Slashdot Mirror
iFixit Tears Down Microsoft's Kinect For Xbox 360
alphadogg writes "Microsoft's new hands-free Kinect game controller is packed with four microphones, two autofocus cameras and a motion detector chip that together make for one heck of a complex toy, according to iFixit's initial teardown of the device. 'We haven't been this excited to get our hands on new hardware since the iPad,' says Kyle Wiens, CEO of the company. 'The way that we interact with computers is (finally) evolving, and Kinect is unlike any hardware we've ever taken apart. In fact, the only thing we've ever taken apart that has anywhere close to this many sensors is Pleo, the dinosaur robot.' iFixit describes Kinect as 'a horizontal bar of sensors connected to a small, motorized pivoting base.' The $150 device that Microsoft put hundreds of millions of dollars of research into can be purchased separately from the Xbox 360 or as part of a bundle. A Prime Sense PS1080-A2 is at the heart of Kinect's motion detection capabilities, as it connects to all of Kinect's sensors and processes images of your game room's color and scope before shooting them over to the Xbox. iFixit couldn't immediately identify all of the chips within the box, so plans to update its teardown."
So MS can reduce the cost of the device in version 2 by dropping half the sensors?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Kinect is going to be hyped to hell and back by Microsoft's marketing department. Be prepared to puke from all the commercials plastered all over the place.
Then watch it fail when used in real life by actual gamers.
English motherfucker, do you speak it?
Next to french, german, greek and dutch? I speak it perfect. can't write it for shit though. How is your Dutch or German? Or French or Greek? I can both speak and write those without error... well.... bitch?
Comparing the wii to the Kinect is absurd. One is an accelerometer, the other is a full-body skeletal pose estimator with probably 20 degrees of freedom. Like comparing a flashlight to an LCD display. The only question now is, will Kinect actually work?
And yet the wii does work... without question... Why ask the question in the first place?
Does this English motherfucker speak what?
n/t
I can't believe the summary didn't mention the $2000 bounty reward for making an open source driver.
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/11/04/the-open-kinect-project-the-ok-prize-get-1000-bounty-for-kinect-for-xbox-360-open-source-drivers/
http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/xbox-360/news/kinects-new-york-launch-misses-expectations-but-still-a-good-party/a-20101104112747310011/g-20060321132945404017
Hard to imagine how bad Kinect has to be for hardcore Xbox fans to not even buy it. These are the same guys who have bought 3,4, or 5 versions of the worst console hardware in history with the RRoD plagued Xbox 360 and the shitty HD-DVD format.
I've had no problems wit hit recognizing me, or any clothing related problems. My kinect sits on my desk, in front of my HDTV, and I have no problem with it reading me. ZERO problem with voice tracking, ever. Sure, it gets mixed up when you do things like cross your arms or hide them behind your back, but it isn't THAT much of an issue. Nothing an update wouldn't fix. And I still hope they release a handheld peripheral to assist with 3D movement in games, or to constantly recognize left/right hands.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Well, it does "something" reliably (which might well beat a more ambitious but failed attempt). But compare Dance Dance Revolution style games on the two; with Kinect, you dance and it watches you dance and scores you; on the wii, you just tilt your hand in time with the music. Big difference.
And the Wright brothers couldn't fly around the world in their first plane either.
Worst console add-on ever?
No, not THE worst ever. I had one of these: http://www.club-nintendo.ch/boutique-2007/images/u-force.jpg
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/11/04/kinect-vs-our-living-rooms-a-survey/?
"For all the talk of revolutionizing the Xbox 360 experience and making gaming more natural/ accessible, it's bordering on absurd how broken Kinect is when it comes to something as simple as working in your home."
Jeez, that's brutal.
I started iFixit, and I wrote today's teardown. I'm also a long-time /. member.
I totally dig the anti-Microsoft sentiment. But just like with the iPad, we've got real innovation here that came out of a closed environment. Microsoft's got hundreds of millions of dollars invested in visual motion recognition and speech recognition technology. The best reaction all of us in the open source community can have is to use this innovation as a call to action, and as building a block to write open tools. Adafruit's contest is a fantastic start, and I'll be supporting that any way I can.
Got any questions about the hardware that I didn't address in the teardown? Fire away.
Kyle Wiens
It would be one thing if Kinect was just some extra for the Xbox 360 but Microsoft has closed down almost all of their first party studios, piss off Bungie and let them leave, let other traditional Xbox focused PC developers go multi-platform. The release list for 2011 and beyond for the 360 is almost barren.
It is mind boggling that they actually thought they were going to be able to abandon their current Xbox userbase and magically turn the Xbox 360 into a Wii type success. Or even something remotely close to the Wii in sales.
I can't imagine what it must feel like to own an Xbox 360 and see Microsoft blowing 500 million trying to attract soccer moms. It's like some guy using his old girlfriend's car to take a new girl he met on a date.
I don't mean to make fun of you for speaking a foreign language, but this wasn't just some grammar error. It's hard to tell whether you just didn't understand the comment about hundreds of millions of dollars or are just retarded.
Both newegg.com and amazon.com are currently sold out. I'd say that's pretty damn good.
500 million in advertising and PR. Practically bribing people to show up at the Kinect launch event and they only managed to sell 2/3rds of their units.
Epic Fail Microsoft.
I'd recommend trying it before you bash it. I've tried it on several occasions in the past (and now own it) and it's accuracy/lag do not feel significantly worse than the wii. I've seen zero problems with lighting, clothing, etc. The voice recognition is actually quite excellent and it even works reasonably well while a video is playing.
The required distance from the device is annoying though. The menu system as well, but thats a software problem and can be fixed. Check out the dance game for a great example of an intuitive menu.
Even if it fails as a gaming device (which I doubt), I still see the ability to control your entertainment system without a remote as being common place in the future. For example, I was watching a movie on my xbox while I was reading slashdot. When I wanted to concentrate on replying to a post, I just said "xbox pause" without my fingers every leaving my computer. In fact, I hope the kinect is a finanicial success, because that will inspire competitors to emulate and improve the experience, which means even more awesome stuff for consumers.
xbox play...
And just about everything in your list is massively exaggerated. My young sister and brother are both happily playing right now and none of the problems you listed appear to exist with maybe the exception of some of the voice commands can be iffy
Good, then go away. Meanwhile the rest of us sane people who aren't fighting a religious war over software companies will continue to enjoy our games.
Stores everywhere have them. People have been seeing them everywhere today.
Microsoft has been undershipping the individual Kinect units to try to force people to buy the in stock Xbox 360+Kinect bundles and allow the PR people to shout the inevitable 'sold old!' BS.
This isn't like the Wii where you couldn't find one for a year.
If you say "as sucky as a Wii" you're already putting yourself into a category of people whose opinions do not reflect any sort of consensus.
I guarantee the criticism won't go away until you stop randomly bringing up international politics in random discussions, making irrelevant comparisons, calling clear and verifiable statements of fact "a lie", and tossing around opinions you know are widely disagreed with (that the Wii sucks) as if they proved your point. I'm sure you're better at my language than I am at yours (unless maybe it's French, and then only maybe), but your stuff is difficult to understand.
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/microsoft-had-to-cap-kinect-pre-orders-because-demand-too-great/
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
I'll say it. Perhaps taking a go in your native language would be more useful, because you your English is fucktard bad. I still can't seem to grab whatever it was you were trying to say in your reply, except that somehow you are pissed off and trolling against Microsoft because they are Microsoft. You most likely hump goats. Thank you.
I'd hate to have been an engineer working on this thing. Putting all your heart and soul into the R&D trying to make something novel, interesting and cutting-edge, and all you get in response is hate.
Not that I'm defending the product or Microsoft. Theory is nice but if the physical product sucks then it sucks, but it's kinda obvious why companies are afraid to try something different.
Posting anonymously, for obvious reasons.
I have a friend who works at PrimeSense. I asked him, a while back, how good Kinect is going to be. He said that Microsoft bought their hardware, but insisted on writing their own software drivers. I asked him whether, when the product sucks, he's not worried that people will think that's all PrimeSense is up to, and he claimed their clients know that fact.
Reading your comment, I'm not sure that was a good idea, after all....
*cough* every other mobile phone on the market *cough*
My only complaint as a non-kinect user is the update introduces significant lag in the menu system.
It's not horrible, but it's not nearly as smooth as it was.
There was no gain for non-kinect users as well... unless you like the windows 3.1 menu look and feel.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
What personal information have they been stealing from people's computers again?
If Microsoft whips out the ability to use this as a 3D webcam with my PC, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Screw the 360, I want this for my computer.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You dont own a Xbox.
"I speak it perfect" is grammaticality incorrect. For someone who speaks English perfectly, that error should not have happened, whether it was written or spoken!
Your original post makes no sense at all, bro. I can barely discern the meaning of 90% of it.
Me and a few game-addicted friends observed how several people tried to use Kinect at Gamescon. They had 6 or 7 cubicles with different games for people to test.
We were baffled about how terribly bad this Kinect is .... the lag was several seconds ... the moves barely ever recognised ... you saw the people getting frustated after a minute of (non-)play.
English is not the only fucking language on the earth.
But hey! Some random fanboy on the Net say Kinect doesn't have all those problems!
Who do we believe?
There were no Microsoft engineers involved.
The Kinect tech is a copy of old Sony PS2 era Eye Toy technology. It was created by a company that Nintendo and Sony passed on and then ended up licensing to Microsoft.
Microsoft then proceeded to hype it to absurd levels and now the reality of how much it sucks is setting in.
So give the 'hate' BS a rest. Microsoft has no one to blame but themselves for playing the hype card with tech that wasn't up to the hype. No one held a gun to the clowns running the Xbox fiasco to fake those E3 demos.
Really? Maybe that would be why I told him to use his default. In case you hadn't noticed, he was bragging about his depth of knowledge in languages a few posts ago, or can't we trouble you to keep up with the fucking thread?
Yep, those bastions of Sony fanboyism 1Up,Kotaku,CNet trashed Kinect when they knew it was actually an amazing and revolutionary motion control system and totally isn't an over hyped crappy ripoff of old Sony PS2 era Eye Toy tech...
LOL!
You don't fake E3 demos and then keep your 'revolutionary' product out of the hands of the press like Microsoft was forced to with Kinect because it is so good...
...this is actually opening up some interesting potential. This thing is a tool to recognize and track persons and their movements in a room, no more and no less. Have some of such things in your home, one in each room, connected to a small server. Improve the voice recognition and speech synthesis, add some software and you've got something very close to a home that is watching you, your family and your guests, knows where you are, what you're doing, what you're saying and can speak to you. Give the software access to all your personal communication and data (email, phone, voicebox, scheduling, ...) and your house starts to become aware of you and your life. Could be very interesting (and also very spooky).
Open Source drivers for these things would open up a world of interesting things to do with it, no doubt.
Tried one yesterday and i was very disappointed. My Eye-Toy, the Sony product Microsoft copied and extended is eight years old and still more responsive. The lag was very annoying and made games like boxing unbearable since you punch and your boxer punches long after on the screen.
Since i have used Eye-Toy extensively i was expecting that the Kinect would be much better but it was actually worse in some respects. The tech behind kinect/Eye-Toy has been used extensively in arcades etc so its actually pretty surprising Microsoft couldnt get it right. Perhaps they had to work themselves around some patents of variants that actually work and in the process ended up with an inferior product.
HTTP/1.1 400
The first example I can remember was back in the dial-up days when they would upload the installed software list and send targeted advertising to the users of WordPerfect, WordStar, Borland Compilers, Quicken, ... to offer discounts on the MS more-or-less equivalent.
Since then they have regularly captured similar data, and around Windows 2000 SP3 or SP4 (SP2 doesn't have it; SP4 does) added explicit language to the EULA granting them access to all data on a Windows system.
Nice to know they can scan your living room for market research purposes (if nothing else).
Comparing the wii to the Kinect is absurd. One is an accelerometer, the other is a full-body skeletal pose estimator with probably 20 degrees of freedom. Like comparing a flashlight to an LCD display. The only question now is, will Kinect actually work?
If all you're trying to do is light up a dark room, the flashlight will work just as well and be a lot cheaper.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that HD-DVD wasn't Microsoft's invention and the BluRay/HD war was in full swing when they designed their console. It's just that their format lost and Sony's won.
This is no different in principal than the PS3 motion controls. They're both trying to capitalize on the light-gun/motion controller market since that is extinct since the CRT/owned by the Wii.
I am by no means a fanboy of any console, but Microsoft is at least trying to do something much cooler than the 6-axis. I for one would love to see a modern console with proper motion controls (sorry Wii, but you're essentially a Gamecube with a reworked power-glove. Control is great, but CPU/Video performance-wise it isn't even comparable)
Both consoles lack compelling titles since they are expensive add-ons that people won't necessarily buy. It's like the Sega 32x all over again. Addons create console fragmentation and developers won't cater to it since they won't be guaranteed sufficient customers to make a profit.
I don't see any innovation here. Kinect and iPad are both just evolutionary steps. None of the concepts of these devices are in any form new. To have companies with infinite resources make products out of ideas and concepts that have been researched and prototyped for decades by public institutions as well as the private sector is not innovation.
String enough evolutions together and you get a revolution. Like the Wiimote, which put Bluetooth-enabled accelerometers and infrared cameras into a small handheld device at a price that anyone can afford, this Kinect camera device has the potential to seriously change how the do-it-yourself community interacts with their computers. Think of all the new applications the open source community came up with for the Wiimote, many of which were featured here on /.; now imagine what they'll be able to come up with for this device.
I can't wait to see what comes around when someone builds usable open drivers for this baby. I don't own a 360, but the prospect of plugging this into my computer or HTPC and getting voice controls, facial recognition, and arbitrary movement recognition for use as input are giving me chills. I mean, just look at what you get for $150: two cameras, an IR projector, four microphones, all mounted on a motorized base with hardware/software that can generate a 3D image in approximately realtime. I can't wait to be able to sign my name in midair to use as my password.
"Computer, open Firefox; website: slashdot.org."
Linus Torvalds places value in a well executed implementation. Isn't there value in producing a very well implemented product?
Wait, you're on /. and you think dancing is different from tilting your hand in time with the music?
I swear, it seems like 95% of the amazon reviews were paid for. They are just gushing, and interspersed between these is the occasional sucker who actually bought it complaining. Seems gimmicky to me, but hey, so did the wii at first.
No, French is conventionally the language of love
"Nice to know they can scan your living room for market research purposes "
Google would put the images of your living room in Street View.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
I agree. I'm a sucker who bought the 32x and sure I loved virtua racer but wtf.. What do you even play on kinect?
I'm not about poo pooing technical achievements and I don't think of myself as a fanboi but I love my 360. I was inspired to learn to code so that I could try and make a game for the xbox live marketplace but as much as I want to see something awesome about kinect, even if it's nothing real but something in development, or some application I could believe would be awesome, I can't/don't.
Where the hell is the FUN that is supposed to be associated with this? I swear they got lost in the technical puzzle and thought that making the tech would immediately result in something fun like some kind of inherent epiphenomenon.
Yeah the guy is a troll, look at his post history. He made a similarly stupid post last time Kinect was discussed. Criticism of Kinect is fair enough but some of the points he made don't even make sense- complaints about lighting etc. when it works using IR. Still he gets modded up because he's slagging off Microsoft and that gives your average Slashdotter a hardon no matter how factually incorrect it is.
That's not to say all his points are invalid, the distance thing is a bit of a pain certainly (although the Wii and Move struggle at very short distances too) but for the most part he's just trolling.
I have a very basic understanding of how the system works. IR beam gets sent out and the CMOS sensor picks up the pattern and interprets the z axis information.
I would imagine that there are inherent problems with this. If the pattern is too spaced out then resolution suffers. If the pattern is too close together then there are many errors. The processing must be complicated. I bet even the type of clothing you're wearing has an effect on it.
Well I wouldn't say I'm a member of their die-hard fanbase, but I have owned both iterations of their consoles and it's been a largely positive experience for me (in fact, I've owned three of this generation - upgraded one and then bought a spare for the bedroom). I can say Kinect is not even on my radar, to the extent I'm now avoiding games that claim to have kinect functionality built in because I suspect that will negatively impact the non-Kinect experience. I would go so far as to say this might actually drive a lot of their hardcore fans away from the consoles, if it wasn't for the fact that all console manufacturers seem to be doing the same crap right now.
a kinect review
Highs:
* Just plain fun
* Limitless potential, could move beyond gaming.
* New, innovative technology will only get better.
Lows:
* $150 price on top of Xbox 360 console
* Half-second of inherent lag
* Fairly basic games
* Only handles two players at a time
german summry
Approximative transaltion in english :
The setup is a problem too. So kinect needs really much place and has problem with light. One tester from joystiq was not
recognized due to his glasses, because it was reflecting too much light.
Whoever want to paly to 2 needs 3 meter of free palce from TV (9 foot aprox) which needs a lot of moving furniture by many.
Which means also that the dashboard features like move command cannot be used when one want to do only a to watch a film, not to play.
Also the price is critized.
IGN video review linked ina rticle
Mixed reviews for kinect
My verdict from what i all read : the lag will probably limit it to games where it is not too important (casual family game, or game where a 1/3 to 1/5 second lag has no impact). Tech looks good and could be a revolution, but at the moment too expensive. Wait and see for Kinect 1.2 with a good offering of games.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's helluva fun when you get the hang of it!
I am sorry, but it's people like you who totally miss the point of Kinect. You probably bitched about Macs when they first came out because using a mouse would never be as fast as your DOS typing speed.
It is a control-less controller. You don't have to hold any wands, press any buttons or do anything like that. They have finally made it possible. V1 probably isn't perfect, as these things never are. However give it a couple of years, the price/size will get smaller and eventually they will start building things like this into TVs and monitors. Now imagine lying on the sofa flicking through the TVs EPG as it knows, relative to your head, what part of the screen your finger is on. That is the future.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Agreed, MS were stymied a little with BluRay - they wanted HD but they could hardly go with the competitor's product. Imagine the headlines when it got around that a fee from every XBOX sold was going directly to the company making the competing console. If they wanted a HD format disk I think they made the only choice they could at the time, although personally I've not missed it and I think they could have shaved a lot off the initial costs by simply ignoring this (it's already obsolete now you can install games directly to the hard disk, sure it's a hassle if I have to copy four disks instead of one to the HDD, but ultimately that's a one time effort, after which it makes zero difference to me what format the verification disk in the drive is - BluRay movies, again I've not bothered with a BR player so far and I haven't missed it, I now stream probably half of my content and this is likely to be closer to all my content by the time the next generation rolls around).
I also wonder if they've even thought about the logistics. In all the adverts people are using it in massive open plan living spaces, that's just not a realistic representation of most people's homes (especially in countries where housing prices are high and living space has to be maximised, the UK, Japan, other parts of Europe, I can't speak for typical US homes as I only see fictional representations of them on TV and they're all either huge empty white spaces or cluttered messes). Personally the only way I could make this work is to throw away my coffee table - the Wii balance board just about works because the sensor can look over the table at the control and doesn't need to know what I'm doing with my legs, but the Kinect seems to need a massive open space just to get a decent field of view. I think people are going to either be put off by that (if they bother to think about it) or else they'll buy this, realise it's not practical and leave it in the box after the novelty wears off.
Beyond simple games for kids and stuff like video chat, I can't see a practical use for this, and if that's all you're using it for MS could have done it with a £15 webcam instead of a £150 sensor array. That doesn't mean it won't sell by the bucket-load, of course - I couldn't and still can't see a real use for the balance board but it didn't stop it selling millions and me spending the best part of a month hunting one down for my girlfriend the year after it was released.
No, but it's the only language on an English language forum. For the same reason, I don't post to French or German forums and then get upset when they have difficulty understanding me. Likewise, as a guy, I don't use the female bathrooms in restaurants and when they complain, use as my excuse "male is not the only gender on the planet". The correct response, if someone questions your use of a non-native language, is to try and rephrase in a way that better conveys your meaning, not to start flaming everyone.
like how the ease of use of the Wii did (well once they fixed that damned controller). The difference is, with the Wii you can "game" it. As in, half the time the motions you make with the controller really don't have any bearing on what your avatar is doing. What I have see of kinect is that we finally have a system which does what you physically do. None of the "interpretation" like the Wii controller .
It will probably open up gaming to more people now. I can see great uses in exercise programs here, your own personal trainer who really does know if your doing it right. Think of the ability to extend this to at home rehabilitation! That alone makes this device a break through.
Many of us keep lamenting all those wonder sci fi depictions of what computer technology can do and when its delivered some simply dismiss it because its from Microsoft.
It is a good start. Perhaps it will give other people the inspiration to help us make a real leap.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I think that's the point - not only that the two things have different levels of complexity, but that they're meant for entirely different tasks (hence the different levels of complexity).
What about Microsoft's PC gaming revival initiative? Is it dead already?
It would be actually quite interesting to see Kinect used with PC. Could result in many cool projects outside gaming.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I remember saying "calculator!" to Windows 95 using a free microphone and the built-in calculator would pop up.
15 years later and people are impressed by this...impressed enough to spend $150 on it?
No sig today...
I've not seen any issues with lag in the menu system or anything like that, but I agree the new design is horrible, but then, I never liked it since the original 360 dashboard personally.
I want to live in a World where I can zoom into any place on earth and have HD realtime video, anywhere including inside people's homes. People who disagree with this must be terrorists or doing bad stuff. Ok you give away your privacy, but its worth it to never be bored again, ever!
How is this modded troll if it's a justified point?
Seems writing anything as Anonymous Coward brings the hate. *ducks along with his parent poster*
If that amount of cameras detect having the blue sky of panic it will kill your player.
...till someone gets it to run on pc, and certain... "not so clean" software developers like illusionsoft get their dirty hands on it.,
.. kind of games.
Then probably the thing will just go boom there, as lets just say the device is quite.. more adequate to these
What?
-- Sig under construction...
I just don't see it living up to that promise. I watch my kids play wii - at first, they were jumping all over the place. Now they lay on the sofa, and "play tennis" by simply waving the controller a few inches.
Until the kinect is smart enough to figure out that *this* finger flick means hit the ball, and *this* finger flick means "shoo fly" and *this* motion means change the menu and *this* motion means I'm reaching for the chips, all while laying on the sofa and moving about 12" at most, it ain't gonna work.
My kids use games to kick back and do nothing; they don't use them as some sort of false athleticism. All the kinect hoo rah has been about how you will jump around your living room; at least in my house when we want to do something we go out and do it. When we want to lay on the sofa and veg, that's what we do. Where does the kinect fit in?
I think this will find uses MS never expected if it stays on the market long enough; pet monitors, some researcher will start using this to measure erosion in a channel, or something - but as a game controller I see a minimal market.
Just as an observation, in the live demos they were doing in the Macy's windows in NYC a week or two ago there was only about 3-4 feet of width and roughly 6-7 feet of open space in front of the Kinect. I would say the demoer was roughly about 5' away, and had just enough room to swing her arms. That's a much better representation of a living room than most stage demos, and the Kinect was still picking up all her movements just fine.
Neither did they advertise and sell it on a mass scale to rip off mug punters.
We can assume the first kinect prototypes were far worse but it still does not excuse releasing a buggy V*.* product to the public because they felt with sufficient advertising and blame it on the consumers clumsy use they would be able to generate a profit and take some steam out of the Wii and the Playstation, sort of a parallel advertising superiority of technology thing, even when most customers will not buy Kinect.
Reason for M$ to release it now even when it is not fully functional, hmm, keep the investors happy with the Google notebook release just on the horizon especially after the success of Android.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Well, it does "something" reliably (which might well beat a more ambitious but failed attempt). But compare Dance Dance Revolution style games on the two; with Kinect, you dance and it watches you dance and scores you; on the wii, you just tilt your hand in time with the music. Big difference.
The amazing thing is that Just Dance on the Wii was a suprise 3rd party succes selling 2 million worldwide (http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/108/1081134p1.html) despite low reviewscores. So even with the low tech measuring tilt scoring mechanism they managed to make a good selling profitable game.
Now we can make a Kinect Dance Dance Revolution game for X-Box that has more accurate scoring but wil it realy matter. Its a game not a dance tutoring game. The main object of the game is to make you do stupid moves in front of your friends. On the Wii Just Dance manages to do that with just the basic hardware and a game. On the X-box you need a $ 150 add-on and a game. I'm sure that part of the succes of Just Dance is low price an no extra addon required.
Sure the X-box games is techincaly superior but when you look at the intended market that won't matter a thing....
The AVERAGE modest American living room has about 250 sq ft or about 16' x 16' and that in my opinion is on the small side.My kinect is way more than adaquate for the space I have,(it's not huge)Where are you writing from?I know Japan, by sheer volume has to minimize personal space,but it sounds you are from the UK, you guys are that tight also?
"Not having to press" something is nice, but what if I actually want to fire an action by hardly noticeable movement of the finger? I guess I can't do it with Kinect as it's too subtle a movement to reliably detect.
Why is lack of buttons considered to be a step forward?
As far as I remember Microsoft simply bought a company that developed kinect (that Sony had considered and refused to buy).
Soon we'll see whether Sony's decision was right.
It was never designed for playing "COD Black OPs" was it? Most iPhone games wouldn't work with a joypad either. They will just find some other way of doing things. The trouble with the XBOX fraternity is its so hung up on shooters, in a way the WIii crowd wasn't.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Seriously! They finally got it right with the last UI update, and then they went and screwed it up again. Change for the sake of Change is not good. There must be a purpose!
I'm one of those that wouldn't mind moving my coffee table to play. After all, I've spent thousands over the years keeping my gaming rig up to date, what is moving some furniture.
The big problems I see is input lag and the processing being done on the Xbox. That leaves less processing for the actual game itself, and the lag issue probably won't get much better until Microsoft releases new specs for the Xbox to handle the kinect.
My other curiosity is can I still play certain titles while sitting on a chair?
I will eventually get a unit. Hopefully a revision or two down the line. Microsoft aminosity aside, this is one of those big leap concepts that even if the initial device doesn't do what it should, it can still revolutionize a stagnant part of the industry. The mouse and keyboard/gamepad hasn't really changed much in years. This could change all that. Even the Wii motion technology is a bit primetive compared to something like this. It's fine for what it does, but doesn't cross over to computing very well. This does. Microsoft smartly put R&D money into this, because now they probably have a ton of patents on the next generation of periphreal.
Stepmania caught on at my house for a brief time. Cotton-Eye Joe has a series of star jumps in it that, when performed on the top floor, result in the ceiling of the lower floor shaking so much that dust falls off and a bulb was once broken.
Traditionally, this title goes to the Nintendo Power Glove. It's just one of those titles everyone knows: The worst ever game is ET for the 2600, and the worst ever accessory is the Power Glove.
You say that because you are probably too young to remember when Microsoft was* fighting a religious war against all other software companies.
* and still is.
Microsoft marketing aside, you do realize this has been done before? Sony UK came up with the EyeToy, a single manual focus camera with all processing done on the PS2. With the lower specs keep in mind that this was years ago and they were sold for a fraction of the Kinect's price. A better camera and one with auto focus would've helped it a lot. The Microsoft implementation with two cameras is a win -- but it all costs more as a result.
On occassions when we have guests with children we used to fire it up and put it on one of the minigames. People were always impressed by it, but I doubt there were any additional sales because in essence its a one-trick toy. It can be a very *fun* one-trick toy, don't get me wrong, but really, the scope of games that benefit from controlling via motion sense or putting the player on the screen is pretty minimal.
If Microsoft has a creative bone in them there will be some stunning games that rely on Kinect. Outside of that it is unlikely to have much impact.
But big concept? Not really. Innovative? Sony was here years ago.
"I speak it perfect" is grammaticality incorrect.
Slashdot coders needs to augment the available HTML markup to include sentence diagramming features.
There truly is nothing like tacking an adjective onto a verb in a troll-induced defense! It clearly shows an individual's ability to write professional.
...ly.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
What?
Homosaywhat?
What. You happy now?
Shame I'm not using my Mac.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
the Wii balance board just about works because the sensor can look over the table at the control and doesn't need to know what I'm doing with my legs
Umm, what sensor can look over what? The Wii balance board is a 3-component force plate sensor (Fz, Mx, My). As long as you have enough room to stand on it without touching anything else, you're golden. It could be used in a port-a-potty if you didn't mind the smell.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
It's not some religious thing. Fer reals, Microsoft makes shitty software. And on top of that, it has yet to invent something a competitor didn't do first. DOS... Zune... Windows... It's all "borrowed".
Ok let me give it a try:
Parent is saying that:
1. It is false that Microsoft spent millions of dollars in research to conceive the Kinect.
2. The Kinect system is not a groundbreaking product. In fact, all the bad things that Microsoft said about the Wii are still present in the Kinect (whichever they are).
3. In conclussion, Microsoft has spent at most 20 or 30 dollars in total, considering prior art.
En cuanto a los gringos que no saben hablar otro idioma y critican a los que no hablamos Inglés como primer idioma; chinguen a su madre y a ver si se culturizan un poco más... de verdad, hablar otra lengua no duele y les expande el panorama (y la cultura).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I've had my Wii for 2.5 years now and I still use it the way it was intended -- standing up and flailing my arms like a madman. I know it's *possible* to 'game the game' by moving only your wrist, but it seems ... lame.
The camera's aside, the concept/innovation isn't the hardware, but how it recognises a person as an individual. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I did read a few articles on Project Natal/Kinect, and the major hurdle wasn't the 3D camera, the voice recognition, etc. It was putting it all together to recognise not only movement, but who a person is by many distinct factors, and following that person throughout the experience.
That to me is major innovation alone. I remember the EyeToy, and used one. This is not that. Maybe the EyeToy is a subset of this, as is a bunch of technology. The innovation of the Kinect is putting all this technology together in one package and getting it to work as a unified device.
I'm not totally sold this will be a great device for the Xbox, but this is the first thing I've seen in a long time that has really made me see a real shift in the way we interact with computers. The Wimote and the Sony move systems are really still tying people to a controller. In other words, this is the first device I've seen that really reaches out to the user, not the other way around. Even the EyeToy didn't do that.
I don't mean to sound like a Microsoft shrill in anyway. If Sony did this, or Apple, I would be just as curious, and hopeful. I just think the way they tied the technology together, and the way in which they plan to use it and have it interact is way too cool to dismiss as just another gimmick.
Microsoft and apple both suck. Any Linuxfags out there?
I love the powerglove, it's so bad!
"(sorry Wii, but you're essentially a Gamecube with a reworked power-glove. Control is great, but CPU/Video performance-wise it isn't even comparable)" I'm glad you enjoy those life like graphics in those new xbox 360 kinect games .... not. It is like MS tried to copy the input method and graphics style.
Games have been designed to work around that issue. Often by requiring you to perform some wildly exaggerated movement in order to make it as unambiguous as possible.
The fundamental problem is that it is mindbuggeringly hard for computers to infer stuff from analogue inputs. Even state of the art biometric systems can't claim 100% accuracy and I expect the threshold of Kinect in optimal conditions would be way less than that.
Is this you in this picture? http://i.imgur.com/LL3Nf.png
Actually, lighting can be an actual problem, even with IR. Not all light is in the visible spectrum; some sources can emit and/or reflect IR light (someone else commented that glasses were causing a problem). And it wouldn't be limited to the Kinect; I recall there being some issues with the Wiimotes in certain lighting conditions.
In fact, you can probably test it somewhat; the Wii's setup allows you to calibrate the wiimotes, and you can actually see in realtime what the 'camera' of the wiimote sees. Normally, it's the sensor bar, but you should be able to check for multiple sources of IR lights in theory.
The big problems I see is input lag and the processing being done on the Xbox. That leaves less processing for the actual game itself, and the lag issue probably won't get much better until Microsoft releases new specs for the Xbox to handle the kinect.
MS won't release an updated Xbox 360. There might be an Xbox 720 before too long, but if you have to wait that long before you're willing to buy a Kinect, that probably means it's a failure. Not to mention, who knows if the next-gen Xbox will be able to play your current-gen Kinect games?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
...what is moving some furniture.
That's because some furniture in your case is just a coffee table. Try moving a two hundred pound couch bookended by two coffee tables with lamps, of which one table is wedged in the corner and blocked by a loveseat.
I'm sorry but the space requirements for this preclude me from buying it. Also, the fact that I don't own an xbox 360 also makes it a tough sell.
There is another problem, noise. Imagine you live in an apartment and 5 people get this thing on the floor above you!
Comparing the wii to the Kinect is absurd.
No it's not absurd. They are competing for the same demographic, casual gamers. Rather than getting caught up in the full-body skeletal, 100,000 degrees of freedom sales talk the real question is: Is there a library of great games that make it worth paying $150? Right not IMO the answer is no. Getting caught up with the technical aspects of the Kinect (yes they are impressive) doesn't matter for most people. Historical examples prove that having the most powerful hardware doesn't matter: DS vs PSP, winner: DS, PS2 vs Xbox vs Gamecube, winner: PS2, on and on. It's been said before, powerful hardware doesn't sell systems, a library of great games sell systems.
how the accessory market grows and ties in with the Kinect.
Imagine a bunch of Kinect identifiable accessories, where you can emulate a multitude of varying activities.
Fun, fun, fun.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
AHAHAHA. Slashdotters are nerds.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Microsoft wasn't really in the HD-DVD camp. Either way, they win (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray require support for VC-1, Microsoft's video codec. Not to be confused with AVC, aka h.264). Sony however was more desperate - they bet the bank on Blu-Ray (which requires new production plants (HD-DVDs re-used existing DVD plants), their new console was forced to have it, etc), and they needed to win. The death of Blu-Ray would mean the loss of a big money-maker for a generation. Sure the PS3 could be modified to play games off DVD, but then it's a huge chunk of money putting in useless drives.
Sony needed to win the high-def war - there was no question about it. Microsoft didn't really care - HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, they get their royalties and patent license fees.
this is one of those big leap concepts that even if the initial device doesn't do what it should, it can still revolutionize a stagnant part of the industry. The mouse and keyboard/gamepad hasn't really changed much in years. This could change all that.
Say hello to my little friend.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Obligatory Penny Arcade
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
Think of this more like an optical mouse. The optical mouse takes hundreds (thousands?) of pictures a second and looks for movement on the table surface. Does the CPU of your computer get bogged down processing all those pictures? No, of course not. That's because the logic is all controlled in the mouse itself. This has got to be the same. They must have a pretty decent custom designed chip that can handle the processing of the images and send the movement information back to the "PC" (AKA Xbox).
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
People find the path of least resistance. They will figure out the minimum work that must be done and do that. You can see a million examples of this from how you drive to how to get ready for work/school in the morning. People will find the easiest way to play the game. People want that. Parents do not.
I believe the reason the Wii was so successful was because of two reasons, the first was cost, and the second was because the parents were sold on the idea that their kids would have to do more than just "lay on the sofa" and flick the controller back and forth. That the video gaming experience would have to involve movement and activity not just laying on the couch with a controller in hand. But now you're saying "bah, the kids can't defeat this feature and just be lazy blobs on their couch... it'll never sell." That's not a negative, that's an incredible positive!
Frankly if MS can pull this off, this will be the biggest step toward virtual reality we've taken in a long damn time. I'm no MS fanboi, but I'm optimistic about the possibilities for the technology. My kids are still pretty young, but if this works, they may be playing this type of gaming in the future rather than the mouse/keyboard FPS gaming I prefer.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
People find the path of most enjoyment for least effort.
We certainly didn't buy the Wii to get our kids off the sofa, we bought it because it was fun to play.
If MS (or you) are counting on this somehow "forcing" people off their butts and being active, it won't make it past the first week of sale. People will use it in whatever way gives them the most enjoyment, not because it's some pedantic / techno means of "exercise".
If you want exercise, join Crossfit, swim, run, ride bikes, be a competitive triathlete or swimmer - all of which we do.
If you want entertainment, get an entertainment console.
But don't try to convince me that kinect will somehow replace a Crossfit WOD, or enable my daughter to take second overall in a double triathlon, or let my son compete in the state championships.
And the Wright brothers couldn't fly around the world in their first plane either.
Did anyone at the time ever think they would? Dream it, maaaaybe?
THAT is the problem with new technology nowadays, it is oversold, and overhyped.
Ok, good to know. I work at the Kinect factory and we'll make one less. I wish everyone was this up front about telling us whether they're going to buy it or not.
The required distance from the device is annoying though. The menu system as well, but thats a software problem and can be fixed. Check out the dance game for a great example of an intuitive menu.
This generation of motion based gaming obviously has lots of rough edges in _all_ corners. I hate moving a coffee table for EyePet, but kids love it. The Wii, as gimmicky as most "gamers" think the controls are still has Nintendo's age old secret sauce which is high quality first party games that nail their target demographic. The other consoles continually deal with an identity crisis.
Now,
"but thats a software problem and can be fixed"
This excuse DOES NOT CUT IT ANYMORE. This kind of thinking leads to Tea Party movements.
Go to rightmove.co.uk and look at houses, flats and othe properties on there. 16x16 is a big room in the UK.
As a whole the UK is densely populated, but that includes the wide open spaces of Scotland and a several emptyish parts of England and Wales. So if you go for major population centres, the UK is very densely populated, bordering on stupid in some parts of London.
One has buttons. Buttons are good.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I'll get one when someone backhacks the drivers for the kinect and publishes them for Linux. It is a nice bit of technology, but it would be far more fun to play with the sensor array attached to a penguin than an XBox...
Can you add me to the "not buying" list please.
Do I get a discount for pre-booking my non-purchase in advance?
Which is ironic given who speaks it.
It uses IR for depth sensing, that means it will have the same problems in well-sunlit environments that the Wii does; don't let direct sunlight fall on the sensors.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
but for the most part he's just trolling.
WTF is mostly trolling?
Maybe you just disagree with most of what he said and slandered some random account on the Internet's character?
It's also important to recognize that Microsoft's investment in Kinect/Netal isn't solely about games; there's a significant component to their Xbox strategy that revolves around non-gaming applications ... demos / POCs I've seen around things like using the motion recognition components to rethink how video browsing and selection occurs on Netflix, as an example, show applications for this technology that sit outside of the "gaming" realm and more squarely in the court of the "entertainment center" that it appears Microsoft wants to develop.
Will Kinect be cool for video games? Maybe, maybe not. The more interesting question, to me, is, "Will Kinect challenge the entire idea of the 'remote control' for electronic devices?"
Only time will tell.
No, it uses the Xbox to handle the processing and a significant portion as well. http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/07/natal-to-use-10-15-percent-of-xbox-360-cpu-power/
Actually no, at the time of the 360's HD-DVD player's launch, HD-DVD had more studios under them than BluRay did but there was a lot of studios (including some important ones like Disney) that didn't make a decision yet.
HD-DVD was the superior choice overall, they held virtually as much as BluRay discs and they were substantially cheaper as existing DVD factories could press HD-DVD discs with very little retooling. BluRay pretty much required totally new factories, increasing costs. The only reason Sony won was because:
1. They offered excessive incentives, even at an overall loss (Toshiba didn't have the deep pockets Sony did to pull that off)
2. Sony's in-house movie line-up is pretty decent
3. Disney signed on to BluRay (that was the biggest blow and it started a chain reaction that couldn't be stopped)
4. Sony learned from the mistakes of BetaMax and allowed porn to be sold on BluRay (ok so did HD-DVD but for the old timers, you'll all remember this was the deal breaker for BetaMax).
That other way of doing things you mention... like maybe, a controller with buttons? There are other things buttons do besides shoot game guns. The Ars Technica review of Kinect covered the driving game, where you can't accelerate or brake, only steer. Unless they release a controller that allows more interaction, the games for Kinect will be on-rails variants.
I'm confused. Which method of play makes me a "toolbox'?
EyeToy is the same camera used by the PlayStation Move.
EyeToy camera can identify individuals & their emotional expressions, and it can track position & rotation of head & shoulders.
Getting it to track full-body movements is just a matter of software updates.
I don't know any games that do it yet, but today EyeToy/Move *could* allow strafing & looking in-game based on the leans of your body & turns of your head!
If you want exercise, join Crossfit, swim, run, ride bikes, be a competitive triathlete or swimmer - all of which we do.
That's right folks. If you want exercise, become a competitive athlete. Anything less is a waste of your time.
An athlete is by definition competitive. Read the dictionary definition.
I'm not competitive and I don't consider myself an athlete. I just work out hard and long - and not with a wiimote in my hand. My point is that if you want to be in shape, you need to exercise. Waving a wiimote around while pretending to play tennis is not a whole lot of exercise.
I think the wii was sold to parents as "your kid will be more active if you buy this" but it's a marketing ploy, not reality. It helps justify the purchase.
An athlete is by definition competitive. Read the dictionary definition.
So when I use the phrase, "competitive athlete" you feel the need to break my balls, but evidently it's ok for you to use the phrase "competitive tri-athlete"? Are there tri-athletes who are not athletes?
Besides, I took your advice and looked it up, and, no, not all athletes are competitive by definition. Merriam-Webster, for example, defines it as "a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina." That is, unless exercises are also competitive by definition.
My point was just that physical activity is not a bad thing, and if something like the Kinect can facilitate physical activity, we shouldn't throw it away as a waste of time simply because it isn't *enough* physical activity by some arbitrary standard
The wii costs much less - just the sensor here costs as much as a Wii.
I don't have to move around like a nut on the Wii unless I want to-- the motion is relative so one can play it without having to make it into a work out. The kids... they over do it and then fall back to minimal movement. I don't think it will stick for that long since you have to move your whole body the way they require. What I've seen is that people get sick of the full motion and find an alternative less intense style of playing the Wii because its relative and more forgiving in how it works.
I never was interested in being made to move around to mimic doing something real and then all this hype about realistic graphics and physics-- its a brain dead approach by trying to recreate reality - if this stuff is progressing towards simulating real activities I may as well GO OUTSIDE and actually do something FOR REAL. I can't race a fancy car and won't pay to fly a plane - those simulators make sense but I'd much rather race in Mario Kart than simulate racing a realistic Porsche. Just as I don't mind motion input that fits in with the action in the game; I don't want to jump around the room.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I say that because I am old enough to remember Microsoft since the early days of MS-DOS and I have never had a problem with them. I used MS-DOS, DR-DOS, PC-DOS, Novell DOS, OS/2, QNX, FreeBSD, Windows 9x, BeOS, Linux, Windows NT/2K/XP/Vista/7 according to my tastes and preferences for their relative times. Contrary to what nutjobs like you try to imply, Microsoft has never prevented me from being able to choose what I wanted to use. Sure, they had some pretty flaky OSes like Win9x, but for the most part I like their OSes because they do what I want them to do with minimal fuss.
Microsoft makes shitty software
Funny, I don't have any problems with Microsoft software. Works fine for me. Maybe you could name some software and the problems that you have with them?
it has yet to invent something a competitor didn't do first
I could say the same thing about Apple or Nintendo or most any other company. The fact is, almost everybody "borrows" from someone else. True technology pioneers like Intel, TI, Sony and Philips aren't ubiquitous.
Maybe I should play games on that Linux based Indrema console instead of the Xbox 360...oh wait...
I just used one for the first time last night. It is shockingly accurate, extremely intuitive, and just plain works. Even with four of us, at a reasonable state of intoxication, it had no issues with us walking in and out of the sensor, and the facial recognition worked flawlessly. I'm impressed as all hell, and plan on buying one now just from using it for a few hours. The wii is a childs toy. This is an adults toy, and being able to fully control your avatar without thinking about it one bit is fun. Lots of fun. It works.
It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.
Devils weighs in ...
ms has put little innovation into anything instead looking for the meatest market and pandering only to the most juicey parts of that in the last few years. They release products that are supposed to be quality offerings but are merely copies of other's products with some "advancents".
Anyone that has researched the 'marketing' can easily attest to the hundreds of millions they have pounded into black hat seo, clone sites, faux referential sources, etc, attempting to convince everyone that everyone loves their products and that there are no problems with them, in predominantly nontechnical attempts to garner market share in any venture. Remember that more than half of any comments related to ms products are reciprocated responses - paid for testimonies, glad hands and fangurls.
Any innocent and objective offerings about how great all the ms junk is are from those that were never really doing much with the technology available previouosly and are glitzed out over being able to put a horse head on a photo or with idiot manageement helps for categorizing their archives.
ms intelligence is dying, and it is indeed unfortunate that the u.s. is so strung out on commercials and celebrities, they need media to validate their ridiculously shallow lives. Commercials portray unrealistic visuals meant to tune the subconscious to a favorable reference at time of recall, such as "what to get for Christmas, without any research. Consumer are providing less and less technical and helpful information and fewer and fewer test demo set-ups. You buy it - you stuck with it. Few realize that markets are actually gouging consumers more than ever, since tough economic times. The kids say the response time sucks 1st and foremost. The new ms phone commercials have slight humor....