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

[NWR_insanolord]

If Microsoft isn't the loser, this is the worst E3 ever (yes, worse than 2007).

[broodwars]

Gotta admit that MS completely failed to wow me with Kinect. Eventhough, it's too early to call a victor (obviously), I feel safe to say the MS lost E3.

EDIT: I honestly doubt Kinect will work right at launch if PRERECORDED footage was a fail. It'll probably need a patch soon after release. I'm surprised they still seem to have some work to do with the hardware.

Sony & Nintendo would have to have a TERRIBLE outing to lose E3 to MS at this point.

Maybe Nintendo doesn't reveal 3DS at all and focuses on Vitality Sensor and Wii Relax incidentally making the entire viewing audience so relaxed that we miss the rest of the conference. Too much focus on WiiParty and only a short glimpse of Zelda.

Sony cold have technical difficulties and drop a Move remote, the casing breaks open and a Wii remote falls out live on TV. Then they try to save the show by playing a clip of Killzone 3D and Halo: Reach starts playing on the big screen.

But I doubt anything of that sort will happen, so it's probably safe to say that MS has lost this round.

You'd think that, but if IGN is any indication apparently the media have a very different impression of that Press Conference than we do, sadly.      And given that the media spin the message, that's not good.

[Mop it up]

So wait, Microsoft didn't have a live showing of Kinect? Do they plan to?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

LOL NO

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

BUT THE CONFERENCE IS A HONEYPOT OF LIES

[Ymeegod]

Man, can't believe MS's lame attempt at copying Nintendo.  I was somewhat looking forward to the Natal before since it sounded like it was going cater to more hardcore games but 90% of the lineup is basically a clone from the WII. 

BLEH.  Only game I was interesting in was that Star Wars one .  Worst E3 for MS since the orginal launch (where the xbox crashed during a gameplay demo with Bill Gates playing).

[Chozo Ghost]

MS doesn't want to do a live performance of Kinect for fear that it would crash on them.

[KDR_11k]

You'd think that, but if IGN is any indication apparently the media have a very different impression of that Press Conference than we do, sadly.      And given that the media spin the message, that's not good.

IGN UK/Australia wrote a VERY negative article on Kinect.

[broodwars]

You'd think that, but if IGN is any indication apparently the media have a very different impression of that Press Conference than we do, sadly.      And given that the media spin the message, that's not good.

IGN UK/Australia wrote a VERY negative article on Kinect.

What, that article about what they felt was lacking in the Press Conference, which opens with the sentence "Overall, we were impressed with Microsoft's E3 2010 press conference"?  I'm not seeing a "VERY negative article on Kinect", unless you're counting that one where they compare the 6 Kinect games with their Wii/DS counterparts.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"To say I was disappointed with Kinect would be putting it mildly. After waiting at the Galen Center for a couple of hours, other than the name, Kinect, nothing was revealed except a handful of pre-recorded demos where actors clearly pretended to control the on-screen characters (avatars) with their own body movement. At several points the avatars would move before the actors did, ruining the illusion of a real live demo of Kinect. This body-synch debacle makes Milli Vanilli's legendary lip-synch outrage look tame by comparison."

http://games.ign.com/articles/109/1096907p1.html

[broodwars]

"To say I was disappointed with Kinect would be putting it mildly. After waiting at the Galen Center for a couple of hours, other than the name, Kinect, nothing was revealed except a handful of pre-recorded demos where actors clearly pretended to control the on-screen characters (avatars) with their own body movement. At several points the avatars would move before the actors did, ruining the illusion of a real live demo of Kinect. This body-synch debacle makes Milli Vanilli's legendary lip-synch outrage look tame by comparison."

http://games.ign.com/articles/109/1096907p1.html

And that's an article about the Sunday Pre-E3 reveal for Kinect, not the Microsoft E3 Press Conference.

[Stratos]

Destructoid apparently declared 'Jihad' on Microsoft in response to the Kinetic presentation.

Honestly, I was really trying to keep an open mind but I just can't stand the thing after watching the conference. Too much fluff and ridiculous nonsense and the games looked really uninspired.

Tiger game was cute but felt very forced and too much like a Nintendogs knockoff.

Honestly, I think Nintendo proved years ago that 'Touching is Better' with the DS. Complete lack of feedback will ruin most of it. The WiiMote already struggles to give you proper feedback, and they expect empty hands to win out?

[MaryJane]

The $149 price tag is going to seem a little high, especially if Nintendo drops the Wii to $149 which they may do to compete for holiday sales.

While there were a lot of crap games on display there were a few moments that showed the potential of Kinect, I want to see what some other developers have in the pipeline before fully passing judgment on it.

[KDR_11k]

I want to see what some other developers have in the pipeline before fully passing judgment on it.

Uninspired shovelware that was based on the two principles that "casual gamers are stupid" and "it'll sell on novelty value"?

[BlackNMild2k1]

LOL



& Ubisoft should be embarrassed.

[BlackNMild2k1]

And yet another reason why Kinect will fall on it's face out of the gates....

Dev's Say: Kinect no work when you no stand

Standing Room Only

According to Microsoft, you can play some Kinect games sitting down. It "varies" by experience. However, several developers giving us demos have said the exact opposite. Sometimes the contradiction comes from the same person--one day telling us you have to be standing and then the next saying everything can be done while sitting.

Which is true? We don't know for certain, as we have not had the opportunity to play anything seated. Suffice to say, if you have to stand for every game (or for menu navigation), that's a big problem. This remains a concern until we ourselves can test out Kinect from our rear.

MS Sez: You No Sit! You Stand!

You might have expected a seated Kinect experience from the Forza Motorsport team. Those folks are making Kinect driving games and tech demos. They've got a fun highway driving challenge that involves standing in front of the Kinect and steering by holding your hands in front of your body as if you were turning a real steering wheel. The perspective for this game experiment is inside the car, through the eyes of a driver. Rolling your shoulders in front of Kinect turns the game's camera view slightly, letting you look around inside the car. Your lower body is not used — no foot-forward-to-accelerate as was seen in a similar demonstration last year with racing game Burnout. Nevertheless, you have to play this one standing up if you are playing it at E3.

I asked one of the two members of Forza development studio Turn 10 if I could play their demo sitting down. They said I could not, that it was "optimized for standing."
[...]
I'd be worried less about this sitting thing — and I would stop asking the "sitting question" — if I had not been made to watch a movie via Kinect while standing up.

On Monday evening I participated in a brief demonstration of how Kinect could be used to control the Xbox 360 dashboard. This demonstration had me standing in front of the Kinect and using both hand-waves and voice commands to flip through menus on a TV and load applications such as movie-watching and video chat. There were chairs at this demo, but they were off to the side. I had to stand up.

The Kinect is superb at recognizing a standing player. It reads the presence of your body, detects 19 or so key joints in your frame and tracks your movement with magical immediacy. I had no more trouble swiping through the Kinect menus than I did steering the car in the Forza demo. Voice commands worked nicely as well, though I lamented that the Kinect couldn't distinguish my commands from anyone else's in the room. What I didn't understand is why I had to stand through all of this.

I liked telling the Xbox 360 to pause a movie. I liked extending my hand and dragging the movie's progress bar left or right, as if I was using the Star Wars Force to fast forward and rewind. But, I asked the Microsoft people running the demo, could I drag a chair over and try this sitting down?

No.

"Sitting is something we're still calibrating for," one of them told me.

Some time during the demo they showed me a video that simulated Kinect-powered video chat. That was going to be calibrated for sitting, right? And movie watching isn't really going to require me to stand, correct?

[Shorty McNostril]

[BlackNMild2k1]

But that's not all

Natal is only 2 player...

PrimeSense reps also told me that the camera can "see" any number of   people on the screen -- you can fit as many people in that camera as   possible, and the computer will see all of them and can even recognize   them as human shapes. But it can only run calculations on two people   at a time, just because the processing power required to track all of   the body's locations and movements is so great. During our testing   with the device, a person moving in front of the camera was able to   "steal focus," but the computer can also be told through gestures to   keep focus on a certain person.

[Shorty McNostril]

[SixthAngel]

I knew there wouldn't be 360 games using the controller and kinect.  I guess there never will be unless you want to stand and play with the controller.

What really gets me about it is that people had to apparently stand up to even control watching a movie.  That feature is worthless if I have to stand up and YMCA the movie off.

The lack of four players thing is inexcusable.  One reason Wii is such a party machine was that four people could play tennis at the same time.  It was difficult to find room for all the people but I loved it.

[Stratos]

Yeah, lack of 4 players is epic fail in my book. Once I got the option in the N64 I thought we could never go back and yet systems like the PS2 and now Kinect tell us otherwise.

[Adrock]

Props to Microsoft for jumping on the motion control bandwagon without flat-out ganking Nintendo's idea. Too bad Kinect is just a sh*tty idea in general and a sh*ttier idea to launch 6 years into a console's run.

And I agree with Stratos, lack of 4 player is total epic fail. Of all the things not to steal from Nintendo........

[Spak-Spang]

Ha.  Wow...Microsoft you did just the opposite of what Sony did with Motion control.

Microsoft used developing technology not quite ready for current market and tried to place it in the market for gaming.   I have no doubt Kinect WILL work sitting down, but right now the Xbox 360 just isn't powerful enough to do great things with it.  Now, next console will probably work great with Kinects right outta the box...but that is next generation.

Sony, used old tech that they had been working on for while, and created motion controls with it, that work, although the controller still looks extremely dumb...but since this is old technology works GREAT with the current generation hardware. 

Congrats Sony...you learned from Nintendo.  Microsoft, you learned from yourself and your pathetic mistakes. 

[TJ Spyke]

I don't think the two-player limit is what will hurt it,  think it's the rumored (I say rumored since Microsoft has not confirmed it) $150 pricepoint that will kill it. The 15 game launch lineup looks pathetic, it is filled with four fitness games (three of which are Wii ports), ports of Wii games, and clones of Wii games. Just about the only original game at launch will be Kinect Joy Ride.

[DAaaMan64]

Its possible over the next year that Microsoft can't optimize and patch Kinect for 4 player, and sitting down. Certainly a doable possibility with a years time.

When I watched the E3 conference, I was interested in trying Kinect Adventures, Your Shape (looked awesome), MTV Dance Game, and Dance Masters (Konami). I don't think any of those games looked bad.

Were all of the demos faked? There's no way.

[KDR_11k]

No, 4 players would take too much CPU, that can't easily be patched (maybe it would have worked had MS not removed the processing chip in the camera for cost reasons). Maybe games could sacrifice visuals for more players but... Not happening on the 360.

All the demos at the conferences were faked (probably to avoid a situation like Miyamoto had with Zelda) but there were apparently playable demos at the booth.