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

[NWR_insanolord]

Not to mention the fact that Microsoft isn't afraid to give out moneyhats.

[KDR_11k]

Problem is that they are backing it with stronger hardware. Plus the 360 is really the 'market leader' from a gamer standpoint. It stands a better chance of getting unique quality 3rd party support than Wii did.

But core gamers don't want to play as their avatars, that's casual stuff.

[Mop it up]

The Kinect drivers only support Avatars, if you want the player character to be anything else you have to implement your own interpreter software. Expect tons of crappy implementations.

Kinect's unique set-up and its basic hardware limitations practically begs for innovation in control and gameplay design. Game-makers will find it hard to port over their existing concepts to the system and in the long run, this may turn out to be a good thing in making Kinect separate and distinct from other systems. Games like Child of Eden are a good example of that.

Why does that sound so damn familiar?

Hypocrisy at its finest.

[Peachylala]

Problem is that they are backing it with stronger hardware. Plus the 360 is really the 'market leader' from a gamer standpoint. It stands a better chance of getting unique quality 3rd party support than Wii did.

And this was what Nintendo themselves expected even before the Wii released.

[TJ Spyke]

With its $150 pricepoint, I don't think anyone expects Kinect to be anything but niche. So far I haven't heard of any multi-platform games that will use Kinect (whereas there have been multiple multi-platform games that will use PlayStation Move).

[King of Twitch]

I went a little after 6 and it was only showing a demo reel... maybe I should get there earlier 

[BlackNMild2k1]

Looks like Kinect has NO voice support for countries other than US, Mexico, Japan, Britain.

http://www.gamestar.de/hardware/news/eingabegeraete/2317574/microsoft_kinect.html

Microsoft Kinect - In Germany, no voice
Microsoft has confirmed to Euro Gamer, that Kinect initially be controlled by language in the U.S., Britain, Mexico and Japan. 

Microsoft Kinect In other countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain will be the function until the spring of 2011 filed later will be. This is because Microsoft says that speech recognition is a very complex area and, for example, the echo suppression in 5.1 or stereo sound, which was considered impossible before, working with Kinect.

But that was not related to a lot of effort, since one must also take into account many different aspects of language, such as an accent. Therefore, the speech recognition is activated only in those countries for which these works are completed.

 This also means that, for example in Germany a voice in English will not be possible as expected Kinect here either American or British pronunciation, were created for the two separate versions. Canadian English is also there until the spring of 2011.

The fact that Spain still has to wait, while Mexico is already supported, is, according to Microsoft because it 106 million in the U.S. and Mexico are 13 million Spanish-speaking residents whose Spanish is not identical with "Spanish Spanish. learn whether Austrians and Swiss for Kinect may have pure High German, but is not known.

[BeautifulShy]

Wow things keep piling up against Kinect. Is there anything going for it?

[BlackNMild2k1]

whats even worse...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-01-european-kinect-voice-recognition-disabled-until-spring-2011

The company confirmed rumours that the voice-recognition software will only accept American English, British English, Japanese and Mexican Spanish at launch this November. Even Canadians will have to wait until spring 2011 to be able to control the system via voice.

Frustratingly, even those fluent in English - or Spanish speakers that can imitate Mexican Spanish - won't be allowed to activate Kinect voice recognition due to the region-locked status of their Xbox 360.

So you can't even use the language if you are not in the region.....

Wow things keep piling up against Kinect. Is there anything going for it?

you can say that again.

[Ian Sane]

Outright disabling the option if you're not in the region is stupid.  What if you're originally from the States and just moved somewhere else?  How is that any different than being an American in terms of voice recognition?  And let's not forget that American immigrants will likely have accents that don't match up with the voice recognition despite being Americans living in the United States.

Of course that reveals the whole stupidity of voice recognition to begin with.  Every single person I have ever met hates it when the phone some company and get a voice recognition system.  There are too many variables in accents and dialects and the "benefit" of voice recognition is so minor it's not really worth the effort to get it right.  Voice recognition is just a "wow neato" thing people see in sci-fi movies and then think that's the future when the concept is not only hard to get to work right but also is not really that convenient.

But then isn't that Kinect in a nutshell?  The whole things sounds like a cool idea in theory if you watch Minority Report and then never think for even a second of what it would be like to really use it, assuming it even worked correctly.  Buttons are the past, present and future because they're precise.  They're yes/no and you know clearly when you push them.  Everything else is a fad.  Motion control and voice recognition have too many variables that make them prone to error and they require more effort from the user.

I'm certain that as a Canadian Kinect would recognize my voice.  It's stupid that it won't be ready in Canada on day one.  We have like four or five accents in the entire country.  If they can get all the American accents working (and certainly they have not) then you can include Canadian ones.  Hell I sound no different than anyone I meet in Seattle anyway.  Only in the more rural areas of Washington state do I encounter an accent.

[Shaymin]

I'd like to thank Ian for saying what I was thinking, and managing to avoid using 200 four-letter words in the process.

[TJ Spyke]

Canadian English is not a different language, just different spelling. If you are going by accents, accents vary even in a tiny country like the UK. Here in the US, someone from Boston sounds vastly different from someone in Dallas, for example. Kinect uses the Xbox 360, so it makes sense it will use the region the system is from.

Besides, voice control in Kinect was only confirmed recently anyways. The main draw was navigating through motions. I won't be getting Kinect, but only because it's not worth $150 +tax (so $162 for me).

[BlackNMild2k1]

How MS Kinect won.... the screaming fan girl market
-or- How YOU just got Bieber Rolled Baited :

[Caliban]

Man were they loud.

[BlackNMild2k1]

MS Believe Kinect Will 'Blow Away' iPad Sales

Micrsoft's Kudo Tsunoda believes that Kinect will 'blow away' sales of the iPad when it launches later this year.

"The preorders have been really strong. As far as what we're looking at for Holiday, this is going to be stuff that'll blow away any of the sales you've seen with iPad," Tsunoda told Gamasutra. "The Xbox 360 is already selling better than the Wii and Sony right now. Kinect's really just going to boost that to a whole new level."

no comment

[Ian Sane]

How well has the iPad done?  At the time of its announcement it was almost unanimously made fun of.  However it seems to be a popular status symbol at my work.

I predict Kinect will either be a huge disaster or it will do the exact opposite and surprise the **** of every sane person by being a hot item.  That is usually how things go.  If I think something is utterly ridiculous and has no chance of success it either does bomb exactly like I thought it would or it becomes a runaway success for no logical reason.  It is always one extreme.  Middle-of-the-road success is only for good products or middling average-to-bad products that are not poor enough to attract attention for their low quality.

[NWR_insanolord]

How well has the iPad done?  At the time of its announcement it was almost unanimously made fun of.

The iPad is selling very well. It is still ridiculed by some, but studies have shown that the people who actually own them love them, something I can personally vouch for.

[Shaymin]

The iPad's near 4 million since March. If I was Vegas, I'd set the line on Kinect at 300k and recommend the under.

[NWR_insanolord]

It depends on how long Microsoft is willing to stick with it and how much money they're willing to spend giving out moneyhats to get decent software support for it. Even under the best of circumstances, though, I think 4 million is a stretch.

[KDR_11k]

Even then, 4 million is practically a failure.

[Stratos]

The Virtual Boy sold 770k.

Just wanted to throw that out since VB is Nintendo's failure and worth comparing to Kinect sales.

Also:
3DO sold 2 million
Jaguar 250k
Dreamcast 10.6 million
Saturn 9.5

These were all generally accepted as failed systems.

[TJ Spyke]

Kinect is just a add-on though, so it's not really apt to compare sales to systems.

There's no chance in hell that Kinect will even do 1/10th of what iPad has done, yet alone what it will do. iPad is overpriced for what it is, but I can't even consider paying $162 for Kinect.

[BlackNMild2k1]

If this happens

http://nintendo3dsblog.com/gamestop-adds-nintendo-3ds-games-and-accessories-to-their-system-sets-a-november-22nd-release-date

then both Kinect & Move can cry now. Everyone will far too busy spending their disposable income on 3DS this holiday shopping season to have anything left to waste on barely supported add-ons that came way to late and/or too high a price.

[Chozo Ghost]

If it works as its supposed to I can see Kinect being a popular thing for party games and dance games, and it has some obvious advantages that neither Move or the Wii can match in that regard. However, Kinect requires the player to stand, so I can't see it being popular with MOST gamers. The fact of the matter is most people who own and play the 360 are hardcore gamers who quite frankly are couch potatoes. Even if hardcore games like Halo or Resident Evil were made to work with Kinect, I doubt they would be interested because they would prefer to sit on their ass and mash buttons and just burn as few calories as possible.

So it might be popular with nongamers and exercisers, but then again the Wii already has that market locked up tight. So I'm predicting Kinect will be a modest success for certain demographics, but over all it will be a failure and MS will probably pull the plug on it after awhile and then come out with a new motion gimmick that will allow gamers to sit down as they play, just like the Wii and Move do.

[NWR_insanolord]

I was ignoring Kinect completely, but I can't help but be interested in how they intend to do Steel Battalion with it.