No Voice Support For Australian Kinect. For Now.
Strewth.
Published: 11:10, 19/11/2010 by Kovacs.
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One for our antipodean readers. Though not the first time we’ve talked about Kinect’s limited accent support, it’s been confirmed by Australian site Games On Net that Kinect is unable to decipher the signature Aussie twang. A bizarre concept, if true.
Running the device’s voice set up feature down under, our cork-hatted gaming comrades are greeted with an error message informing them that their region is unsupported. Contacting Microsoft for confirmation, the official response is:
The voice support for Kinect will not be available at launch for Australia. It will be a function that will be available to Aussies, just not at launch.
No detail as to when this support will be patched in. It does present a funny premise, however. Do Microsoft literally have testers in a room screaming at Kinect, trying their damndest to confuse its inner workings with an assortment of weird and wonderful dialects? You bet they do.
Thanks JesseDeya
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19/11/2010 at 11:12
Member since: May 2010
strewth
19/11/2010 at 11:22
Member since: Sep 2009
See there must be more to it than simple accents surely? When you look at some of the accents we have in the UK from Scouse to Geordie I don’t understand how it works with those but not an Aussie accent? What happens if an Aussie is living in the US or UK, does Kinect get confused? I doubt it – no other voice recognition works on accents they works on the words, and English is English – unless they’re planning to regionalise it so you say “G’day Xbox” to start it up or something…
Delays in foreign language Countries I can understand, delays in English speaking Countries confuses the hell out of me!!!
19/11/2010 at 11:28
Member since: Jul 2009
It’s to do with the speech recognition. Accents and rural dialects all come with their own unique way of pronouncing certain words (as well as adding totally fabricated words to the mix).
If Kinect is listening out for “hello” it’s going to suffer with “‘allo” if a particular region drops its aitches frequently. I know this is overly simplistic but Kinect has to allow for such deviations.
Just like the police allow for my deviations.
I’ve said too much.
19/11/2010 at 19:23
Member since: Jan 2010
News Flash: 99% Kinect returns in the merseyside area!
19/11/2010 at 12:25
Member since: Jun 2009
I agree with allof the above.
19/11/2010 at 12:26
Member since: Jun 2009
Damn space bar is broke! But yeah I don’t understand how it can work with all of the different UK accents,American accents but not an Aussie one.
19/11/2010 at 11:23
Member since: Jul 2009
They should just have tested Kinect over in the UK. That would’ve taken care of nearly every accent and quirk in the English speaking world. Drongos.
19/11/2010 at 11:33
Member since: Aug 2009
So it can’t recognize dark faces that well and now this … not good MS, not good
19/11/2010 at 11:41
Member since: Dec 2009
Aborigines must be especially crushed.
I’ll get my coat.
;)
19/11/2010 at 12:27
Member since: Jun 2009
I know I shouldn’t laugh but that was hilarious!
19/11/2010 at 17:55
Member since: Dec 2008
LMAO
19/11/2010 at 11:53
Member since: Apr 2010
What amazes me about this, or rather what does not amaze me about this considering it’s Microsoft we’re talking about here, is that they have waited until after the release or pretty damn soon close to it to tell the poor aussies that they won’t be getting this fuction which would surely have hindered sales. Sneaky and not at all ethical, yep that’s dear old MS.
19/11/2010 at 12:15
Member since: Dec 2009
Apparently Microsoft has said it’s to do with accents and slang. Does the us/uk english version use slang for it’s voice commands?
19/11/2010 at 12:35
Member since: Dec 2009
“Xbox, innit.”
19/11/2010 at 12:51
Member since: Dec 2009
I ain’t never not heard of nuffin like that, or nuffin.
19/11/2010 at 12:58
Member since: Apr 2010
I Sooooooooooooooooooooooo can’t believe you just said that!
And yes, Kinect would have to be well programmed to deal with accents to work in the Uk otherwise people way as well just buy a building brick to talk to.
19/11/2010 at 14:38
Member since: Dec 2009
For the record, the word “innit” is not used where I’m from. I do know the British people have a love/hate relationship with it, however.
19/11/2010 at 19:04
Member since: Apr 2010
We do, and I hate it!
19/11/2010 at 12:51
Member since: Aug 2009
Hey whats the craic
(I hate slangs and I`m glad Microsoft have battled these poisonous words)
19/11/2010 at 12:59
Member since: Apr 2010
slang and accents are different, you do know this right?
19/11/2010 at 14:17
Member since: May 2010
So who will be the first to say it’s racist? :P
19/11/2010 at 17:27
Member since: Feb 2009
but how much slang does it recognise elsewhere in the world?
it’s just “xbox”, “stop”, “play” and the name of a few apps isn’t it?
19/11/2010 at 19:22
Member since: Dec 2009
I was confused by the mention of slang too. This is the full answer Microsoft gave one of the aussie websites…
“We want to give Aussies the premium experience for Kinect,” claims Adam Pollington, Xbox Category Manager. “We could have launched with something substandard, but we wanted to deliver the best possible service.“Some methods of communication are straight forward, like hand gestures are the same, but voices are obviously different with accents and slang, not just across different countries, but within those countries. To implement more advanced controls we have to master all of these accents.”
“It’s more about the time it takes to work it all in,” explains Adam. “It’s just a massive task to implement it all and, as we said before, we want to give Aussies the best premium service.”
19/11/2010 at 17:54
Member since: Dec 2008
“Do Microsoft literally have testers in a room screaming at Kinect, trying their damndest to confuse its inner workings with an assortment of weird and wonderful dialects? You bet they do.”
Youtube of this might be brilliant…