Microsoft Confirms Disconnecting Kinect Gives Devs 10% More GPU Horsepower

MojoKid (1002251) writes 'Microsoft confirmed a development rumor that's been swirling around its next-generation console ever since it announced Kinect would become an optional add-on rather than a mandatory boat anchor. Lifting that requirement will give game developers 10 percent additional graphics power to play with and help close the gap between the Xbox One and PS4. The story kicked off when Xbox head Phil Spencer tweeted that June's Xbox One dev kit gave devs access to more GPU bandwidth. Further, another Microsoft representative then confirmed that the performance improvement coming in the next version of the Xbox SDK was the result of making Kinect an optional accessory. No matter how Microsoft may try to spin it, cancelling Kinect isn't just a matter of giving game developers freedom, it's a tacit admission that game developers have no significant projects in play that are expected to meaningfully tap Kinect to deliver a great game experience — and they need those GPU cycles back.' Also on the Xbox capabilities front: Reader BogenDorpher (2008682) writes 'In August of last year, a Microsoft spokesman confirmed that the Xbox One controller will be compatible for PC users sometime in 2014. That time has finally come. Windows gamers can now use the Xbox One controller to play games on their computer. If a game supports a USB gamepad or the Xbox 360 controller, it will also support the Xbox One controller.'

Comments

Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[Whatanut]

Doesn't that then lead to a bad situation for kinect users? If you design a game that relies on that overhead, then those that don't have it will have a poor experience. Granted, you can probably just disconnect the kinect and be just fine. Be all know what the general masses will do. Complain.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[gman003]

I think it's more "if you compile your game without Kinect, you will have access to that processing slice and Kinect won't". Whether the hardware is physically there or not is irrelevant to the reserved processor time.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[NotDrWho]

Granted, you can probably just disconnect the kinect and be just fine.

I guess then Kinect won't respond to voice commands for a while. But then, it never really did before either. I guess you will know when you have to yell "Xbox Off" 30 times instead of the normal 25.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[PRMan]

So, just for fun, you can yell "Xbox Off OK OK" in somebody's house when they're just about to finish something REALLY difficult? Good to know.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Well, that would be the logical way to do it. But this is Microsoft. They did release the system with a mandatory accessory that's hardly ever used, and takes away 10% of all processing power automatically. So, logic might not be something they are particularity familiar with.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[Splab]

Or just get them to do it themselves...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

(Be careful with soundlevel, it varies a lot and almost blew my ears off :-) )

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[lgw]

In this case, it would actually make some sense: the Xbone uses the Kinect for more than just gameplay. IIRC, the voice recognition stuff all goes through the connect, plus stuff as basic as signing into the box when it turns on.

That's my biggest complaint with my Xbone right now: sign-in every time I turn it own blows goats unless I have the Kinect attached. And it didn't when I bought it - the goat blowing was an update. Stop the goat-blowing updates MS, sheesh!

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[tech.kyle]

I wouldn't imagine it's anything to do with the game being compiled, but I would suspect it's due to the processing power to constantly monitor and detect commands through the camera. That monitoring may be computed via OpenCL/DirectCompute which would leverage the GPU's compute power to perform that task. Simply unplugging the Kinect would likely stop that monitoring, freeing up the GPU for other tasks.

Similarly, I find that using the compute power of my video cards to run Folding@Home renders my computer nearly useless.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[mythosaz]

...except the Kinect is used for system commands -- to exit to the dashboard, or shut off the system, for example.

Ideally you'd drop to voice only, and stop accepting gestures.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[mythosaz]

You could just turn off their power too, if your goal is to be a dick.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[mythosaz]

I turn on my XBox One every day by saying "XBox On" generally followed by "XBox Watch TV."

Every once in a while, I have to say "On" twice. Rarely, if ever, do I have to repeat the command to watch TV.

Turning it off every night comes sometimes with an "XBox Stop" (which stops playback on my connected media device (which my XB1 knows as the TV), "XBox Turn Off" which works about 80% of the time, and "Yes" which also works about 80% of the time.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[qwak23]

I was going to mention something about kilobytes, but at this point it's probably just as cliché as beating a dead horse.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[firex726]

Of course that would run afoul of many of the guidelines from the manufacturers. In which they expect a game to run and behave a certain way on each console generation.

Otherwise you're going to have to qualify game expectations on the specific hardware configuration of your own setup; same as happens with PC gaming.

1st Gen X model + Kinect = 20 FPS
1st Gen X model - Kinect = 30 FPS
1st Gen Y model + Kinect = 24 FPS
1st Gen Y model - Kinect = 32 FPS

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[GrumblyStuff]

If you design a game that relies on that overhead, then those that don't have it will have a poor experience.

If you design a game that relies on the Kinect, then those players are probably getting a poor experience anyway.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[Xest]

Actually I think the summary is just simply awful and that's the problem here.

From what I understand, up until now, Microsoft has reserved 10% of processing time for Kinect. All they're doing is dropping that reservation.

So if you're doing something like playing a Kinect focussed game that game can still reserve 10% processing time for Kinect to do Kinect properly, it's just that it's optional now such that non-Kinect games are no longer stuck with a 10% reservation for something they'll never use.

So it's not plugging it in or unplugging it that speeds up your system. It's presumably the operating system itself that was forcing the reservation, and now just makes it optional.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[NotDrWho]

I just pick up my remote and hit the power button. Works 100% of the time.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[AmiMoJo]

Microsoft are quite good on the technical side these days, especially the console division. It was a management/marketing cock-up to require the Kinect. They underestimated how much better the PS4 hardware was and how little gamers really cared about Kinect.

I wonder if this means that people without a Kinect, or games with the Kinect disabled, won't be able to use voice control? Maybe they are keeping some power back to handle that, plus all the other OS stuff that goes on.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[mythosaz]

...except when it needs a battery, or when it doesn't.

The Kinect system isn't perfect (despite going 4-for-4 on the four commands I gave it last night), but I've still got my remote too. I don't lose my "100%" remote by also having a Kinect.

"XBox On" also turned on the rest of my entertainment center, without the need for a fancy remote to do the same.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[CronoCloud]

I wonder if this means that people without a Kinect, or games with the Kinect disabled, won't be able to use voice control?

Sony was smarter with this by not tying the voice recognition to the PS4 camera. It works with any mic that works with the PS4.

Re:Poor experience for those that do have kinect

[stealth_finger]

I wonder if this means that people without a Kinect, or games with the Kinect disabled, won't be able to use voice control?

No, they fact they don't have a kinect or have it disabled means they won't be able to use voice controls.

Interesting wrinkle

[UnknowingFool]

Does anyone think that it is interesting that the Kinect requires 10% GPU resources and not 10% CPU resources? Was MS using the GPU to handle processing because it would drain the CPU more?

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[gstoddart]

Or, maybe the kinds of tasks the Kinect is doing are best suited for the GPU?

Since it's motion tracking and vision, that sounds like graphics to me.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[sg_oneill]

Not really. The Kinect mostly is about image processing and highly parallel vector processing is just what that sort of application requires.

It would have been stranger if it DIDNT rely on the GPU.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[Mr D from 63]

Does anyone think that it is interesting that the Kinect requires 10% GPU resources and not 10% CPU resources? Was MS using the GPU to handle processing because it would drain the CPU more?

That was my thought. Why not an architecture to handle Kinect processing independently? Not being a hardware guy, it might be a stupid question.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[shadowrat]

well, for one thing, it's probably constantly running the frames from the two cameras through some kind of GPU filter. I've done some computer vision stuff, and a common technique is to use the gpu to take the difference between a couple frames. That operation isn't super taxing on the gpu, but it does require a lot of sending data to and from the gpu, That bandwidth is always pretty scarce. They are most likely also using some GPGPU techniques to crunch a whole lot of numbers comparing what's in frame to their dataset of human poses.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[Missing.Matter]

The kind of processing done for the Kinect is well suited a GPU: facial recognition, skeleton tracking, hand tracking, voice recognition. These feature use a lot of matrix math, geometric algorithms, and signal processing... stuff you want to do on a highly parallel processing architecture. So yeah, doing them on a serial architecture like an x86 CPU would be much more taxing.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[91degrees]

GPUs are pretty good at image processing tasks. They're designed to do two things - process vertices in parallel, and process pixels in parallel. Image processing is all about processing pixels.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[avandesande]

Then the xbox would cost even more....

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[mestar]

And uses random forests to identify humans in the 3d space it sees, and also locate 3d positions of ten or twenty of their body parts. Just some details of what 10% does.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[jellomizer]

Being that Connect has two high resolution camera's that does some fairly advance stuff like finding where you face and other body parts are, interpret gestures and what not. It seem that the GPU will do a lot of the work.

Oddly enough back in the olden days the CPU was the major player, today a lot of processing is going to the GPU to do most of the work.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[Wootery]

As 91degrees says, GPUs are pretty damn good at image-processing tasks like this. It might be possible to have a dedicated kinect chip, depending on how much flexibility you want, but that would increase system complexity for no obvious advantage - that would be money better spent on just making the GPU go faster.

The obvious advantage of the make-the-GPU-go-faster approach is what we're now seeing: non-Kinect applications now have access to more GPU power than before. If MS had gone with a dedicated image-processing chip, it would just be going to waste in these applications.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[Mr D from 63]

Thanks, that makes total sense.

Re:Interesting wrinkle

[Wootery]

Glad to be of help.

One other factor I kinda glossed over is programmability: if we have the graphics chip doing the image-processing work, we can reprogram it if/when we develop a better algorithm, or if we want to do something peculiar - a feng shui app would need to detect furniture, not faces and hands, say.

A dedicated kinect processing chip would either have to be 'fixed function' and impossible to reprogram, or else it would be a programmable chip which is really good at doing image processing... which would basically be a graphics processing unit (you could do it using FPGA, but I can't see any obvious merit to this), so we're back to the make-the-GPU-faster idea.

MS likely screwed themselves over

[timrod]

I bet support for the Xbox One controller would've come out much sooner, had Microsoft not been responsible for horrible controller support on PC games. Most games on Steam that support a controller are hardcoded for the Xbox 360 controller - using anything else requires a hack like MotionInJoy or XPadder. Even the ones that do support non-MS controllers will only display button prompts in terms of the X360 controller. This is, of course, because most games these days are multi-platform with consoles as the lead platform, and usually the PC port is a port of the X360 version.

With the way MS forced the X360 controller on PC, it's no wonder it took them forever to make a compatible driver.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[Assmasher]

Microsoft not been responsible for horrible controller support on PC games

How is Micro$oft responsible for that? Game developers are responsible for controller support, not Micro$oft. Try writing some game input code.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[Junta]

MotionInJoy

Dear god no. MotionInJoy is the insufferable ball of crap I dealt with before the driver here:
http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread...

Was available.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[tepples]

Perhaps games could display a generic controller. Granted, the order of HID controllers' buttons varies greatly, but if games can phone home for digital restrictions management, they can certainly phone home to tell the developer which make, model, and VID/PID of HID controllers are most popular.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[tepples]

Windows Store applications cannot see HID controllers; they can see only Xbox 360 controllers. Only desktop applications can see HID controllers.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[Assmasher]

Does anyone actually use the Windows Store? ;)

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[Assmasher]

You can't use XInput with Windows Store apps? I thought I remembered and XInput update allowing this (but this was a while ago maybe that has changed...)

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[Blakey Rat]

1) Microsoft doesn't dictate what controller icons developers use. If they happen to use Xbox 360 icons as the standard, that's due to convenience only. There's no conspiracy.

Similarly, whether the controller support is good or horrible depends exclusively on the developer of the game itself. The only component of the solution Microsoft writes is the driver, and I can verify the driver does the extremely simple job it's supposed to be doing.

2) This statement:

With the way MS forced the X360 controller on PC, it's no wonder it took them forever to make a compatible driver.

Doesn't make any sense. What does "Microsoft forcing the Xbox 360 controller on PC" (even assuming your conspiracy theory were true) have to do with creating drivers for the Xbox One controller? What is the causal relationship there? I don't get it.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[tepples]

The problem is that you can use only XInput with Store apps. DirectInput doesn't work in Windows Runtime, and XInput doesn't work with HID class joysticks.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[tepples]

Technically, Windows 8.1's installer is distributed through the Store, so yes. But you were referring to games. All third-party games that run on Windows RT tablets come from the Store.

Re:MS likely screwed themselves over

[Assmasher]

Really? XInput can't use HID devices? Whoopsie Micro$oft... HID can be complex though... I wrote a C++ class a long time ago for abstracting a lot of it away, I live in fear that I won't be able to find it again someday.

Controllers for PC?

[thedonger]

From the summary:

'In August of last year, a Microsoft spokesman confirmed that the Xbox One controller will be compatible for PC users sometime in 2014. That time has finally come. Windows gamers can now use the Xbox One controller to play games on their computer. If a game supports a USB gamepad or the Xbox 360 controller, it will also support the Xbox One controller.'

That is interesting given that my brother and my cousin - both big into gaming - use PC-style controls with their Xbox because they feel it gives them an edge over users of the Xbox controller.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[asmkm22]

First, you can't simply plug a mouse and keyboard into an xbox (any version) and get "PC-style" controls. Aside from the fact that the hardware won't allow it unless the unit is modded, the games are designed for analog input which doesn't translate very well to mouse and keys. IF they are somehow doing that, then they are actually putting themselves at a disadvantage. Second, people generally don't use controllers on a PC for competitive games like FPS's (although fighters are an exception). I personally use them any time a game is obviously just a bad console port, and things like the UI and menus weren't designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind. It's a lot more common than I'd like.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[DrGamez]

I will happily switch back and forth between controller and keyboard. RAGE was a game that controlled better with mouse and keyboard while shooting, but the driving felt a lot better with a controller.

I don't mind having to switch if the game is fun - and it's kind of neat getting to swap between input mechanisms.

The game was bad though.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[LordNimon]

That is interesting given that my brother and my cousin - both big into gaming - use PC-style controls with their Xbox because they feel it gives them an edge over users of the Xbox controller.

This doesn't make any sense. There are no PC-style controllers that work on an Xbox. You can plug in a keyboard and a mouse, but they work very poorly on an Xbox. Now, there are third-party controllers that have some enhancements (extra buttons in different locations, etc). But I would not call them "PC-style" controllers.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[radtea]

That is interesting given that my brother and my cousin - both big into gaming - use PC-style controls with their Xbox because they feel it gives them an edge over users of the Xbox controller

Which raises the burning question: why is anyone reporting user feelings rather than actual data to /.? It's the 21st century... surely by now everyone on here knows that how people feel and what is actually going on are almost completely decoupled.

Some people "feel" that wifi is interfering with their qi, even though the data show that no such effect occurs (that is, no one is able to tell if wifi signals are turned on based on such feelings.)

Ten years ago a surgeon I know worked on a study of post-operative pain in people with knee implants to see if different implants made a difference to patient outcome. While there were some objective measures (range of motion, etc) that showed a correlation with a suspect implant, simply asking patients about pain revealed only one thing: how much they liked their surgeon.

Psychology literature is full of things like this: it is an uncontroversial fact that what we feel is a lousy indicator of anything except our own internal state. Feelings are facts. They are just facts about us. While sometimes facts about us are important, they are a terrible gauge of anything else. Reporting feelings as if they were relevant to the actual edge a player has is exactly like saying, "My brother and my cousin--both big into gaming--use PC-style controls with their Xbox because the are both six feet tall, so they say this gives them an edge over users of the Xbox controller". "Being six feet tall" is a fact about them, just like "feeling it gives them an edge" is a fact about them. It is not a fact about the rest of the world (that is, their actual performance).

I'm being long-winded and pedantic about this (because hey, this is /.) but the parent was such a nice example of this extremely common failure mode in human thinking (confusing facts about ourselves with facts about the rest of reality) that it was too good an opportunity to pass up. That's how I feel about it, anyway...

Re:Controllers for PC?

[interkin3tic]

It depends on what you mean by that. The console versions of the games, there's automatic targeting. You hit the aim button and you automatically have locked onto the nearest enemy with most of the guns. The PC versions of all the games evidently have manual aiming by default at least which is obviously much easier with a mouse.

Were it a primarily shooting game, I'd much prefer manual aiming with a mouse, but the driving half of the game, it seems like a stick would be preferable.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[tepples]

How about this: "They win noticeably more matches with a mouse and keyboard than with a gamepad." Or would you then proceed to slam me for not backing up "noticeably" with statistical rigor?

Re:Controllers for PC?

[Ash-Fox]

First, you can't simply plug a mouse and keyboard into an xbox (any version) and get "PC-style" controls.

You make it sound like plugging in an adapter is so difficult.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[asmkm22]

Again, that doesn't solve the problem of poor mouse support in console games where the input is setup for analog speeds.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[Ash-Fox]

Converting mouse input into stick input is far from direct, moving the mouse down is equivalent to pushing down on the stick; not moving the mouse down.

Sure it is. In the case of the adapter I linked. Plug in adapter, choose preset included with adapter, go.

If you want an example of why this is a bad idea try playing Halo 2 PC.

I'd rather just play the FPSes I like, thanks.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[Ash-Fox]

Again, that doesn't solve the problem of poor mouse support in console games where the input is setup for analog speeds.

What's wrong with the presets on the adapter I linked exactly? I honestly had a hard time telling the difference between controlling it on a PC verses console, other than the fact that stuff seemed easier to hit on the console version.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[Xest]

Right but PC vs. console controls aside and focussing on just console controllers the XBox 360 controller is IMO the single most comfortable and nicest to use out there.

I use one on my Raspberry Pi with RetroPie to play old Megadrive, SNES, NES, Master System games and so forth for this reason. It's much nicer than trying to play Mario with say a keyboard.

Sometimes these controllers just make more sense, not all the time by any means, but sometimes.

Re:Controllers for PC?

[coolsnowmen]

They might, but they are not necessarily right. And simply cannot be for the general case of "gamming".

The keyboard / mouse are direct position inputs, this clearly has some benefits in certain game

The controller isn't less accurate though, it is a completely different input device, it is a rate input (think velocity)

The classic counter example would be flying/vehicles. It is simply easier to fly and drive aroudn given the ability to control the derivative and not the abolute position.

And it still gets more complicated in competative gaming. Clearly the point and click of the rts the mouse is suprior by an order of magnitude. But in FPS, when man is running across your screen, the ability to match his rate of movement (angular velocity) is much better with a controller. though, at the same time, in an insta-kill headshot type game, a man running at you, a mouse will let you pin point the head over the center of mass better

Re:Ads.

[Missing.Matter]

I've been seeing ads for a while now with Disable Advertising checked. At first it was just the ad under the story and the annoying pop up ad at the bottom of the screen. Unchecking and checking again would make them go away. Now all the ads are enabled and re-checking the box does nothing.

Seriously, this shit is incredibly annoying. The ads are obnoxious, gigantic, and intrusive. I've got a little checkbox that says "Thanks again for helping make Slashdot great!" under it, and it does nothing. So where's the thanks, exactly? Definitely not feeling it.

Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

No matter how Microsoft may try to spin it, cancelling Kinect isn't just a matter of giving game developers freedom, it's a tacit admission that game developers have no significant projects in play that are expected to meaningfully tap Kinect to deliver a great game experience

First, Kinect isn't cancelled.

Second, it isn't a tacit admission that game developers have no games coming out that meaningfully use the Kinect because game developers that need Kinect for their game simply keep using it (because it isn't cancelled...)

It's really just what they should have done in the beginning, allowed developers to use the GPU the way they wish. I fully expect devs to allow users to pause their game, which re-enables Kinect support in order to allow me to perform whatever non-game actions I wish to initiate (like answering a Skype call.)

What's the big hairy deal?

Like the PS4? Buy one, enjoy.
Like the XBox One? Buy one, enjoy.

Christ, get over yourselves.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[gstoddart]

Does it still exist? Do they still make games for it?

Then it really isn't dead.

In our house, Kinect is pretty much only used for my wife's dancing games to exercise in the winter.

For that, it's kind of a fun (if not dorky looking) thing.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

Really?

I use mine every time I watch Netflix, the family uses it to Skype, and for some family games, I also no longer need a headset to chat to other players online.

The kids have their own 360 with Kinect that they use all the time, and the wife uses for workouts. This will likely translate over to the XBox One as well.

You sound like an idiot.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinect died the moment they made it optional. The only way developers are going to take the risk of investing heavily in Kinect development is if they know that the entire user base has one. Now that it is optional it will suffer the same fate as virtually every other optional gimmic in the history of gaming. Lackluster support and fading into obscurity.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[NotDrWho]

I still use my Wii for parties. Doesn't mean it's not dead.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be insane. Kinect isn't dead, there's just a serious problem with your ability to reach rational conclusions. You then had to be a nut who tells a reality based person to get over themselves because they didn't fit your delusional alternate reality. Sad.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[asmkm22]

You could consider it unofficially cancelled. See, if developers know that only a small percentage of the user-base has a Kinect, then they won't spend a lot of time coming up with creative ways to use the hardware. And then without compelling reason to buy a Kinect, new customers will continue to choose the XBox without one and save $100. So it will effectively cancel the project.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

Yes, that's a valid comparison, the Wii hardware ecosystem versus the Kinect hardware ecosystem. :)

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[mckwant]

Even worse, you have a situation where people with Kinects disconnect them. Then your Skype / NetFlix / "XBox Bing Whatever" experience gains a "hook up the Kinect" step, and the XBox One isn't the centerpiece of your living room rig any more.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

That's like saying Kinect was cancelled on XBox 360 the day it was released because it was optional. Excellent logic.

See, if developers know that only a small percentage of the user-base has a Kinect, then they won't spend a lot of time coming up with creative ways to use the hardware.

See, if developers know that more than 4 million XBox Ones are out there with a Kinect (as of now), they they will spend a lot of time coming up with creative ways to use the hardware...

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

The only Micro$oft products in our house are the XBox One, the 360, and a triple boot dev box with OSX, Windows 7, and OpenSUSE. Android and iOS devices are used for everything else.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[MobyDisk]

Do they still make games for it?

No.

You asked the right question. It really is the key here.

There's only a couple of Kinect games for the Xbox one, and they all got bad to mediocre reviews. The reason Microsoft included Kinect with all Xbox One's was so that developers could develop for the Kinect and be guaranteed that it is there. Now that it is an optional accessory, there will be fewer Kinect games. Why spend money to develop for an accessory that many of your customers won't have? Spend money to have fewer sales = bad strategy.

Ultimately though, Kinect was already dead when the first few games came out and they sucked. Microsoft pulling it out of the bundle was an admission of Kinect's death, not the first cause. But now it will snowball. I'm very sad since I had great hope for this device.

Microsoft's last ditch strategy was when they started giving away Xbox One's with Kinect to developers. They hoped that somebody out there would develop a killer app for it. But it didn't happen.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[gstoddart]

There's only a couple of Kinect games for the Xbox one, and they all got bad to mediocre reviews.

That's kind of a side effect of not being backwards compatible with the XBox 360. You essentially start with a fresh platform with nothing on it.

Microsoft's last ditch strategy

Microsoft more or less mishandled the release of the XBone from the start, and it seems like it's gone downhill from there.

Pretty much with the first round of press releases saying what the features would be (and telling it would require an internet connection, and no used games) I knew that my XBox 360 was in no danger of being replaced by this.

For me, the device was DOA long before it was released, even if they back pedaled on some of their initial stupid.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

since it's been unbundled my MS, it's pretty much dead

Wow, if it isn't bundled I guess it must be dead. Like the Kinect for the 360, like the PS4 Camera, et cetera

You sound like you live in your own universe...

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

Last word...

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[asmkm22]

Right, well I guess I'll stand corrected in a year when the market is loaded with games taking advantage of Kinect in amazing and creative ways.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Custard Horse]

Dead or not, the fact that the Kinect signs my dog in when she comes into the room will *never* get old. That dog has absolutely no idea how much effort I expended to set up an account and make her stand still without me in the picture.

"Hello Ella, you are now signed in!"

Brilliant!

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[AmiMoJo]

Like the PS4? Buy one, enjoy.
Like the XBox One? Buy one, enjoy.

These days there are few platform exclusive titles, and many of the people buying these machines can't afford to own both. At the moment the choice is between a better performing and cheaper P4 or a more expensive and lower performance XBone.

On top of that video games are a multi billion dollar industry. Bigger than movies and music. They are a major form of entertainment. It's a big deal.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

Aaah, okay, suddenly the definition of not being dead has evolved into

market is loaded with games taking advantage of Kinect in amazing and creative ways

- lol.

I guess that makes the PS4 camera dead on arrival, eh? Wonder why they keep selling like hot cakes... People must like dead hot cakes.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[Assmasher]

It is a big deal, but people who espouse one console over the other tend to do it for subjective reasons. A perfect example is your referring to the XBox One as the XBone, you're exhibiting a subjective prejudice that really makes no sense. People who act like this are the same people who constantly argue over whether OSX is better than Windows or if Linux is better than both or Windows is... Et cetera, ad nauseum.

I have no problem with people choosing a PS4 over an XBox One, hell I have a 360 and a PS3. I had the PS3 first and got the 360 for Rock Band and the kids (there were reasons why Rock Band on 360 was a better choice at the time.)

I chose an XBox One at this time because I liked the way the 360 was moving towards being an all in one entertainment device. The XBox One has been great for that. I'll probably have a PS4 eventually, but who knows.

If I'm worried about "more powerful" I'll use my PC, it's vastly more powerful than either of them. Ignoring that unless you're an expert you'd never be able to tell what console you were using from watching gameplay footage without doing a direct comparison and freeze-framing and only then it would be some of the time. Who cares? Seriously.

Hell, I hope Nintendo pulls a rabbit out of the hat and comes up with something mind blowing, never count them out.

Re:Why the hyperbole?

[qwak23]

I am now tempted to get an Xbone and do this with my cat.

We seem to be missing a command here...

[The New Guy 2.0]

Where's "Option Iginore Kinect" or whatever it should be in the programming language they use there? Is this saying Kinect is always on, even if it isn't running anything for the game?

Re:We seem to be missing a command here...

[gstoddart]

Is this saying Kinect is always on, even if it isn't running anything for the game?

Of course it is, that way the XBone can constantly send Microsoft your viewing data.

Interesting considering they pretty said from the beginning it was mandatory and couldn't be disabled.

This is just Microsoft changing their direction with this yet again.

Re:We seem to be missing a command here...

[tapi0]

Well yes, what would happen when you say "xbox play dead rising" launch the game and then say "xbox snap Skype" ( or "xbox home" etc) if the game suddenly overrides and disables your peripheral? Or using the feature to recognise new players as they come and sit on the couch, sign them in and allow them to join in.
none of these are game features, but require the Kinect to be running for background tasks.
if you don't want it, then don't buy it or don't plug it in and then the console has some extra room to play with, but don't allow games (or apps) to disable it as it will interrupt the desired UI.

Re:We seem to be missing a command here...

[The New Guy 2.0]

Uhm... this doesn't sound like Visual Basic or Objective C here! Listening for "Did my user say a command recently?" Doesn't need 10% of a processor chip.

Re:We seem to be missing a command here...

[tapi0]

It doesn't need 10%. The 10% alluded to in the article is a reservation for Kinect use in game that was originally mandated for all games, even those without Kinect features, but can now be freed up if the game doesn't use Kinect.

My reply was to the question "is this saying Kinect is always on, even if it isn't running anything for the game?", the answer being yes, and don't think about disabling it.

Re:We seem to be missing a command here...

[mythosaz]

Your command might also be by gesture, which requires the XB1 continue to track your human form as it moves about in meatspace.

this has nothing to do with making kinect optional

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been known for months that this change was coming. The xbox one currently reserves about 10% of GPU power for the Kinect even it is not used by the game. The only thing that is changing is that the game developer will be able to indicate if they are using the Kinect or not. If not they will be able to use those additional gpu resources for whatever they want. So this has nothing to do with making the Kinect optional. Even people with a Kinect will get this performance boost in games that don't use the Kinect.

Doesn't mean games can assume 10% more CPU

[DrXym]

Games have to work whether the device is there or not. In other words they have to function in the worst case. It'll only be if Microsoft delivers a firmware update that allows a game to completely turn off the Kinect and free up all reserved CPU, GPU and memory that they can be sure to make use of it.

Anyway it's not uncommon for consoles to be quite conservative and reserve more resources than they need (as a form of future proofing) and loosen up as the firmware matures. I'm sure Sony holds some CPU back too for stuff and might also have some slack it can give back.

Re:Ads.

[gstoddart]

So the lesson is: Dice Holdings are greedy bastards, film at 11.

My problem with ads, and trackers and all that crap is on some pages there's about 50 external entities which all know when you visit.

I have no arrangement with those external entities, and I'm not willing to allow them to track everything I do. HTTP Swicthboard in Chrome is pretty awesome for that.

If a site serves its own ads, fine. But if they come from a bunch of tracking companies which want to harvest my surfing data, absolutely not.

XBox Controller...what?

[some old guy]

| "Windows gamers can now use the Xbox One controller to play games on their computer. If a game supports a USB gamepad or the Xbox 360 controller, it will also support the Xbox One controller."

Patently stupid. Any Windows game can be played with almost any controller using a key mapper (I personally use XPadder).

Re:XBox Controller...what?

[asmkm22]

And I can just plug an Xbox 360 controller into my computer, and it works. I don't need a key mapper or anything, and most games come with controller support anyway, so the correct prompts and stuff show up in-game.

Re:XBox Controller...what?

[PRMan]

Unfortunately, it's getting to be nearly impossible to play any PC game with an actual PC gamepad anymore. My Logitechs are gathering dust except for the occasional MAME game (and even then only Player 3 since I have homemade arcade joysticks).

Re:XBox Controller...what?

[some old guy]

The mapper is for custom settings. I have my own layout of movement and menu functions that let me play away with my left thumb on a 360 pad with right hand totally free (like reaching for beer). The controller configs I've seen from native out-of-the-box support are generally still stuck in the X-wing joystick era.

Re:XBox Controller...what?

[asmkm22]

So obviously you have special reason for wanting to use a mapper program. Most people don't, which is why you're "patently stupid" remark makes no sense.

Re:XBox Controller...what?

[some old guy]

Fuck off and die.

Re:XBox Controller...what?

[asmkm22]

Did I e-hurt your iFeelings?

Not surprising

[LoRdTAW]

I am not at all shocked that the Kinect eats GPU power. Machine vision isn't exactly computationally light, there is a lot of math to run on each frame plus the I/O overhead. They have to run those algorithms on something and my guess is they used DirectCompute to utilize the GPU to save money on hardware.

They could use a dedicated DSP in the Kinect but that would drive up the cost of the Kinect making it an overpriced and unappealing accessory. A quick check on Digikey for the Analog Devices Sharc DSP reveals that even a 450MHz chip costs about $32 in quantity. Perhaps there is a higher performance DSP that is cheaper but you also have to factor in the cost of memory for it and other ancillary components. It can easily add $50+ to the hardware cost. I know its a VERY rough guesstimate but it illustrates why dedicated processing in the Kinect is not utilized. Another thing to consider is using the GPU gives more flexibility in designing newer and better algorithms which might be constrained by a DSP with limited performance.

Re:Not surprising

[Assmasher]

Presumably the Kinect exports motion maps (probably skeletal) that are generated in the device itself via DSP. The spatial analysis on those motion maps is likely done on the GPU.

Re:Ads.

[Assmasher]

Same here. I thought a Google Chrome extension was injecting ads, because I'd disable the extension and hit refresh and the ads would disappear, then re-enable and hit refresh and there they were again. Turned out I could leave the extension alone and intermittently get ads (lol...)

Re:Ads.

[UnknownSoldier]

Just block all the ads from your hosts file on your router that way all your devices will have faster internet.

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt

Re:Are consoles dead? Near the last generation?

[0123456]

Casual gamers are moving to tablets and phones, while hardcore gamers play PC games. There's not much room left for consoles, particularly when the new generation are just low-end gaming PCs.

Re:Horrible efficiency

[asmkm22]

It's a loss when it's doing nothing, but the device is supposed to be ready to do something at a moments notice. It has to be able to listen for voice commands and watch for certain movements and stuff. More importantly, it has to be able to do that without suddenly dropping performance in game because you decided to tell it to throw a grenade. Basically, even when you think it's doing nothing, it's still doing a lot of stuff. Of course, without Kinect being mandatory, games will start using those GPU cycles, and then the Kinect really will be doing nothing.

Re:Ads.

[lister king of smeg]

Great,

Can anyone tell me why, as a subscriber with the "Disable Advertising" button, I keep getting ads at the top of Slashdot, not matter the status of the button? Only happened the last few days.

Pretty sure the terms of what I paid for say I shouldn't be seeing it, even years after paying.

I have noticed that when browsing with my tablet I thought it was just the general state of brokenness with mobile browsers, because I had the box checked (with it unchecked the animated ads would often crash the browser.) Glad to know its not my browser just slashdots evil dice overlords being evil fucktards. My guess is they are trying to slowly break the traditional view to drive people to BETA.

Re:Horrible efficiency

[PRMan]

Processing speech and images?

Gimmicky toys don't compensate for gameplay

[Opportunist]

Look back in the history of gaming. You will invariably stumble upon various attempts at more "immersive" input systems rather than mouse, keyboard and gamepad... and invariably, they all sucked donkey balls. They were gimmicky and "new", a select few of them were maybe even fun to use or enjoyable, or they offered some sort of interesting gameplay experience for a while, at least 'til that "new car smell" was gone, but in the end, they sucked.

Why?

Because an input device should first and foremost be one thing: A translation of what the player wants to do into a form the game can understand. That has to be as precise and complete as possible for it to be enjoyable by the player. Players enjoy having control over what they are supposedly controlling in a game. Sluggish controls and a bad user interface, any player will agree, are often game crippling. If the difficulty of the game consists of actually controlling what you're doing, the game is not enjoyable. The controls should be easy and precise, and the difficulty should come from having to use that precise control to overcome the obstacles presented.

And that's where the problem with the various input devices lies: They lack precision. It is usually more complicated to get the game to do what you want than actually playing the game. In the end this means that games that rely on various gimmicky input devices have to be dumbed down and "made easy", to the point where, when you somehow manage to play those games with a "normal" controller/keyboard/mouse, they instantly become trivially easy to beat.

That is not what's enjoyable. The game has to be the challenge. Not the input device.

Re:Gimmicky toys don't compensate for gameplay

[exomondo]

The most appropriate control mechanism depends on the type of game. For an RTS it's probably mouse + keyboard, for a fighting game probably a gamepad, for a driving game a steering wheel, for a fitness game (or like the games in Kinect sports) something like PSEye or Kinect. In theory you could limit yourself to a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad for all genres but it's a compromise.

Re:Gimmicky toys don't compensate for gameplay

[Opportunist]

Consistency and reliability are part of the precision problem. By using your controller in a certain way (whatever it may be, moving the mouse a few millimeters to the right, pressing the controller button to the right for half a second or lifting your arm in a motion capture control environment), the game should react in exactly the same manner every single time you perform this action (provided the circumstances are the same, of course... you get the idea).

The idea is that with practice you get a "feel" for your controller. That you can gain better and better control over the game and achieve better and better results. That's not the case if the input itself is already sluggish. Or, in the terms used by you, inconsistent and unreliable.

Re:Gimmicky toys don't compensate for gameplay

[Opportunist]

I agree with the former, I do not agree with the latter. While the game mat for the old NES was or the Kinect for the XB1 is the "appropriate" input device for fitness games, they are by no means the most efficient ones. To give you an example, it was heaps easier to beat DDR with a keyboard than it was with the dance mats, simply because it is a lot easier to tap a button than to hit a spot on the floor with your foot.

Yes, that is not how it was supposed to be played. But it sure as hell was easier and more efficient.

Re:Gimmicky toys don't compensate for gameplay

[exomondo]

I'm guessing you haven't seen any of the xbox fitness games if you think they would somehow be easier with a controller, I'm not even sure how that would work. DDR is pretty clear how it would work but certainly not full body fitness games with kinect.

But that's really beside the point, the easiest and most efficient way to beat these is to write a program to do it for you and not even have a controller, sure it's not the way it's supposed to be played but it's easier and more efficient.

Re:Gimmicky toys don't compensate for gameplay

[Opportunist]

Of course you're right, but let's assume I don't buy a second chess computer to play my first one so I can instead go and see a movie, i.e. that I'm still interested in actually playing the game.

Re:Gimmicky toys don't compensate for gameplay

[exomondo]

By the same token fitness games and games like DDR are going to be pretty uninteresting with a traditional controller (in the case of most kinect games I don't even see how it's possible).

curious measurement

[xmousex]

Not just more power, not just more cycles, not just more mhz, but actual 'horsepower'. Neat.

Re:Horrible efficiency

[DrGamez]

It's not doing nothing.

You've got a real simplistic idea of what the Kinect does, even if I agree with your sentiment that the Kinect is bad/useless.

Re:Are consoles dead? Near the last generation?

[CronoCloud]

this generation has been a complete flop

You can tell that after only 7 months? The PS4 and Xbox One just came out last November, remember?

So do they double down or accept that mobile is going to eat their lunches?

Mobile is a different market, no one is going to give up the full console experience for Angry Birds.

Even the phone/tablet and portable consoles (PSP/Vita/DS) are different markets. People playing Monster Hunter on the Vita or Animal Crossing on the DS aren't going to give up those kinds of experiences for your typical tablet game.

Re:Ads.

[sexconker]

Great,

Can anyone tell me why, as a subscriber with the "Disable Advertising" button, I keep getting ads at the top of Slashdot, not matter the status of the button? Only happened the last few days.

Pretty sure the terms of what I paid for say I shouldn't be seeing it, even years after paying.

Because:
Dice.com
You're not running an ad blocker
You were dumb enough to pay for Slashdot, so they assume you're dumb enough to sit through more ads regardless of your choice

Re:Ads.

[Kaenneth]

I've also been getting redirects to other sites.

Only from Slashdot. CNN, Everquest, Ars Tech, 4chan, bay12 all fine, only Slashdot is doing this.

Also, one of my peeves, ads that peg a CPU core at 100%.

Now I can't get Peter Gunn theme out of my head

[tepples]

I could load Spyhunter into FCEUX, but what good would that do on a Linux laptop?

Re:No kinect = manual password entry :(

[Custard Horse]

I still haven't hooked my kinect up yet. Tho' it's a pita having to type in my secure XBL password *every time*

"*every time*" is a terrible password! Doubly so now that you've announced it to the world (of /.)

Re:Xbone has been a disaster from the start

[Custard Horse]

Next time, let your engineers spec the console up for you instead of the Marketing Department.

There is a happy medium in there somewhere.

A hardcore IT friend of mine says that the GUI was the ruination of computing and if you want to use computers you should learn the CLI and if you want a GUI you should make it yourself. It is fair to say he was very wide of the mark and he would still be using 16-bit machines to this day had the user-interface remained the same. Popularity (and porn) stimlulates the advance of technology.

Microsoft took consoles to a new level and are suffering now as they set the bar rather high. Sony had difficulty with the PS3 which was hardly a failure. The same can be said of the XBOne. I would rather have an XBOne than an Atari Jaguar.

Good Tool !!!

[alex.taylor084]

Yaa, Kinect is somehow good tool to expand the performance for gamers. Atleast one should try this.

Re:Consoles shouldn't exist at all

[CronoCloud]

You are obviously young, because you don't remember the time when consoles predated PC's in the home. Consoles predate Windows, MS-DOS, and MIcrosoft itself.

Not to mention that there are genres on consoles which aren't on PC's and the price differential. Most people really don't care that much about adaptability, they'll trade that off for convenience and price.

Re:Consoles shouldn't exist at all

[Karmashock]

Actually I'm not young. I remember the Commodore 64.

And regardless, my point was not that consoles should never have existed any more then I would say that sail boats should never have been used to ferry colonists or freight cargo across the ocean in rickety wooden boats.

things that made sense at one point because that was the technology of the time don't have to make sense forever... and neither does saying their time has past mean that they must never have been.

Regardless, the old Commodore actually makes the argument that they never needed to exist valid.

Compare the games on either side by side and you'll find that the ones on the computer have pretty much always been better... like always.

Sure, the personal computers sell for more then a console usually. But at least initially that was almost all profit margin. The actual cost to build either system was pretty comparable. Today that might still be true if you consider that the consoles have a much more efficient supply system then PC assembly and distribution.

Either way, my real point here... and please note this... is that the PC can do the same job the console does and do it better.

All it needs is a console like GUI skin/theme. Throw that on and most people won't notice the difference. you can still put it in your living room... give the thing a console form factor if that's something you care about. etc. Its no big deal... there are no cons... only pros.