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. So wait, the trailer last year was fake?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qlHoxPioM

    • “Actual features and functionality may vary” ;)

  2. FAIL.

    So we’ve heard nothing about what happens with controlling a character on screen either, so the Star Wars game is on rails is it? SOunds like great fun. I’ll take a fair amount of lag and uninspired titles with that please!

    Oh MS.

  3. Wait, wasn’t there a guy in the first Natal add at E3 09 racing whilst he was sitting on the couch? :S

  4. Would’nt like to stand playing the Wii, what use is playing Dragonquest while standing?

  5. What about the demo video where the girl is driving the car while sitting down? The only person standing up was the guy changing the wheel nuts and he was sat down until he had to do something.

    Also they have another video showing a family relaxing watching TV and the woman says something like “we’ve already seen this bit” and the guy holds up his hand (while lying on a sofa) and waves to fast forward to a later part of the video.

    Surely Microsoft didn’t lie to us?

    • Didn’t lie if its a lifestyle vid – all 3 companies do them all the time.

      Microsoft need to come out and either nip these reports in the bud, if they’re not entirely accurate or just come and say exactly what it can and can’t do.

  6. Does the Kinect work when the player is a ninja?
    Knowing that the depth calculation is based on infrared light and that black absorbs all light, how do the IR cameras perceive black clothing?

    • What about Kyie Minogue? Surely shiny gold hotpan will relect the light all over the place. Anyne who plays games in gold hotpants is in trouble.

      • Kylie is devastated and cries into Milo’s shoulder at the moment at secret MS booth!

      • I think Milo sent his cat to E3

  7. For all the price comments: At present we have yet to see a game which requires 4 moves, 2 subs or anything of the sort. What we have seen are multiple games which require two moves for one player. Given the price point is $49.99 (I know I’m using RRP here, but the rumoured $150 for Kinect will also be the RRP so it makes sense) two Moves comes out at $99.98, still fifty dollars cheaper than Kinect.

    If you do not have the PSEye yet and decide to go the bundle route this brings you up to $149.98 ($99.99 for the PSEye, Move and game bundle, plus $49.99 for the second Move).

    Basically the same price as Kinect. The current RRP for just the PSEye in the US is $39.99 according to Amazon US so if you decided to forego the game in the bundle you come out at $49.99 x 2 for two Moves plus $39.99 for the PSEye coming out at $139.97, $10 below the price of Kinect.

    Whilst the argument for the buying over time is a perfectly valid one, we’re seeing here that one player for a large number of games we’ve seen, and excluding the Sub controller, comes out at around the same price at Kinect.

    Why have I excluded the Sub? Well I’m not sure how comfortable it would be, but I believe a DS3 can be used with Move. As I would imagine 99.999999% of PS3 owners already have at least one controller (there may be a tiny minority who got rid of it as they only use the Blu-Ray remote and don’t game on the machine) this negates the need for the Sub controller.

    So given that for one player they come out at around the same price, it basically comes down to which you believe delivers you best value for money.

    Personally Kinect, but I don’t own a PS3 so Move would return 0 value for money. For does who have both consoles but can only have one motion controller (we are looking at a $300 outlay if you wanted both, I can understand not being able to afford it) it comes down to the games you play. For the type of gamer who reads TSA I will generalise and say Move probably has more games for you, it’s been shown working with far more ‘hardcore’ games than Kinect. For those looking for more of party gaming and just something to muck about with I’d go with Kinect. I’d also back Kinect for people who want gamercise (games with exercise elements) as it does seem to have the best software in this area at present.

    • Damn! Some logics you have there, but i couldn’t read it all :S

      • I probably should have made it an article, but I can’t justify it without final pricing on Kinect.

    • “At present we have yet to see a game which requires 4 moves, 2 subs or anything of the sort. What we have seen are multiple games which require two moves for one player.”

      Some of the titles shown off so far in the compilations like the archery (which makes use of 2 moves per player) the duelling thing (1 move for a weapon and 1 for the shield)

      Then away from the compilations, there is The Fight which has been the subject of a great deal of promotion and developer diaries etc, again this uses 2 moves per person.

      But seriously who is going to be playing all these motion games by themselves (when alone you’re far more likely to play a ‘core’ game) so with Sports Champions or The Fight or whatever if you want to go multiplayer (which is possibly the ‘proper’ way to enjoy motion based gaming) then to get the best out of it you’re going to need 4 Moves.

      But what we are seeing is a range of ‘core’ games using Move & Sub as a different option. Anyone who’s tried holding a DS3 in one hand and actually try using it to control stuff accurately… its just next to impossible to do. Even resting in your lap it is next to impossible to control the analogue accurately and pull the L2 button – This means a Sub is pretty much needed else you will be losing all the benefits of the reported extra accuracy of using Move to aim (in FPS etc)

      Therefore you can take a piecemeal approach, but because of all the compromises is there much point in bothering, why spend £40-£50 (depending if you have cam or not) to have a worse experience than just using your DS3? Then once you’ve got your initial 40 or 50 out the way, plain & simple its just better with 4 Moves this adds up to roughly the same price as Wii, with Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort and 2 controllers… you can then add on the Nunchucks & Subs and the approximate price parity is still there.

      In comparison to Kinect, we don’t know the price, but it could be anything from £50-£129 and the only game that is receiving universal praise is Dance Central (presumably gamer-cise will be equally well received) but outside of this what will Kinects uses be, it looks great as a voice based OS, but thats not going to shift units.

      I’m afraid that the more is known about Kinect the worse it looks – I’m not sure what MS can do to turn around the tide of derision, do they have anything other exercise or dance games left in their locker? If so they’re gonna need it.

      • You forget though, that you could have two, and your mate could have two.

      • @djhsecondnature The mate issue is exactly why I based the calculations on one person.

        @cc_star I ignored the Sub because whilst it is way easier to use than the DS3 you don’t categorically need it. I was going for the absolute minimum baseline, the lowest amount(s) of money you can spend and have the system actually work for the games we’ve seen.

      • Yeah I get the minimum entry level, and appreciate that side the debate, I just don’t see the point of spending up to £50 to have something worse than just continuing to use your existing SA/DS3 on its own, so unless you go all out then the product you end up with falls short of the promise.

    • Regarding the navigation controller; I followed the Move presentation link in Greg’s article about PS3 3D and their they show Devs that a player either holds a navigation controller or the DS3 in one hand.

      • Thanks for the confirmation on the issue, I was fairly certain, hence why I ignored it.

  8. A question, can you use a controller to move your player around using kinnect?

    Saying that your restrcited then to the amount of movement you can do with your arms. Hmmmm.

  9. I don’t need another game system telling or showing me that I am “obese!”

  10. I’m pretty sure my eyetoy worked just fine when i was sitting down, such a step back microsoft

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