which changes the dynamic a fair bit.  But they don't have to play junk either.

My brother is at a point where of his old group of friends from high school only he and one other guy remain unmarried and without children (oddly enough I'm older and yet none of my friends or myself are married).  He has observed that when one becomes a dad one instantly become a big dork who is out-of-touch with everything.  Bad haircuts, bad clothes, scrawny bodies with guts, inability to process routine things like using a bank machine and ordering at a drive thru (ie: things that have not changed since the guy was single and hip and he thus should still know how to do), complete lack of knowledge of anything pop culture related including old stuff that he KNEW ALREADY WHEN HE WAS SINGLE.  Imagine getting the name wrong of the lead singer of your favourite band or thinking that Nintendo made the Sonic games.  You figure even if you lived in a cave for ten years you would still remember what you knew before.  Somehow that all disappears and you start misquoting your favourite films and mixing up old TV shows and thinking Superman's secret identity is Peter Parker.  Suddenly you can't use a TV remote anymore or pay at the pump.  It's like when giving your offspring your genetic material you literally give then some of yourself, in that you don't have it anymore.  It's an exchange.  "I can't understand a left-turn signal now because I gave that ability to my son."

[Spak-Spang]

Ian:  Which is why I LOVE Nintendo.  All of Nintendo's games can be enjoyed by all ages.  Gamers can find really fun depth in Nintendo's core games...and their is nothing objectionable in the games to keep people from playing. 

[ThePerm]

Mortal Kombat came out when I was in 4th grade Ian, and your only a year older than me. I was like 8? I used to play Doom and Mortal Kombat, and I have not killed anybody yet. The deal is that the people who do crazy things are crazy people, and they ruin it for all of us. Great antidote by the way, I don't have kids, but i am like super out of touch as of late.

[Chozo Ghost]

The ratings thing is largely ignored anyway. Its there, but it isn't strictly enforced and most parents either don't pay attention or don't care what their kids are playing. But that's fine, because a video game isn't going to make someone evil. Bad kids will do bad things, but that has nothing to do with the games they play.

After Columbine happened over 10 years ago the media and the government and everyone blamed Marilyn Manson and video games. How many people took the time to think that maybe the kids being bullied at school might have had something to do with driving them over the edge? But that would actually require the schools and parents to get off their asses and actually do something about school bullying, and they can't have that so they went and blamed Manson's music and games like Doom instead, because that way they could pat themselves on the back and feel like their little moral crusade did something, but it didn't. Kids are still being bullied in school and being driven to suicide and/or murder even though the censorship is in effect, and even when neither music or games were involved at all.

True, many of those same kids did play violent games and/or listen to Manson's music... but maybe that's because Manson was the only one who understood how they felt so instead of that being the cause of their problem it was actually something they found solace in (if that makes sense).

I don't remember how old I was when Mortal Kombat came out, 10-12 or something like that I guess... but I played the game and I never went berzerk and killed anyone as a result of playing that game. But I can see how someone who had to live with constant and severe bullying might be driven to going berzerk, so that's what I think society needs to do more to address instead of blaming entertainment media.

Hell, if anything games like that would allow bullying victims a way to vent out their frustrations in a way that harms no one. Maybe it does more harm than good to censor stuff like that.

[TJ Spyke]

The ratings thing is largely ignored anyway. Its there, but it isn't strictly enforced

Maybe not in the stores you visit, my personal experience has been that GameStop will only sell M-rated games to people that obviously look like adults (and require ID from those who don't). Walmart won't even let you buy M-rated games in the self-checkout line unless an employee comes over and looks at your ID.

BNM, I think we all realize that are probably talking about it in terms of cash. Remember that Kinect costs $150, so they make more money from those than they do sales of Wii Remote or PlayStation Move.

[BlackNMild2k1]

BNM, I think we all realize that are probably talking about it in terms of cash. Remember that Kinect costs $150, so they make more money from those than they do sales of Wii Remote or PlayStation Move.

Huh? Are you talking about the GameStop article or something else?
If you are talking about the GS article, then I thinks it's pretty clear they are talking about units moved as they have obviously sold all they were expecting to and then some. And I said MS spent their money well because the GS guy even plugged Kinect over Move pushing it towards anyone with children. More "Free" advertising.

[TJ Spyke]

I meant in his remarks that it's gonna be the winner of motion controllers. I don't think it will sell more units than PlayStation Move based on price, but it will be more profitable.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well comparing units of Move vs Kinect is a little misleading since you only need 1 Kinect per console vs upto 4 (or 8?) per PS3.
I think it's pretty clear he is saying that they are selling more Kinects that they projected and that Kinect is gonna be selling to more 360 users than Move is gonna sell to individual PS3 owners. or in other words, there will be more 360's with Kinect hooked up after this Xmas than there will be PS3's with Move, based on the amount of units being moved out of GS and the general Hype of the product.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Kudo Tsunoda: We have a Kinect Star Wars game coming out for next holiday [Christmas 2011].
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/11720937

BBC: And what's in store for 2011 [for Kinect?]

KT: We have a Kinect Star Wars game coming out for next holiday [Christmas 2011].

I think you could just easily imagine being a Jedi and using Kinect to make you feel you're part of a Star Wars experience, building yourself up into a Jedi.

I've seen a bunch of the game and it's super compelling.

And another one next year is Forza, which is the best racing game of this generation of consoles... Those are the two games I'm most excited about.

My guess is that will be one of their first games to also use the controller.... unless you gas and brake by pushing your hands(steering wheel) forward or pulling them back.
or maybe you make he sounds with your mouth like you gassing and braking.
"BrrrrrrrrrrrrrBrrrrrrrrrrrrbrrrrbrrrrrrrr Eeeeeeeeeeek" LOL

[TJ Spyke]

We already knew there was a Star Wars Kinect game in development (it was announced at E3), we now have a general release date though. If Kinect is under $100 by then, I may pick it up around the time the game comes out.

[Ian Sane]

Mortal Kombat came out when I was in 4th grade Ian, and your only a year older than me.

MK came out in 1992 so I would have been 10.  But I honestly didn't know **** about it until the home version came out in 1993, when I would have been 11.

[BranDonk Kong]

Lame. I was playing Mortal Kombat in the arcade when I was 11.

[that Baby guy]

Well comparing units of Move vs Kinect is a little misleading since you only need 1 Kinect per console vs upto 4 (or 8?) per PS3.
I think it's pretty clear he is saying that they are selling more Kinects that they projected and that Kinect is gonna be selling to more 360 users than Move is gonna sell to individual PS3 owners. or in other words, there will be more 360's with Kinect hooked up after this Xmas than there will be PS3's with Move, based on the amount of units being moved out of GS and the general Hype of the product.

The number you need is a little misleading, though.  Technically, only up to two people can play Kinect at once.  Even then, conditions aren't optimal, and people have to be very close.  With the PS3, there's a little more freedom to control how you want to game, so the price is a little more fluid.  It's just a small technicality, but factoring in the total price relative to the players gets a bit more difficult when you consider it.