Kinect Works With Seated Players

Kovacs 33 Comments

In an article today confirming Move support for upcoming strategy RTS R.U.S.E, Eugen Systems’ Mathieu Girard claimed the reason behind the developer not extending the moving offer to Kinect was due to the recurring rumour that Microsoft’s device requires its players standing in order to work.

Not so, apparently. Confirming to Joystiq today, a Microsoft representative stated:

“Kinect can be used while sitting when an experience is developed with sitting in mind.”

This is threatening to become the Ross and Rachel of the gaming world. Will it? Won’t it? Does it mind that Joey was in there for a while?

We think we can safely put this one to rest. Kinect knows when you’ve been sitting, it knows when you’ve been bad. You just have to develop with seated players in mind. Now we just need confirmed European prices and we can stop talking about the hearsay and focus on the device/games. Dance Central looks awesome, y’all.

Source: Joystiq

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33 Comments

  1. Tehe, I was watching Friends while reading this ^^

    • I really can’t believe you’ve just owned up to that…

  2. How you doin’?

  3. the problem of being in a wheel chair though has still not been addressed

    • Is that different to any other kind of being seated in terms of actual body position?

      • not really but for a game where you have to stand they are sort of saying as you cant stand you cant play

      • I think he means on games which require you to stand, like Ricochet and Kinect Adventures.

        With physical controllers, those who can’t stand aren’t prohibited from playing whereas a number of Kinect titles don’t look possible from a seated position as they force you to stand to play with them.

      • yeah cc put it better it limets peole to playing only the sitting games which as of now there doesn’r seem to be any

      • Yes that’s true, and the only games I can think of that exclude you before Kinect are dance games and some light gun games (such as Time Crisis).

        I guess it does suck for wheel chair users if there is a game you really want to play on Kinect and you can’t. Whilst not trying to belittle wheel chair users in any way, I would assume that Microsoft consider the demographic small enough as to not worry about, in the same way that current games don’t really address the issue of people who have lost fingers or even an arm.

      • I know, there’s loads of people who are unable to hold joypads and other stuff… and they’ve not been taken under their wing in the same way PlayStation owners appear to be rallying around for like they wheelchair users are against Kinect.

        Selective?

      • Any new technology is going to create problems like this, I’m really fearful about not being able to enjoy my hobby in a few years because everything is going to be in 3D and I’m in the 10% of the population who can’t resolve 3D stereoscopic images. I’m going to hazard a guess (again without belittling wheelchair users) that that is a much higher portion than the wheelchair-using gameplaying population, but I don’t see anyone giving a damn about us.

      • Katy: With regards to 3D I can’t see any reason not to provide a 2D mode. It’s easy, all you do is render less frames. Until we stop using TVs and start using holodecks (come on holodecks!) I can’t see any reason not to provide 2D as an option in games. As for movies? Well you may be more fucked there, but again all 3D movies can be shown in 2D right now (I think).

      • I agree Raen, and I look at the number of shows still being sent in SD and 4:3 on my TV channels for comfort, but you never know how these things will develop.

        As for the movies, yes, it’s stressing me already, it’s socially annoying: I went to see Avatar with a large group of people, and just because of me they all had to watch it in 2D, ofc they all wanted to see it in 3D and some of them went again without me afterwards. I had a long discussion with one of the people I went with about it, and he (rightly) said that a lot of movies won’t be suited for 3D – ones containing mostly dialogue etc. – and I said, that won’t stop them making them in 3D anyway though. I can see in just a couple of years this is going to become a situation where I’ll be excluded from going to movies with most of my friends.

      • What you need to do is make friends exclusively with other people from the 10%, sorted :P

        I hadn’t actually considered the social impact of movies, that may be because I don’t often go to the cinema and tend to watch at home. Alone. Crying.

      • I was under the impression that people that can’t see 3D could still watch 3D movies and wear the glasses, but just not see 3D. If not, I suppose singularly polarised glasses will start selling alot (say both horizontally polarised, so you only get one of the images)…

        But yeah, I’m certain that there will always be a 2D mode for games, especially since when viewing a 3D source on current TVs, 3D is only presented as an option (I guess just in case you don’t have enough glasses for everyone in the room, or if you don’t currently feel like getting a headache :P).

    • what if you only have one arm like the bird on cbeebies??

  4. The camera can see all – it just depends on the particular software, I suppose that’s kinda obvious with hindsight

    • I would have guessed that maybe the reason R.U.S.E rep said what he did was because it was perhaps too hard to get any useful information out of somebody who was sat down with Kinect and perhaps the hardware isn’t able to output accurate enough data when people are in strange and irregular positions when they are sat down.

  5. Hmmm so only particular games will work when sitting down then …. do not like!

    • A game which requires you to be standing, and either jumping around or dancing or something – can only be played if you’re jumping around or dancing, isn’t really a shock is it?

      It’s not like you’re going to be able to play Move Sports games well if you’re sat down is it? and by that I mean swinging bats, racquets and other stuff is very difficult to do with the Move’s level of precision from a seated position.

      • I have no trouble playing Wii Sports Resort in a seated position, so I see no reason Move games could not work sitting down as well.

        I think at this point we’re all aware of the fundamental limitations that Kinect is going to have, and games that can reasonably be played in a seated position are going to be very rare if the current crop of software is any indicator.

        Just goes to prove how limited the options are unless you have something physical in your hands to work with.

      • Actually cc_star it says “when a game is designed with a sitting position in mind”. Doesn’t that mean that if there is no specific way a game needs to be played, it might not work with you sitting down? They will essentially have to decide how to make you play the game even if it doesn’t actually matter

      • Yes, I’m aware of what it says.

        What I’m saying is that given all the Move’s precision, how will it be possible to play Table Tennis sitting back on the sofa?

        It won’t… so it’s moot point, talking about not being able to play Kinect seating.

        As we’ve seen most of the games are active game anyway… and of course you don’t play active games sitting down.

        When games are designed with sitting down in mind (maybe a quiz game with a virtual buzzer) then the software will recognise you’re sitting

        I don’t see the issue, standing up games that you play standing up – is it a shock that you play them standing up? I’m going to file it under not an issue

      • You totally ignored my point. I am thinking about games that use Kinect but where it doesn’t specifically matter if you are standing or sitting, driving games for example. You should be able to play it sitting or standing but they will have to dictate what you do.

  6. As long as you CAN play it sitting down if the experience allows for it (so as cc said, you hardly gonna sit down playing Dance Central are you?) then Kinnect shouldnt have a problem.

    Granted you may be restricted to either/or but as long as the camera can see people sitting down in games then its ok.

    If not, then thats a different matter. PS. I love friends.

  7. As long as this is the case and that the dashboard stuff works sitting or standing (although I prefer the voice commands anyway) then I’m fine with it. CC’s point about different games having different needs hits the nail on the head.

  8. So if, contrary to developers saying that Kinect can’t differentiate consistently between the player and their furniture, they actually are able to make seated kinect games why the heck didn’t they develop the Forza kinect game and that other kinect driving game that way – did they not think people would prefer to drive while seated? Maybe they just wanted to focus on the up and active aspect of kinect for E3 and the seated stuff will be revealed soon..
    Also the kinect movie/menu navigation didn’t work while seated according to reports from the E3 demo booths and i can’t see anyone wanting to stand up everytime they want to FFW or find a chapter in a movie.
    Does any of that even matter? I believe Amazon pre-orders show Move in the top 200… and Kinect in the top 50. lol

    • I think you’re probably right about the up and active stuff, I mean if you think they don’t even show non-motion games sitting down either. It probably just presents better when you have people standing up.

      Whilst menu navigation didn’t work sitting down, I would assume it will by launch.

  9. Ha… Microsoft Present… Musical Chairs – Kinect Edition & Ever popular Mime Artist Simulator..

  10. I still want to see how many people complain (if any) when Kinect hits living rooms everywhere and starts confusing decorative wallpaper for people.

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