Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect Official Thread - Page 6

anyone see any good preorder kinect offers lately?

I went by the Microsoft store yesterday and they're offering 20% off of games for a Kinect preorder.

what I should've asked was is it 20% off the entire order (including the device). as it stood from our conversation, it's 20% off the games. so you buy 2 games for $80 that are normally marked at $100.

but if it's 20% the Kinect itself, that'd be awesome.

Sorry for the newbie questions...

My son's old xbox 360 died last week, and I just ordered the new 250gb slim. I'm intrigued by the Kinect concept, but I'm not sure about it's application other than it's "controller-less".

Some friends have been touting how they've been getting in shape with their wii fitness games/programs. Is that one of the market segments that Kinect is aimed at? Is there any info about Kinect fitness/workout discs yet?

From what I have seen on connect it appears to be almost exclusively fitness oriented at this point. I think there are two specific fitness games due at launch but even the sports games and mini games appear to be very much oriented to action. The most touted game is a dancing game that is also very active.

When you get a chance, you can see a bunch of videos on Live with previews and interviews on most of the games coming at launch for Kinect.

The game most people who are interested in Kinect is Dance Central. It's a dance game that doesn't need anything. No dance pad needed, no controller in the hand. You just dance the dance steps on the screen. It's a semi diverse list of music. dance tracks, hip hop, pop, old skool, etc.

Another dance game is Dance Masters which is by the same people who made the DDR games. This game looks terrible in my opinion but people who grew up on para para paradise would probably like it. The moves are very flowery (the DDR creator is really flaming gay; not that gay is bad but all the dance moves in this game reflect his dance style) with Japanese influence.

There's going to be a Michael Jackson game. so if you want to moonwalk, you now have your chance.

There is a dance/fitness game called Zumba. It's based on the dance class which is a mix of fitness moves with traditional ballroom dancing (meringue, salsa, etc.). So if you ever paid so much to do Zumba at the gym, now you can do Zumba at home.

And then there's the true fitness games.

Ubisoft has the Your Shape: Fitness Evolved game which looks pretty cool.

There's also The Biggest Loser based on the TV show. This doesn't look so good but they've barely previewed it.

There's also EA's active sport 2.0 which is the sequel to the Wii version. It's also coming to the PS3 and Wii but those games require you to strap controllers to your body. The Kinect version requires nothing but does come with a heart monitor to "justify" the exorbitant price.

There's another fitness game called get fit with Mel B (of Spice Girls). It's a timed exclusive to the PS3 (LOL) but will come to the Kinect as well.

then there's the snowboarding/skateboarding/any boarding games. Sonic on jetboards.
Adrenalin misfits. cartoon characters on jetboards.

then there's the party games, ala Wii Sports.
Kinect comes with Kinect Adventures which has 20 minigames (they've only demoed 3 so far).
deca sports
game party
Kinect sports
Motion Sports

another game I'm looking forward to is Child of Eden. It's a shooting game that is a spiritual successor to Rez with psychedelic visuals.

and then there's the nurturing/sandbox games. in the spirit of Tamagotchi, Nintendogs, The Sims, harvest moon, etc.
Kinectimals (you take care of various cats like lions)


With only a little over a year to make games for the Kinect (and software libraries are still constantly being adjusted), this will very much be a first gen feeling. MS is emphasizing the casual crowd and these first release games are the easiest to make in the short amount of time.

That's why I think there'll be carnage among the first gen games. like how many party sports games do people need? Or fitness games?

there's a lot of promises that Microsoft is making which sound intriguing but they won't be implemented until next year (if at all) for the most part. headtracking. voice command. games that combined gestures with a game controller.

and you can use Kinect to control your Xbox with hand gestures and voice command. that has me excited. hopefully they add the controls to Windows Media Center (which is far more important to me than the xbox dash).

Kinect is definitely not for everybody. But it is for me. I grew up on DDR, karaoke games (Singstar, Lips, Karaoke Revolution), Rock Band, Guitar Hero, etc.

if all you do is play Resistance or Halo or Gears of War or Modern Warfare or Uncharted, you definitely don't want a Kinect.

but from the games they've talked about so far, I'm definitely getting Dance Central and Child of Eden. the maybes are Zumba (I like to dance), Ubisoft's fitness game, and one of the sports party games. They've barely demoed the sports games so I have no clue which one. the trailers are very early and barely show anything.

The nervous part is they want to release in time for Christmas purchases but the developers barely had time with the development kits. It's almost November and barely any of the games have been demoed and the few that have been demoed are very limited demos. So I'm wondering if they're going to push back the release (which would be kind of devastating to miss a holiday season). Or are they holding their cards for a big advertising push.

at least retailers feel good about Kinect. preorders have been good and retailers are excited according to various industry sites like Gamasutra.

Man, this is some great info. Thanks to all!

Dancing is not my thing, although the wife will definitely be interested in Zumba. I'll keep looking for info/demos for the fitness and sports games. It all sounds very cool.

Video from Gametrailers testing the motion tracking.
Seems to have issues with complex movements and other objects in the frame.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vi...-kinect/703804

I am not sure if this thing is going to be "the future" or not. They probably should not have cut corners and left the pocessor in the device. Not sure how it does facial recognizion from this. Maybe we are a few years off, software and processor wise, before what is envisioned for this can really take place. I guess someone needs to take the first steps but I am not sure if its something I should spend money on at this point. Still debating.

facial recognition is not that hard. my brother's Lenovo laptop (IdeaPad) has a standard web cam and it has facial recognition for logins into Windows 7. You just sit in front of the cam and it scans your face and then you're logged in. I sat there to see if I could fool the software and it wouldn't let me log it. and i look similar to my brother. of course, if you were an identical twin, you'd probably beat the system. and i have no idea if you could hold up a picture of the person to beat the system. i assume you could.

it'd be like the movies where you need to retina scan the eye and then the bad guy carves out the guy's eye and sticks it in front of the scanner to fool it.

personally, i liked typing in a password instead but if you have a gazillion passwords and you just want to avoid typing, the facial software is pretty cool.

That was just a tech demo. I did not see that many problems with what I saw, but you have to keep in mind that is not a polished piece of software. The software for Kinect will evolve over time.

It might be the future, which also means it will take a while for a company like MS to get it right. A lot of consumer faith is being placed on MS's ability to keep improving Kinect via software updates, but it may be possible that the hardware is itself limited. No way to know yet.

Also, cutting corners was necessary in order to get costs down. As is, we're looking at $150 retail. If they'd kept the processor on board, MS would either have had to take a big loss, or priced it well beyond reason ($200+). The third option would have been to wait, but with Sony ready to release Move, their hand was forced. MS already saw what it cost Sony to wait, so there was no way they were going to have the same thing happen to them.

Would Kinect have been improved if MS had waited a year or two? Of course. But that's true of any consumer electronics. Whether they released it "too early" or not remains to be seen.

While the hardware will have its limitations (Viewing/"Playspace" constraints, Not being able to track 360 around you (e.g. hands behind the back, etc)) the powerful features of Kinect are mostly in it's software. The algorithms for tracking motion, gestures, voice recognition, etc are purely in software and will undoutebly improve over the course of the next few years.

I'm not at all interested in any of the Kinect games (Maybe Dance Central but nothing else yet...). But I'll buy one for the crazy cool star-trekness of it all. Being able to control the UI with my hands and voice is something I've been waiting for since a young boy.

slowly more gameplay is being revealed as launch comes closer.

the boxing looks interesting. hopefully it's good. because wii boxing was terrible. i really wanted to like wii boxing but the controls are so wonky.

it's still showing the regular old avatars. i wonder what it'll be like with the new avatars. it's my impression that games that use avatars just grab the data that MS provides for the avatar rather than recreating it. so when MS changes the avatars for the system, it automatically propagates to all the avatar games without the game developer having to change their games.

it's amazing the wide range of "technique" normal people would use to throw a punch. I guess it's all influenced by the movies and tv shows people watch. some people were throwing hard style martial arts punching. some were doing Rocky style punching.

can't wait to see people bopping each other in a contest. youtube has tons of wii videos with people smacking each other in the head playing games like tennis.

i'm still waiting for 1 player to kick the soccer ball to the left so that the other player has to jump to the right to block it and ends up colliding with the other player in real life.

New Kinect Sports Trailer

Probably a fanboy made video but, still, you gotta see this mom get down with Kinect. Funny stuff...

even big daddy has moves!

pre-order kinect (at full price, comes with kinect adventures) AND pre-order another kinect game, get $30 game credit
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/13/pr...get-30-credit/

Does anybody know if that applies to already preordered kinect units? If not I may cancel my preorder and re-order to get the discount (since I did not have the game in my cart at the same time..... already have a $20 credit for preordering fable that I was going to use towards yourshape).

I was on the fence about purchasing kinect but my gf really wanted dance central and I'm interested in the movie and dashboard control. This Amazon deal seems like a good excuse to purchase.

i'm holding out for some better deals that might come down the line.

the Microsoft store is offering 20% off all game purchases for preordering Kinect. So the more games you get, the more you save.

but at 3 games or less, the Amazon is better.
3 games at Microsoft store: $120 (instead of $150)
3 games at Amazon: $20 + 50 + 50 = 120

I hear ya on that. Only problem is I don't see 3 games that I would want yet.

Steel Battalion coming to the Kinect! No need for 100 button controller! I always wanted to try out this game but couldn't justify buying a $200 controller that only worked with one game.

Interesting. I guess they will put all the controls on the screen. Might limit the view a bit for those with smaller TVs. I wonder if you will have to stand in order to do move forward, backward .... or if it will be on rails.

It is Kinect Enabled. Which means you play with a standard controller with Kinect Features. Example would be reaching your hand out and punching the eject button before your mech explodes.

Now this makes me wonder if Mechwarrior will be Kinect enabled.

Using hands to navigate a HUD sounds really interesting a la Minority Report without the gloves.

I'm sure Kinect is only for weapon selection or map navigation. But that synergy of a controller with hand gestures is part of the promise with Kinect.

And I'd bet it'd include headtracking.

It'd be like a real life Gundam. joy!

Where is there a beach in Manhattan? EDIT: Apparently, there is a Manhattan Beach--in Brooklyn.

Okay, NOW I'm officially starting to get interested in Kinect.

Amazon shows the release date as Oct 5th now. Weird.

Later

Is Kinect for dashboard navigation going to be too unresponsive, or too responsive?

One of the things that was pointed out regarding Kinect is that because there's no button, there's no way to definitively say, "Yes, select this item that's highlighted now" or "Go back, I didn't want that". If you highlight a box on the screen and move your hand forward or whatever, that item is selected whether you wanted it to be or not. Similarly, if we're talking voice controls, there's no button to say, "Listen to me now, I'm going to give you a command". People would argue that this is a good thing, i.e. that you don't have to have anything in your hands (ala the Wii or PlayStation Move), but I wonder how it'll actually work out. Too many accidental selections...?

seems like the voice command stuff will be easily remedied by needing a voice prompt with a unique word that won't come up in regular conversation. I think we've seen that in some of the videos where the developers demonstrate by saying "Xbox" then a command.

Wow. All I can say is I've done a complete and total 180.

The games just announced at TGS for Kinect have completely changed (and blown) my mind. Looks like devs are jumping in to support this much more heavily than they ever supported the Wii. None of it will be out until 2011, but still...

Trust me when I say that you have no accidental selections.