No Kinect Voice Support For Mainland EU Until Spring

Kovacs 28 Comments

Sacré bleu! Microsoft have confirmed to Eurogamer Spain that Kinect’s snazzy voice recognition functionality will not be available on continental Europe until spring of next year. At launch, the device will only support British (UK) English, American English, Japanese and Mexican Spanish.

Bizarrely, even Canadians won’t be able to talk to their 360, any attempts to desperately seek comfort and compassion after a particularly brutal spat of name-calling on Halo 3 from their gigantic Wall-E companion completely out of the question. And don’t think just because you’re fluent in English and happen to live in an unsupported region you’ll be able to get around the restriction – the functionality is confirmed to be region-locked.

Strange days, as this also suggests that Australians, New Zealanders and Irish people will also have to wait until 2011 despite speaking English as their first language. Strewth/Jaysus! etc.

Microsoft also explained why, despite supporting “Mexican Spanish”, European Spanish people will have to wait. It’s all down to numbers, with the Latin-based variant spoken by nearly three times as many people as its Old World cousin.

Source: Eurogamer

Tags:

Related stories from TSA

Microsoft Officially Discontinue The Kinect Adapter For Xbox One S And X
Microsoft Cease Production Of Kinect
No Kinect Adaptor To Be Included Or Offered Free With Xbox One X Purchases
Xbox One Kinect Sensor To Officially Be Available From October 7th

28 Comments

  1. “British English”. I died a little.

    • Indeed. That’s what’s in the EG article, however.

    • As did I…

    • I’ve always referred to it as UK English but it looks like British English is a valid term.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_English

      • It shouldn’t be. It’s English and then American English etc

      • Like open source code English is there for anyone to modify, tweak and simplify anyway they see fit.

        Its not like (UK) English is a pure language is it? with many words having Latin, Norman, Scandinavian or a Celtic root

      • Kinect should support “simple english” like Wikipedia :-D

      • Bah it just the Americans trying to rewrite history , give it another 50 years and it will just be called ‘Merican !

      • Wikipeida is not the source of all knowledge or worldly wisdom just because its on there doesn’t mean its a valid term.

      • Solid_Nat you’re absolutely right. Everyone should use urbandictionary.com as a definitive language reference :D

  2. i can guarantee when it comes out it will have trouble with local accents,i would have to try it with my Geordie accent well before putting down money on one just in case it did not work right.

    • The bigger question is: does it work when you’re pissed?

    • I remember the DS having a similar problem

  3. I believe that the voice technology uses microsofts tell me service (when connected online). This has been in use around a year on windows mobile in the states and even longer than that before microsoft bought the software. It never made it over here though so I’m wondering how it will cope will the different accents. Nevermind British English how about Scouse English, Brummy English, Jordy English or even Scottish British!

  4. i don’t see why they can’t just let you use english if if you can speak it.

    they’re proper frakking up this launch, after leading the way with the first simultaneous, almost, worldwide console launch, they make such a mess of this.

    one thing i have been wondering about the voice control though, will you actually need kinect to use it? surely a vision cam or headset with mike would work just as well.

    or will ms do what they usually do? lock it to those paying for one of their overpriced accessories or services.

    • the later I reckon. It makes business sense for them.

  5. Well, I’m just going to berate it in Irish & Hiberno-English until it fecking well works.
    For a 150 it’s one bosco-bocht.

    • úafásach ar fad!

      • Tá. Move Abú!

      • When did this place become AnAisSéú.com?
        ;)

      • Sorry about that lol Bosco was an irish kids puppet show and he would say úafásach (terrible) when things weren’t going well.

  6. I dont get it, we’re only going to be saying “play”, “stop”, “menu” and stuff like that, at least for the moment…hell, we could perfectly use the english version here in spain!
    is kinect really that stupid? XD

    btw, by “we” i meant “they” since im totally not buying this

  7. The more I hear about kinect, the more it looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

  8. All these bad news stories about Kinect could easily be/have been avoided if they’d just been upfront about the actual limitations of what the thing will do/won’t do from the start. Instead they seem to be trying to keep a web of confusion surrounding Kinect so people aren’t sure what they’re going to be getting or not getting as the case may be.

  9. So its currently limited to its languages, let alone accents. While Enlish maybe fine, accents from around the country differ greatly, E.g Livepool and London.

  10. Ok thats it.

    i am now 100% certain that Microsft cares only for their american and brittish cusomers.

Comments are now closed for this post.