Kinect - Gen. Info & Discussion

[quote name='seanr1221']Why are you apologizing?

Also, the grammar in that review was horrible. I don't usually judge, but you'd think he would check things over.[/QUOTE]

I think he was just writing by the seat of his pants to be honest. I'm an English major and grammatical errors bother the living hell out of me, especially when they come from news sources or the like. I would consider his writing to be more along the lines of "stream of consciousness," where the writer/author is simply writing as he/she thinks. I do it all the time because it's informal and fun.

[quote name='thrustbucket']I, and I think Microsoft, expected mediocre/bad reviews simply by the nature of what it is and who is reviewing it. This can be illustrated by the reports I've been reading of Kinectimles. As gamers we can sit and nit pick the shit out of it. But put a kid in front of it and watch him light up and smile for hours - that's what Kinect is.

Can someone please verify for me whether or not Kinect works as a Mic for regular 360 games/party chat?[/QUOTE]

I don't doubt that kids will love it. Actually, I think kids would get a kick out of it and I would have loved something like this when I was a kid! That being said, the 360 isn't usually thought of as a family friendly console like the Wii. With games like Gears of War, Halo, Call of Duty, and so on, its target audience is for gamers between 17 and 35 or so.

Also, according to one of the reviews I posted above, it does not work great as a mic for regular 360 games or party chat. It worked sometimes and other times it would require the person to nearly scream at it to get other people to hear them...barely.
 
[quote name='Pck21']
I don't doubt that kids will love it. Actually, I think kids would get a kick out of it and I would have loved something like this when I was a kid! That being said, the 360 isn't usually thought of as a family friendly console like the Wii. With games like Gears of War, Halo, Call of Duty, and so on, its target audience is for gamers between 17 and 35 or so.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah but that doesn't matter. Microsoft isn't that concerned about selling Kinect to 360 owners. They are concerned about using Kinect to sell more 360's to people that never would have been interested before.
 
I was planning on holding out for awhile but curiosity got the better of me. I just barely have about 6 feet and so far Kinect adventures works fine.
 
[quote name='TeamUnderdog']Just realized Kinect doesn't work with Netflix =/ That sucks. One of the major reasons I was buying it. Oh well mine arrives from Amazon tomorrow.[/QUOTE]

Yeah me too, but then again you know there will be a update sooner or later for Kinect support
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']Yeah but that doesn't matter. Microsoft isn't that concerned about selling Kinect to 360 owners. They are concerned about using Kinect to sell more 360's to people that never would have been interested before.[/QUOTE]

Right, but then what? Does MS actually believe the new 360 owners, who were targeted as "casual gamers" mind you, will suddenly pick up games like COD and Halo just because of Kinect? Kinect will be great for them, and their investors, in the short term. Long term, I don't see it lasting long. Kids will get bored with it (they always do) and the gimmick effect will subside. All that's left to be judged are the games and they don't have stellar titles at the moment.
 
[quote name='Pck21']Right, but then what? Does MS actually believe the new 360 owners, who were targeted as "casual gamers" mind you, will suddenly pick up games like COD and Halo just because of Kinect? Kinect will be great for them, and their investors, in the short term. Long term, I don't see it lasting long. Kids will get bored with it (they always do) and the gimmick effect will subside. All that's left to be judged are the games and they don't have stellar titles at the moment.[/QUOTE]

The battle is getting the 360 into the home, once they accomplish that, then they're golden.
 
[quote name='crunchewy']Curious that the review sites all report issues with having the noted amount of space, at least all that I've read. How come they'd have issues but not the folks here? Weird. I wish they had a trial period with returns allowed, opened, within a period of time. I'd like to be able to try it in my home before buying.[/QUOTE]

buy as a gift
 
I have 4 feet of space in my room... has anyone tried using Kinect with that little space? Very curious to see if it works.
 
My friend bought one this morning, he bought the Kinect and Kinect Sports. I had alot of fun playing, it is for sure going for the Wii demographic, but it might have promise for the core gamers "might". None the less I do not have a Wii so I might buy one eventually. I also like how you do not need to buy anymore controllers for it, I do hope that they patch more interactivity in the future, it did not do all the stuff I thought it would. Also, like people were saying about the voice command, it worked when my buddies furnace kicked off, but if the furnace was running it was a no go on the voice command.

edit - my friend had it in his room and it was too small and we had to move it into the front room. 4 feet might work but that is cutting it really close when you have to kick and punch around.
 
Giant Bomb got their Kinect in, so they're doing an all-day (Except during the Goldeneye TNT in a few hours) live video stream of them playing the Kinect.
 
That pregnant chick playing Dance Central is in a tiny apartment and it seems to work just fine. The games look stupid but these concerns over the hardware seem like hyperbole.
 
As I understand it, all the games that come out for kinect will look like the ones out Now right? Since it uses like 30% of the Xboxs power.
 
[quote name='shosh']As I understand it, all the games that come out for kinect will look like the ones out Now right? Since it uses like 30% of the Xboxs power.[/QUOTE]

Apparently it only uses single digit percentage of the CPU according to Microsoft (via Engadget the other day).
 
Gossip bloggers are saying the Kinect is racist... lol

The article they are linking to:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6283514.html
Kinect has problems recognizing dark-skinned users?
While testing out the Kinect, two dark-skinned GameSpot employees experienced problems with the system's facial recognition abilities. The system recognized one employee inconsistently, while it was never able to properly identify the other despite repeated calibration attempts. However, Kinect had no problems identifying a third dark-skinned GameSpot employee, recognizing his face after a single calibration. Lighter-skinned employees were also consistently picked up on the first try.
Click to expand...
 
[quote name='flameofdoom666']I have 4 feet of space in my room... has anyone tried using Kinect with that little space? Very curious to see if it works.[/QUOTE]

I got a chance to play Kinect Adventures today at Best Buy. The play space was pretty small, but I'm not sure if 4 feet is going to be enough.

I was a little worried about space issues, but after playing it at Best Buy I'm pretty confident that I have plenty of space.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by flameofdoom666
I have 4 feet of space in my room... has anyone tried using Kinect with that little space? Very curious to see if it works.


From my experience 4 feet wouldn't work. My set up of almost 6 feet gets me in the good range for single player and If I step forward It tells me to step back. It worked well for Adventures but on the Dance Central demo I noticed my Head and feet were cut off.
 
Anyone notice if you walk out of the frame, and step back you'll be signed out of the Kinect Hub in game if it can't re-recognize you?

Basically, in Dance Central, if I walk away, come back, it doesn't recognize me, I won't be signed into the hub when I paused. However, overall Im still signed into XBL overall. I just don't want this to effect achievements tied to my gamer tag.
 
I think one thing that is going to really bug me is, when Im not playing a kinect game (Say, Fable 3, while sitting), the 2 lights on the kinect are right at eye-level and are going to annoy me
 
I played with it for awhile @ work and saw customers using it, worked fine with no problems. If someone walks by and in the way, it'll pause and you can just resume and you gotta be at least 4-5 feet away but 7-9 is the recommended feet to be away so it'll work fine. 1 thing I did notice is that most of the launch titles do not have online multiplayer and that's kind of the main thing I was looking for so i'm still undecided on it.
 
What's the word on motion sports and that fighting game? There have been zero reviews for them, anyone get either one?
 
I decide afterall that i'll get kinect with my discount @ work and go to target and do the buy 2 get 1 free so for 3 games it'll be about $108 after taxes of course. called and had it verified by an employee at electronics.
 
OK I've spent about two hours with Kinect playing Your Shape Fitness and Kinect Adventures. I'm a extremely impressed with this so far. The movement tracking for Your Shape Fitness is amazing. When I'm doing an exercise and kind of cheating or being lazy it detects it and says "wider squats" or whatever may apply. As soon as I start working harder it acknowledges it.

I played Adventures with my 6 year old and it detected both of us constantly. There was one time where it had his left arm in weird position and wouldn't change it but as soon as the mini game was over it never happened again.

I will be getting the dance game this weekend and will try to play your shape fitness everyday.

Again this is only after two hours of play but so far it has exceeded my expectations.

One other thing I should have stated is that I have a pretty ideal setup for Kinect. I can make the lighting in my room really bright although medium level light seemed fine. I also have about 10 feet between my TV and couch with a lot of open space. So keep that in mind.
 
 
Kinect has completely, completely exceeded my expectations!!!!! I picked up Dance Central and Kinect Sports and I've played both, plus KA, tonight over the past few hours. Wow, just wow. I have about 8-10 feet of space in my living room (I did some serious rearranging) and when playing, I have a huge gap of space behind me. These games are just plain FUN. I'm a hardcore gamer who loves his Halo, CoD, etc etc, but there's a time and place for those games, and theres a time and place to just kick back and have some genuine fun with a game. If anyone, anyone is on the fence about Kinect - do some rearranging in your room, get it, invite some friends over, and proceed to have a blast!
 
How to you get out of Kinect without a controller. Can you get to the guide with Kinect? I see the guide symbol (xbox symbol) but nothing happens when I go over it. I can get into Kinect central but no Dash. Also didn't see anyway to shut down from kinect central.
 
[quote name='Chroma914']Kinect has completely, completely exceeded my expectations!!!!! I picked up Dance Central and Kinect Sports and I've played both, plus KA, tonight over the past few hours. Wow, just wow. I have about 8-10 feet of space in my living room (I did some serious rearranging) and when playing, I have a huge gap of space behind me. These games are just plain FUN. I'm a hardcore gamer who loves his Halo, CoD, etc etc, but there's a time and place for those games, and theres a time and place to just kick back and have some genuine fun with a game.. If anyone, anyone is on the fence about Kinect - do some rearranging in your room, get it, invite some friends over, and proceed to have a blast![/QUOTE]
:applause:

Awesome to hear. I was really only interested in Dance Central of the release games (since Sonic Riders appears to be very bad), and my fiance wants Harry Potter next week, so I'm glad to hear it's (kinect and dance central) as fun (for many people) as I had hoped it'd be.
 
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Wow, looks like fun at parties, but no way will it fit anywhere in my apartment. Might have to see if I can con my buddy who has a house into picking one up...
 
[quote name='Chroma914']Kinect has completely, completely exceeded my expectations!!!!! I picked up Dance Central and Kinect Sports and I've played both, plus KA, tonight over the past few hours. Wow, just wow. I have about 8-10 feet of space in my living room (I did some serious rearranging) and when playing, I have a huge gap of space behind me. These games are just plain FUN. I'm a hardcore gamer who loves his Halo, CoD, etc etc, but there's a time and place for those games, and theres a time and place to just kick back and have some genuine fun with a game. If anyone, anyone is on the fence about Kinect - do some rearranging in your room, get it, invite some friends over, and proceed to have a blast![/QUOTE]

100% same the same for. My friends and I were laughing and having a blast with Kinect.
 
Ok, my initial 5 minute hands on review is very satisfying. I was really scared reading this thread but soon caught on that everyone who bought it had no problems and practically loved it, while everyone elses 'friends' who they went over to their 'house' hated it..

I literally took a tape measure out before I unboxed and measured about 7.5 feet from the sensor to where I would stand. When Adventures configured, I was right on the line b/t Good and Best, so I was happy with that. With the lights completely out, navigating the menu's was kick ass, flawless. However, when I jumped into Adventures it got kind of weird, but turning on the lights fixed it. I really enjoyed playing that game, it was fun, didn't check out any of the demos.

When I went back to the menu, it said to say 'Xbox' then I got to play with the voice commands which was the sh*t!! I really hope they expand commands thru updates, which I'm sure they will. Hell, there is so much that I feel like you can do / say, but I just don't know it. These websites need to stop putting out 'your mega guide to Kinect' which is bs links to other articles/reviews and start showing us inside tips and tricks!!
 
Also a hardcore gamer here. Had a blast with Kinect Adventures due to the two-player mode. Pretty seamless jump in and out. This echoes almost everyone else, but Dance Central is the winner. I could see why you can't have two-players with some of the moves.
 
I'd consider myself to be a hardcore gamer as well, and I am also having a blast with the kinect so far. Kinect Adventures is really fun multiplayer and the online is also awesome, and I also really like Sonic Free Riders...it just takes some time to get used to it all but its also a blast in multiplayer.
 
I spent 3 hours just playing with voice stuff tonight. Awesome. But it needs to be fleshed out more. There are times you can activate something with voice and not get out with voice.

glad to also see voice chat works well. I was watching a movie and the guy in my chat couldn't hear it at all but could hear me. Awesome.
 
Does Your Shape Fitness make use of more room than the other games? Or do you pretty much stand in a "Circle" and dont leave that? Like do you have to do push-ups, where you are stretching along sideways? I dont know if I have that much room. I have enough for Dance Central and Kinect Adventures, does that mean I'm A-OK on room for Your Shape?
 
Holy shit Kinect is awesome!

The area that I have it on is not too spacey and low lighting, have about 5 feet of space and yet it found me fine. Only problem I have at the moment is that I can't create a Kinect ID because it requires me to have more open space...I guess I could do that some other time when I move stuff around.

It felt pretty unreal when you first start it up and it tells you to wave your hand and navigate through the menus and you see how well its responding.

Played a little of Kinect Adventures, tried the demos for Dance Central and Joy Ride...all pretty solid games IMO. Dance Central is a lot more fun than I would have expected.

I had already purchased Dance Central and Sonic Rivals at Target from their B2G1F but I plan on exchanging Sonic Rivals for Kinectamals...also debating on getting Kinect Sports as opposed to Dance Central but I'm not sure yet.
 
[quote name='LinkinPrime']Holy shit Kinect is awesome!

The area that I have it on is not too spacey and low lighting, have about 5 feet of space and yet it found me fine. Only problem I have at the moment is that I can't create a Kinect ID because it requires me to have more open space...I guess I could do that some other time when I move stuff around.

It felt pretty unreal when you first start it up and it tells you to wave your hand and navigate through the menus and you see how well its responding.

Played a little of Kinect Adventures, tried the demos for Dance Central and Joy Ride...all pretty solid games IMO. Dance Central is a lot more fun than I would have expected.

I had already purchased Dance Central and Sonic Rivals at Target from their B2G1F but I plan on exchanging Sonic Rivals for Kinectamals...also debating on getting Kinect Sports as opposed to Dance Central but I'm not sure yet.[/QUOTE]

Nice to hear positive thoughts on the unit, Link. I'm happy with mine, too. I'm working with 7 feet and everything is working fine. Adventures is lots of fun and Kinectimals is surprisingly deep. I got it for my kids (5 and 2.5), but I can see me playing it on my own. I had zero intention of getting Dance Central, but that demo was damn fun!
 
I'm pretty impressed by it so far. Exceeded my expectations. Only down side I have is that I'm working with 5 feet as well but I raised the sensor higher so it can still get my full body. (Just barely) Picking up the wall mount as soon as it hits.
 
A couple of observations from last nights session:

Video connect is REALLY laggy. Seriously, for a new RGB camera, it does like 2fps - I don't understand why or how there is any possible good excuse.

Games that support the old Xbox Live cam do not recognize Kinect. This makes no sense. When they wrote the API's for Kinect they should have made it backwards compatible.

Voice control is SO awesome that it frustrates the shit out of me that it doesn't work in netflix or in regular video watching. I can't wait until they update it further - it feels like just the tip of the iceberg, and the noise cancelation works REALLY well. It's also incredibly inconsistent. In the kinect hub or in ESPN you can pretty much do everything with voice, however in Zune you have to still select stuff with your hand, but you can change pages with voice. It's also strange that you can't navigate your friends list or the guide with your voice.
 
I love Kinect, it exceeded my expectations as well. I played Kinect Adventures and Sports by myself for a few hours yesterday, and it was fun, but not mind-blowing.

... then my girlfriend got home and we took turns playing Dance Central. Holy crap, best video game purchase ever. We were dying with laughter. I'm a terrible dancer and I didn't expect it to be anywhere near this fun from what I had seen of it in videos.

Kinect Adventures is fun with two people as well, I really like that another person can just jump in and start playing, without any calibration or even without quitting out and going through the menu. So much better than Sports Champions, where it feels like you're constantly re-calibrating. Kinect Sports Party Mode was awesome too, I'm really surprised by the presentation in that game. All the licensed music and the goofy mascots made it tons of fun and load times are quick. Seeing re-cap videos of the people while they were playing definitely hasn't gotten old yet, it's hilarious every time.

Can't wait to play more, although I'm kind of sore this morning from ~3 hours of Kinect last night. Good stuff.

Tech-wise, there is some lag and it can be a little janky at times, but it never feels frustrating. When playing with other people you'll be too busy laughing to notice.

Oh, and every game should do menus like Dance Central does. Their implementation is so much faster and more fun than the "hold your hand over the huge button for 3 seconds" scheme that Microsoft came up with. I wish voice navigation was integrated everywhere too since it works very well.
 
[quote name='Aleman']I love Kinect, it exceeded my expectations as well. I played Kinect Adventures and Sports by myself for a few hours yesterday, and it was fun, but not mind-blowing. Then my girlfriend got home and we took turns playing Dance Central. Holy crap, best video game purchase ever. We were dying with laughter.

Kinect Adventures is fun with two people as well, I really like that another person can just jump in and start playing, without any calibration or even without quitting out and going through the menu. So much better than Sports Champions, where it feels like you're constantly re-calibrating. Kinect Sports Party Mode was awesome too, I'm really surprised by the presentation in that game. All the licensed music and the goofy mascots made it tons of fun. Seeing videos of the people while they were playing definitely hasn't gotten old yet, it's hilarious every time.

Can't wait to play more, although I'm kind of sore this morning from ~3 hours of Kinect last night. Good stuff.

Tech-wise, there is some lag and it can be a little janky at times, but it never feels frustrating. When playing with other people you'll be too busy laughing to notice.[/QUOTE]


Nice post; and I think you are really touching on what kinect is. Most of us come from a hard gaming background with a very dogmatic approach to critiquing a game. Over the years we've sort of lost touch with the differences between "good game" and "good fun" - there are differences.

You can take the most well written book in the world and acknowledge that it's a masterpiece, but still smile more and ultimately have more fun reading a shitty 50 cent comic book - and there is NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.
 
Got mine last night, set up was quite easy, although the calibration took awhile. System had trouble with my lining up the eyeball card to the glasses on screen.

I have 3 kids, a son who is 10,and 2 girls, 7,6 yrs old, and they had a blast. We took turns playing Kinect Adventures, some single player, and then teams of 2. Scanning in and out of the games worked great. We were all laughing doing the game were you have to duck, jump and dodge the obstacles on the mine cart.

Dance Central was also great. Kids were impressed by dads dance moves to Poker Face. The great part of the game in my opinion is during the freestyle, Kinect records video of the dancer(s) and then plays it back at about 10x speed. Hysterical!!!

I am in shape, but was worn out and a little sore after playing for 2 hours.

There is some lag, there are times when you hover your hand over something, and it picks the object next to it. But overall, it appears to be a family hit.
 
One more thing... it was hilarious to see my cat watching us like we were crazy in the background of all the re-cap videos.

Also, whenever the camera moved up or down he would perk up and jump on it, throwing all the tracking off. And I accidentally kicked him once when playing Kinect Sports soccer.

So be careful when mixing Kinect with pets :)
 
For anyone interested, I have a few Adidas Superstar avatar outfits (that were at NYC launch of Kinect) for trade. These go hand and hand with Kinect! I am very reasonable, so just shoot me a PM!
 
Ok so maybe video kinect does not suck so bad. I just saw destructoids video of them using it and it was really nice. So now I am perplexed as to why mine sucked so bad.

Oh and:
netflixo.jpg

:bomb::bomb:
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']Ok so maybe video kinect does not suck so bad. I just saw destructoids video of them using it and it was really nice. So now I am perplexed as to why mine sucked so bad.

Oh and:
netflixo.jpg

:bomb::bomb:[/QUOTE]

Yeah I got mine yesterday and the video kinect was the highlight for me. Having the camera follow you is really cool. I have the original 20 gb model btw. Also bummed about no netflix or DVD control with Kinect though.
 
[quote name='shrike4242']I'm curious if people with Kinect lagging on their systems have non-Slim 360s or slim 360s.[/QUOTE]

I have an non-slim purchased one year, one month to the day Kinect launched, so 10/04/09, didn't experience lag. I am setting the unit below my TV, exactly 3 feet from the ground. I did notice that I did all the calibration standing up. When I went to sit down on my pushed back coffee table, I could not do the hand motion controls unless I 'put my hand in the cookie jar' (basketball term) and raised my hand over my head, fully extended..however, as soon as I stood up, it was perfect again..

I can't help but have this sneaky suspiscion in my head that his on-board processor they took out will only aid them in allowing them to come out with a 'new and improved!' Kinect 2 years from now, at which point I will hate MSFT!
 
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