Kinect Only Works When Standing?

Tuffcub 95 Comments

According IGN, Kinect has problems with ‘skeletal framing’ if you are sitting down. Whilst this may not be a huge problem whilst you are playing a game, if you were hoping to laze on the sofa and just wave your hand to fast forward a movie then you may be out of luck.

“All the cool options to grab a slider and advance through frames of a movie you are watching only work when you are on your feet.”

“Kinect, we’ve been told, has problems handling your skeletal frame while sitting. The voice commands still work, but every game we’ve seen and even simple menu navigation has to be done with you out of your seat.”

Another problem occurred when the same demonstrator was showing off the Ubisoft ‘Your Shape’ demos. Felicia Williams was the lady being scanned, once at the Microsoft press conference and then again at the Ubisoft event. Somehow in the space of a few hours she has managed to shrink two inches.

Source: IGN

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95 Comments

  1. If thats true then that could be dreadful news for sales of Kinect.
    The shrinking problem seems kinda strange too. Bad news for MS

    • I wish I could get taller in two hours, I’m getting this one :)

    • She was probably just standing a slightly different distance away the second time she was scanned.

    • It makes me wonder how precise depth is calculated. Most depth measurement tools use a laser to calculate the distance. So what does a device that only receives (IR) light use as a reference point to calculate depth?
      Does the camera only measure how much an object moves or does it calculate where the object is positioned exactly.
      With the kinect I think it’s the first.
      The calculated height of a person is probably based on an average distance people would be standing away from the kinect.

      • well its got two cameras hasn’t it, can’t it just do like a human?

      • Yeah, but as a human I need to guess distances and heights.

    • Whoa, if this is actually true and gets out then Kinect is screwed.

      A lot of people have stated that the games are kind of crap and the only reason they’d get it was because it seems easy/cool to navigate through menus using just your hands, but if you have to stand up to do this? That’s just stupid. :\

  2. Ha! That’s a pretty bad handicap.
    If I’ll be buying Sorcery for the Move, there’s no way I’ll play this while standing.
    Same thing for ‘real’ kinect games, I suppose.

    • it’d be even worse if you were handicapped. no kinect for the wheelchair crowd.

      • that is a very good point! never thought of that. i bet there are lots of wheelchair gamers

  3. As far as operating things go, if you can see it on the screen you can just say it, so xbox back, xbox forward, xbox marketplace. xbox play, stop, pause, rewind
    But it would be nice if there was a better variety of games than just the social standing ones, this is where the Wii is better than the camera only approach, and Move looks like it will be too (if a tad pricey to get fully equipped)

    • “Xbox: Why am I shrinkinggggggggggg!” *pip*

    • I’d hate to have to say “Xbox DoSomething” every time I want something to happen. Give me an X button any day.

      • People can just come in whilst your playing a game and just say “Xbox off” and your system will shut down, if that was me i would be pretty cheesed off!

        They’ll need to do something that only recognises the owners voice

      • Apaz Kinnect is having real problems with accents. How Scousers, Scottish, Welsh etc wil fare is anyones guess.

      • doesn’t really matter about price if the product is cack. Why pay 1p for something if it is rubbish – that is all that should matter. When I first heard about Natal I was amazed. Every time I read something new about it my opion goes down and down.

        I was the opposite for Move and now I think Move has just about passed natal for excitement for me

      • Oh man, think of the accidents that might happen. :\

        “When are you turning the Xbox Off?” (Xbox shuts down).

    • Yes, because Kinect is not pricey and Move only works when you’re hanging upside down.

      Stop it already! ;)

      • Well, we don’t officaly knoiw what the price for Kinect will be, now do we?
        1 Kinect will however support at least 4 players at once.

        You do the Math. Even if Kinect will cost the rumored US$150.00. The move costs $50 and the Navigation control costs $30.00 Thats $80. Multiply that by four and you’ve got…US$320. Plus the PS Eye if you dont have one. And i’m sure that we can rest assured that Kinect will not cross $200.00.

        So yeah, CC’s right.

      • Playing Devil’s advocate, the Wii has shown us that the incremental approach to building up a set of controllers for a console works. People may be less willing to splash out the $150 (or whatever) for Kinect in one hit.

        And if there’s only one person (or possibly 2) playing then PS Move will likely work out cheaper for a subset of the Move games (I know the max compliment for two players if 4 Moves and 2 subs). Especially for those who already have a PS Eye.

      • @Juelz: Oh, so now I need 4 Move and 4 Sub controllers to experience the montion gaming fun :))) you guys are good!

        Why not 4 PSEye cameras? Or 8 Bluray remotes? C’mon.

      • @ ruinereraser
        WTF are you talking about?
        First of all, let me say that i personally will be purchasing multiple sets of the Move and Nav controller, hopefully at launch. And i will also be purchasing Natal, hopefully at launch.

        My comment was a direct comparison of 4 pleyers with Kinect and 4 player with Move. All the BS your spitting about 4 PS Eye’s 8 remotes and 12 PS Slims (see i can add dumb shit too) is totally irrelevant to my comment.

        And who might “you guys” be? I own and support both consoles. I’m a Gold live member and will be signing up for PSN Plus ASAP. So if “you guys” is some Fanboy reference, you can miss me with that.

        I personally am looking forward to Move more, because it’s an actual controller and can be applied the games that i’ll play. I want Kinect because as a father of 3, i think it has great potential for some family fun nights.

        So no, 1 person doesnt need 4 contrllers to “experience the motion gameing fun” (and was never even implied) But 4 people simultaniously sure might. Thats a little thing i like to call Maths. And i can’t even begin to see how you took my comment and turned that into needing 4 cameras and 8 remotes.

      • @Juelz345: clam down a bit. It was just a joke. I’m just a bit off with all comments that suggest that Move won’t be fun if you don’t get 4 Move+sub sets in the house.

        That’s BS imho. It will be as fun for one player with one Move (and sub) experiencing some great games like KZ3 or echochrome II to quote something other than a shooter.

        As for multiplayer, I haven’t really seen games that’ll require 4 Moves at once. Most of the will be 2 player multi or player after player games where you can use the same controller, just like on Wii.

        There’s really no need for 4 Move and 4 sub controllers in the house. 2 sets of those will be more than enough.

        As for Kinect, I haven’t seen any 4 player game either.

        So the simple math may be good (for MS marketing division especially), but the logic doesn’t stand.

      • @ruinereraser
        Now that i’ve counted to 10 and took a few deep breaths…

        While we haven’t seen any games that utilize 4 remotes or support 4 players on Kinect, neither of these products are even out yet and there will almost certainly will be post launch. I have several games for my wii that use 4 Wiimotes and nunchucks. So the logic does stand if you look past launch.

        Of course we’ll be ablt to enjoy Move without 4 full sets. That was never the debate. It simple was a comparison of potential cost based on a full compliment for 4 players. Which if you think about it, both these products are aimed heavily at social gamers. Which would indicate that the vast majority of the games for each will focus on groups of players, not just 1 or 2, again using the Wii as an example. I do agree that a lot of game will support pass and play. But what about games like Mod Nation w/ 4 player split screen. Or the games like Tennis in Wii sports that has 4 player.

        It’s safe to say that there will be a fair amount of games that will support 4 sets and benfit from it as well. Sony wants to sell as many as possible so it just makes sence. And fortunatley for me, i have accessory OCD so i will have to have four sets or lose my mind ;)

      • I think from a logical perspective on average the Move is cheaper.

        That is because on average one person will be using the Kinect and Move at any one time. The cost for one controller set is cheaper for the Move.

        While the price goes up for the Move as you get more people, the percentage of people with 4 players goes down, so ultimately it stays in the Move’s favour.

        Think of it like this:
        $80 for 70% of the time: 1 person
        $160 for 20% of the time: 2 people
        $240 for 5% of the time: 3 people
        $320 for 5% of the time: 4 people

        versus
        $150 for 100% of the time: up to 4 people

        In this analysis, the Move on average across people costs $116, while the Kinect still costs $150, making it the more cost-effective option.

        Thoughts?

      • Even if you play with the averages a little the Move comes out cheaper.

        1 person playing 50% of the time
        2 people playing 30% of the time
        3 people playing 10% of the time
        4 people playing 10% of the time

        Move costs $144 on average for the person, still beating the Kinect. :\ And I think these values are fairly conservative, I highly doubt 20% of the time you are playing with 3 or more people.

      • @PhilipJWitow
        Apart from the fact that everything in your estimate is based on made up figures including the price for natal which hasn’t been confirmed, yes it makes sense.

        Not to mention that even though 99% of the time I’ll be playing by my self, but I’m still goin be purchase at least 3 sets. Myself and most of my friends will be purchasing multiple sets even though most of our play time is solo or online. So the average amount of time that x amount of players are playing is irrelevant. I’d say on average most people will have 2 sets plus the cost of the ps eye. Just the two sets alone is more than the assumed $150 for natal.

    • lol @ cc_star, try controlling it when the hi-fi is on or the washing machine is on or the kids are shouting or you’ve got a bad cold etc etc fecking etc. What a crock of Shit !! The good news is that it’ll end up in the same bargain bin as Tony Hawkes Ride so you can shout at your xbox for next to nothing.. or use the bloody controller, even cheaper. This is hilarious!

      The Move is a tad pricy, just as well it seems to work a treat ;)

      • Lol @retro_ if you have your hi-fi on whilst you’re watching a movie, or your washing machine next to you game console

      • lol, i was thinking the same thing. Sounds like your problem isn’t Kinect, but bad house design, a sever lack of parental discipline with a minor case of ADD.

  4. Isn’t the difference in length due to the inaccuracy of Kinect with its 4cm blocks? (Or something like that)

  5. It seems to be going downhill for kinect since E3 started…might just save the money was going to buy it with and get another set of move controllers

  6. When the Move and Kinect were first announced I thought Microsoft had cracked it, and Sony were just cashing in on the sucess of the wii. But As the months have gone on it’s pretty obvious that the kinect ain’t going to be as good as first thought.
    At last Sony get something right.

    • Well, that is what the development team of Eyetoy for the PS2 back in the day said when the runour started that MS was working on something camera based.
      The Eyetoy team has been testing with various camera’s (including 3D ones) and came to the conclusion it just doesn’t work for gaming (other than social simple partygames)…. That is why Sony came up with the Move.

  7. Ah, that’s what Edge magazine meant when they said developers were having trouble getting natal(kinect) to consistently distinguish between the user and the furniture.

  8. uh oh…
    The height discrepancy could be down to different footwear? Or maybe the way the Kinect was place affected things?

    Needing to stand up completely destroys this for any real gaming. nobody’s going to play CoD or Gears standing up. Not to mention that you’ll always be looking down on the TV when you’re standing, since it’ll be set up for sitting to watch…

    Lots of flaws in the system, even if the tech is quite impressive.

    • i think the possibilities of playing games like CoD or Gears have been ruled out a long time ago anyway.

      • Very true, especially how they constantly refer to it removing the ‘obstacle’ of the controller. Generally the only people to whom a controller is an obstacle are those who are only interested in social gaming in the first place. For more serious games, I don’t see how its possible to get the level of control and accuracy that you can get with buttons.

        For instance, in a shooter, how would you pull a trigger? For anyone with move its obvious, press the button mapped to the trigger. For kinect, especially if it has at least 4 cm inaccuracy, what gesture can be mapped to a trigger? Flailing your arm about is hardly accurate is it?

      • Simple.

        When you shoot, you say: “pew! pew! pew!”.

      • No, you say “Xbox: pew”
        But you are already dead after only saying “Xbox”…

      • If you won’t to fire an automatic rifle in cod u have to say
        Xbox: Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwww!
        For single shot
        Xbox: Pew

  9. This surely places the product firmly in the casual games category? I can’t see myself playing a mammoth Forza or Halo session stood up with my arms out… I refuse to get exercise!

    • “This surely places the product firmly in the casual games category”
      That’s the profitable category isn’t it?

      but, no one’s going to want to play everything standing, you don’t even have to do that with the Wii to have a great laugh with it

      • Profitable for Nintendo. I doubt it that MS will have the same amount of casual hits, they are simply not Nintendo, who is a master in developing Nintendo branded massive hits.

    • but speaking of forza what will this mean for driving games? haven’t they demoed burnout and joy ride with this?

  10. Way to alienate the entire wheelchair-bound gaming community. Nice work Microsoft…

    • Didn’t think about that, knowing the US there will probably be a disability discrimination lawsuit filed within weeks of it’s release! lol

      Seriously though that is a big limitation – when you’re sat watching a film you would reach for the remote and fast forward, you wouldn’t standup, wave to get it’s attention, move your arms about, and sit down again!

    • They should file a lawsuit against MS for that.

    • Poisonedmonkey has a point.

      TUT TUT MS

      • And nintendo didn’t “alienate the entire wheelchair-bound gaming community” by releaseing the Wii Balance board?

      • what are you talking about you can balance much better in a wheelchair

      • @STILLCANTTHINKOFAGOODPSNNAME
        Lol, you got me there. But in my diffence that would mean that nintendo has release a wider boeard with a ramp. Whiil Balance Board?

    • My first thought. Anyone without the use of their legs is screwed. Unless Microsoft sell a fake-legs peripheral. *patents new idea*

      • If someone with out use of their legs’ biggest problem is that they can’t use Kinect, then they’ll be just fine (and should probably check their priorities).

    • My thoughts exactly!

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