Kinect (previously Natal)

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

I liked this article.

I was having this discussion with a guy in work about the Wii.
I'm surprised someone hasnt already developed a porn game for it yet.
It could be so easily done & you could have strap on accessories bundled too!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktg3PSYeSDM

This made me chuckle.

The Benny Hill music or the 'kin ell at the end? I was waiting for the mum to play a 'Slap The Old Bald Guy' game midway thru.

[Number45]

It's been bandied about in the Rare rebranding thread on GAF. Many unhappy Rare fans in that thread.

[spinpug666]

Because the original 360s don't have this extra port you will have to plug it in the mains. The extra port on the new ones is to power it.

WOW! The first system (original 360) since the MD,MCD,32X trio to use 3 plugs at once if you have a HD-DVD drive.

[Holio]

Well Amazon.com are listing all the Kinect games at 60 dollars, that's full RRP for games stateside. I actually couldnt believe they were all separate releases, I thought they would all be on one disc, and in the box. But funk that, no Kinect for me.

[dataDave]

It's been bandied about in the Rare rebranding thread on GAF. Many unhappy Rare fans in that thread.

I can't believe Rare still have any fans. To be fair I never tried Viva Pinata, which I've heard from numerous trusted sources was quite good.

[Number45]

I can confirm that. Its looks belied its depth.

[Family Fry]

This quote just shows how MS pushed everything aside, other than the family friendly stuff they wanted to highlight.

James Mielke, producer of Children of Eden.
"Microsoft f***ed up big time," explained Mielke. "They had a chance to feature it for Kinect but decided to focus on family-friendly games like what's on Wii. They weren't expecting everyone to react so negatively. After we showed off our game at Ubisoft, the Microsoft people came to our booth like, 'Oh, oh wow.'"

I know it wouldn't have totally redeemed the MS conf but they should have got right behind this game, highlighting it at MS conference would have impressed even the unimpressed.

[Darwock]

That's not a platform exclusive though so I can see why they might not have wanted to show it.

[Junko]

So far COE seems the only thing worth playing on the silly thing

[MJ]

Because the original 360s don't have this extra port you will have to plug it in the mains. The extra port on the new ones is to power it.

I thought MS said the Aux port on the back of the Slim is for power and data for Kinect, so only one cable is needed to set it up, as opposed to two with the normal 360 (one USB to the console and one power lead to the mains).

[Spatial]

I can understand that some games can't work while you sitting down, but the basic hand gesture stuff? Really? If it doesn't I agree that is awful, but I'm not going to be convinced by IGN's point just yet.

How about MS pretty much confirming it doesn't right now?

I liked telling the Xbox 360 to pause a movie. I liked extending my hand and dragging the movie's progress bar left or right, as if I was using the Star Wars Force to fast forward and rewind. But, I asked the Microsoft people running the demo, could I drag a chair over and try this sitting down?

No.

"Sitting is something we're still calibrating for," one of them told me.
One of the Microsoft people with whom I was discussing the "sitting question" said the chair stuff is just more complicated. You could be sitting far away, at an angle. True, though I had asked to move a chair in front of the TV before being denied.

UPDATE: A Microsoft spokesperson told me after the publication of this article that the company is certain that Kinect gesture control will work for movies, ESPN and other "entertainment" features before the sensor is launched. As I originally reported, that is not an implemented feature yet. The spokesperson was not able to provide any update on the Kinect's tolerance of a person who sits while playing games.

I've summarised the whole article but it's worth reading the full thing because MS actually removed part of the FAQ info from their website which said this wasn't an issue

http://kotaku.com/5565777/xbox-kinect-does-not-play-well-with-couch-potatoes

So as of right now Kinect doesn't work, even with basic hand gestures for the dash and media player, if you are sitting down. If they don't get that sorted by launch... ouch!

Of course there's still time, but something like this still being an issue this late in the day is a little crazy.

More than that it means that right now developers can't be working on any games which enable you to sit down and play. No big loss if you want to dance around or stroke Skittles, but certainly not what people are expecting from it.

[Jebus]

They've denied that sitting doesn't work now haven't they?

[Spatial]

Only thing I've seen is that Aaron Greenburg tweet and that came before that Kotaku article.

If anyone's got another source where they confirm it's now working please post - although I will warn in advance that I'll find it highly dubious if, this short a time period after E3, it now magically works.

[ezee ryder]

Played Joy Ride using Kinect earlier this week and, I must say, it was fun. A little imprecise at times but still fun. My mate who is quite tall had some issues with Joy Ride though, the camera wouldn't pick him up properly.

Also tried co-op rafting and, boy, was that tiring! Again, it was fun and I can definitely see the appeal of such games but the question is, how long before the novelty factor wears off?!

If they price it "correctly" and have some decent games then it could be a massive hit. However, if it's around the £100-£150 mark then I think they might have some trouble shifting it in huge numbers.

[Brats]

How about MS pretty much confirming it doesn't right now?

But I feel that's okay. Reports I've read on Eurogamer and Giant Bomb have confirmed that the technology works really well. Given that we are in June and the thing launches in November, there has to be a few bits that still require sorting out.

The way I see it, this is do different to game being previewed a few months before release with a slightly choppy frame rate and the dev assuring us that by release it will be sorted. More often than not, it is.