Kinect Requires Players To Be “Four To Five Feet” Away
Any closer or further and computer says no.
Published: 10:45, 23/08/2010 by Josh [JoshHood].
36In a preview of Microsoft’s upcoming Kinect controller-less system, Digital Spy have noted that unlike the PlayStation Move and Nintendo Wii, Kinect requires players to be in a specific area “four to five feet from the screen”, in front of or behind which the system cannot detect the player.
“While you can play the Wii from a metre onwards, a possible issue with Kinect is that it has a specific zone of play,” reads the preview. “All demo stations required a lot of room to play games, with an area four to five feet from the screen needed to pick up the player. In front or behind that, and the sensor will struggle or fail to pick up users at all. While the experience is no doubt optimised for the living room, for those who play their consoles in compact spaces, this could end up being a real deciding factor. However, we’re hoping to test the device in real world situations before passing proper judgement in this regard.”
Of course, Kinect isn’t out until November, and so there’s a good few months of polish to come yet, but it’s interesting that the system requires such a specific area of play. It’s also a bit of a downer for those who don’t have a lot of space in their gaming area.
Source: Digital Spy
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23/08/2010 at 10:59
Member since: May 2009
Hmm.. don’t think I’ll have enough room in my Uni halls to stand up and use Kinect.
Not buying, then.
23/08/2010 at 12:27
Member since: May 2010
and another problem would be the tv size…..if you got a 32″ then it must be ok but i have a 26″ which i find small even from 3 feet away.
23/08/2010 at 17:43
Member since: Jul 2009
Yeah small tv users won’t find kinect usable. I got a 22inch.
23/08/2010 at 13:54
Member since: Aug 2010
Wait so hiding under a blanket while I gently rise my middle finger to the kinnect camera is not gonna work ???
Well MS you have just lost me on the kinnect thing good day :P
23/08/2010 at 14:38
Member since: May 2009
It’s MS.
23/08/2010 at 22:46
Member since: Nov 2009
Actually it’s Micorsoft.
23/08/2010 at 22:46
Member since: Nov 2009
LOL!..forgot about to put that =)
23/08/2010 at 11:01
Member since: Jan 2010
good article, does Move have any limitations? I know it says ‘unlike the playstation move’ but the wii has to be a metre away, so…..?
23/08/2010 at 11:32
Member since: Dec 2008
Yeah but also, the Wii needs to be pointing at the camera that picks it up – Move has the backup that only a fraction of the data needs to come from the camera seeing the balls – the rest comes from the magnetospherometres and acceleratios.
23/08/2010 at 11:37
Member since: Jan 2009
Accelerometers you mean.
23/08/2010 at 12:35
Member since: Jan 2010
thanks
23/08/2010 at 12:04
Member since: Nov 2009
If move is indeed based on EYE-toy technology then it won’t have any limitations. PS2 camera had none.
23/08/2010 at 13:47
Member since: Feb 2010
Move isn’t as limited, i think it’s the same as the wii, although the ‘sweet spot’ where it works the best is 6ft i think. But it can work well before and after that too
23/08/2010 at 11:03
Member since: May 2009
Would have thought it’d work ok at further distances than that… Could have simply been a limitation of the system when used in overly hectic environments such as a games expo.
But really all systems need you to be a decent distance away from the screen to work well… It’s a limitation of needing to be seen by a camera or sensor.
23/08/2010 at 11:07
Member since: Forever
Every video I’ve seen – even the dodgy ones, players are further away than 4-5 feet.
Johnny Cullen from VG247 is about 8 feet or so here in this LOL-worthy vid, and there’s thousands of vids of people even further away
I wonder if Digital Spy have got it wrong and mean you can’t be closer than 4-5ft – although I don’t know how anyone could see their TV if they were closer
23/08/2010 at 12:02
Member since: Jan 2010
Hmm yes, because it really seems to be working well for Johnny Cullen, just look at how smoothly he navigates through those menus! /sarcasm
23/08/2010 at 12:12
Member since: Dec 2009
I’m about 5ft from my tv. Am I going to go blind or something? Additionally, if I stand up to play games I probably wouldn’t be able to see very well unless I buy a taller stand
23/08/2010 at 13:36
Member since: Forever
OH.THE.HORROR!
23/08/2010 at 13:19
Member since: Aug 2008
you dont want to stand to close, as you say, you’ll need a taler stand. i think 4/5 feet seems right to me. most living rooms can handle that. (and before someone says, but my 360 is in my bedroom, Kinect is made for familys, so optimising it for living room is the way to go.)
23/08/2010 at 11:05
Member since: Aug 2010
A lot of bedroom console gamers will struggle then. I have my Xbox in the boudoir and PS3 and Wii downstairs. Suffice to say I will not be in any hurry to move the Xbox downstairs just to play Kinect. There is very little (read – nothing) that even begins to tempt me about Kinect thus far. I’ll pass final judgement (no knee jerk reactions around here) until the Kinect has been out for a while.
23/08/2010 at 13:22
Member since: Aug 2008
its not designed for bedrooms. its a family device. so it will be configured for living rooms.
23/08/2010 at 11:07
Member since: Feb 2009
So basically you need to be stood in a specific place and not move around too much.
Was it just me or is this technology called Motion Control?
23/08/2010 at 11:36
Member since: Sep 2009
Seems to me they are controlling our motion… it’s all a conspiracy I tell you! They want everyone in the world to be stood 4-5ft away from Kinect! Then they will ‘Kinect’ to our brains!
Get me the tinfoil!
23/08/2010 at 11:09
Member since: Jan 2009
That means I’ll be standing in front a dartboard them. And the room I play video games is already cramped as it is, so I’ll skip this instead.
23/08/2010 at 11:12
Member since: Aug 2008
I expect it will still work outside that but they are setting these rules so that when people say “I played it in a dark room while I was sitting on the floor, 30cm from the screen” they have deniability
23/08/2010 at 11:18
Member since: Dec 2009
There are so many things that Kinect does wrong it must be hard to find anything it does right.
23/08/2010 at 12:06
Member since: Nov 2009
Marketing and lies. Microsoft are pro at that.
23/08/2010 at 12:29
Member since: Dec 2009
I expect it will have huge returns from consumers. Most of the time it won’t work properly and even when it does there’s no decent games on it at all.
23/08/2010 at 16:38
Member since: Sep 2009
That is exactly right Lord_Gremlin but sadly it will probably work – I was in Asda the other day and there was a stand in the gaming section just for Kinect with all the fancy Kinect branding and blurb about how revolutionary it is and all the launch games as well as the device itself available for preorder. Whereas PlayStation Move which is out in just a few weeks was nowhere to be seen, not even a preorder box amongst the normal PS3 section.
It’s the same in a lot of places where casual users would get suckered, for example it’s splashed on the front page of Argos.co.uk the other day.
23/08/2010 at 11:18
Member since: Dec 2009
I spent a half hour playing some old kin- i mean Eyetoy games yesterday and i’m knackered.
23/08/2010 at 11:29
Member since: Apr 2009
I have no space in my “area”
23/08/2010 at 11:34
Member since: Dec 2008
Sounds painful.
23/08/2010 at 11:42
Member since: Jul 2009
LOL!