Xbox One's mandatory Kinect, and the PS Eye

[Boglin]

I have seen some arguments pop up periodically that the mandatory Kinect for the Xbox One will allow consumers better access, and therefore, bettor support of the peripheral. I agree with this completely, but recently wondered if it will have a positive affect on the PS4 and its Eye.

Now I know the Kinect has quite a bit more features than the PS eye, but I imagine a lot of games would not leverage all of the features which, and in some cases, would cause parity or close to for both peripherals. If this were the case, I would imagine PS4 Eye would benefit from a mandatory Kinect without itself needing to bundled in every box.

If the Kinect proves to be very successful for Xbox One, could that lead to multiplats on both platforms with Microsoft footing the bill for mass adoption of the tech and Sony piggybacking off of its success? Or is my line of thinking flawed?

If there is already a topic on this, I apologize, I am very good at not seeing things I'm looking for.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It'd be possible for some things, unlikely for others. If it relies on the skeletal tracking then probably not. Voice commands should be possible, I see no reason those wouldn't make it across on cross platform titles.

Regards,
SB

 

[AlphaWolf]

PSeye does not have the same abilities as kinect so it's not a slam dunk that 3rd parties will be able to port kinect games to it.

 

[XpiderMX]

I think it will depend on the development tools. I guess Xbox One has an API for Kinect, and the efforts for porting will be based on the PS Eye user base.

 

[BRiT]

*AHEM* This is not a thread to discuss how great Kinect is or isn't. Those threads exist elsewhere and have been beaten to death. If you wish to continue beating that dead horse, do so elsewhere.

 

[patsu]

They may evolve into 2 different experiences.

I don't see Playstation diving too much into speech recognition although they may have one-off game implementation or integrate with Google Now/Siri later.

Sony may improve Move or other core gaming input mechanisms (e.g. head tracking ?). May be even a visor.

They seem more keen on AR, in particular mobile AR.

 

[kagemaru]

I think it will depend on the development tools. I guess Xbox One has an API for Kinect, and the efforts for porting will be based on the PS Eye user base.

I think this is a great point. Many questioned the lack of support for PSeye when it just came down to the tools and APIs provided by both companies.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think this is a great point. Many questioned the lack of support for PSeye when it just came down to the tools and APIs provided by both companies.

It was more a matter of support from the parent companies. According to many on these forums PS Eye was doing fairly well in Europe (not so much the Americas) until Sony stopped heavily supporting it. But it's debatable whether Sony stopped supporting it heavily because there wasn't enough consumer interest and thus developer interest was nearly non-existant, or developer interest was virtually non-existant because it wasn't universal to all PS3s (my own theory as well as probably most/all developers on this forum), or they just gave up on it due to whatever reasons consumers/developers weren't embracing it.

Kinect did relatively better due to the heavy promotions, marketing, and emphasis that Microsoft put on it. It also helped that it did something that was practically untainable in a device that cost less than multiple thousands of USD at the time it was released due to the software driving it that Microsoft research developed. But it would have failed just like PS Eye over time if Microsoft hadn't made it universal with every Xbox One.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

Vaguely remember in an old interview...
They "stopped" releasing EyeToy games because they felt that the tech was not ready. They didn't stop R&D though. The follow up was PSEye and assorted accessories, such as Move. Their goal is to come up with mechanics for "core" gaming, followed by casual gaming.

 

[warb]

Most games will make some use of the Kinect sensor, even if it's mostly just voice.

Sony should really make it easy enough to match features like voice commands for multiplatform devs.

 

[patsu]

It may not be what you expect.

e.g. There is a speech recognition API in the PS3 Move SDK. If they include a standard headset in PS4, that library could be tuned for the headset instead of PSEye. It's easier to implement and less vulnerable to variables in the environment. But it also means the setup is optimized for gaming instead of a controller-free general computing experience.

 

[warb]

Not everyone likes to wear a headset, but that Kinect mic array is always listening.

I think PS Eye will benefit from mandatory Kinect and vice versa, with multiplatform titles making decent use of Kinect because a somewhat similar capability exists on both platforms.

 

[ERP]

It may not be what you expect.

e.g. There is a speech recognition API in the PS3 Move SDK. If they include a standard headset in PS4, that library could be tuned for the headset instead of PSEye. It's easier to implement and less vulnerable to variables in the environment. But it also means the setup is optimized for gaming instead of a controller-free general computing experience.

Actually somewhat surprisingly the signal from the headset can be less clear than the signal from the mic array.
The problem is that the mic on the headset isn't placed very close to the mouth and it picks up a lot of ambient noise which is harder to remove.

I suspect MS also probably has more invested in speech recognition, since they can ameliorate the cost across several divisions.

But I wouldn't expect simple in game voice commands to be an issue on either system.

 

[patsu]

It's not just the signal. It's the predictability. The system always knows roughly where the mic is. It helps with minimizing unwanted effects and optimizing capture.

Clearly, if Sony want to do this, then they will choose an acceptable mic.

Not everyone likes to wear a headset, but that Kinect mic array is always listening.

I think PS Eye will benefit from mandatory Kinect and vice versa, with multiplatform titles making decent use of Kinect because a somewhat similar capability exists on both platforms.

It depends on the benefits. Many gamers don't mind wearing a visor for an immersive VR experience.

If most players prefer not to use a headset for both chatting with comrades and speech recognition, then perhaps the game can be enjoyed without the voice commands (i.e., not a killer feature for that game)

Remember, this is just my guess.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It depends on the benefits. Many gamers don't mind wearing a visor for an immersive VR experience.

History has shown that a visor is one of the many reasons that VR has never been able to catch on despite multiple attempts over the years.

I don't see headsets in quite the same way, people are used to those due to portable music devices. Visors on the other hand seem to have a bit of a stigmata attached to them.

As to Sony picking a suitable microphone, I don't think that would help as you can reportedly plug in any headset you want into the PS4 controller. If that is the case, then Sony would not be able to guarantee developers that the quality of the microphone would be good enough with regards to ambient noise cancellation. Nor would a user added headset mic. have the same audio profile for filtering out ambient noises.

A robust system with the 4 mic. array in the PS4 camera would allow Sony to guarantee a certain level of input fidelity. Of course, the problem there is that it isn't universal and Sony cannot guarantee developers that it will be there and available to all console owners.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

If they go there, the peripherals will be reviewed and certified:
http://us.playstation.com/corporate/about/press-release/521.html

Compared to a visor, the headset is better accepted even without voice commands.

 

[Bigduo209]

I have seen some arguments pop up periodically that the mandatory Kinect for the Xbox One will allow consumers better access, and therefore, bettor support of the peripheral. I agree with this completely, but recently wondered if it will have a positive affect on the PS4 and its Eye.

Now I know the Kinect has quite a bit more features than the PS eye, but I imagine a lot of games would not leverage all of the features which, and in some cases, would cause parity or close to for both peripherals. If this were the case, I would imagine PS4 Eye would benefit from a mandatory Kinect without itself needing to bundled in every box.

If the Kinect proves to be very successful for Xbox One, could that lead to multiplats on both platforms with Microsoft footing the bill for mass adoption of the tech and Sony piggybacking off of its success? Or is my line of thinking flawed?

If there is already a topic on this, I apologize, I am very good at not seeing things I'm looking for.

That seems to be the case with Sony's approach on the PS4 Eye.

Sony has been doing cameras on consoles since the PS2, but the technology hasn't always been where it needs to be, and not worth the cost to bundle with for the long-term. Microsoft has the money and marketing to push the concept, and Sony can use them as testing case to see if consumers can be truly convinced to want something like that.

All Sony has to do is have the proper APIs and software in place for such a use case. Of course that's assuming it catches on for minor gaming purposes and voice commands, and not the smartphone-like experience that MS is really trying to sell the peripheral on.

 

[Airon]

I have seen some arguments pop up periodically that the mandatory Kinect for the Xbox One will allow consumers better access, and therefore, bettor support of the peripheral. I agree with this completely, but recently wondered if it will have a positive affect on the PS4 and its Eye.

Now I know the Kinect has quite a bit more features than the PS eye, but I imagine a lot of games would not leverage all of the features which, and in some cases, would cause parity or close to for both peripherals. If this were the case, I would imagine PS4 Eye would benefit from a mandatory Kinect without itself needing to bundled in every box.

If the Kinect proves to be very successful for Xbox One, could that lead to multiplats on both platforms with Microsoft footing the bill for mass adoption of the tech and Sony piggybacking off of its success? Or is my line of thinking flawed?

If there is already a topic on this, I apologize, I am very good at not seeing things I'm looking for.

Mandatory Kinect for XBXOne could mean the diffusion of some of its functions for PSEye in multiplat games. Mainly voice recognition, because PSEye and Kinect2 are 2 completely different beasts.
COD Ghost, a multiplat game, x example, is rumored to have the dog controlled via voice commands.

But everything depend on Sony!
Speech recognition on XBO is managed via a dedicated chip and it is completely free, i.e. no impact on GPU or CPU cores.
I suppose that the PSEye will not have this kind of chip, and, because PSEye is completely optional in the PS4 ecosystem, it is safe to assume that PS4 will not feature this kind of dedicated chip on board.
If I remember correctly, speech recognition was quite an heavy task for the first kinect.
Maybe this could mean, translated on PS4 environment, that 1CU of the 4 extra CUs could be reserved for speech recognition tasks in multiplatform games.
But in order to work, this is something that Sony must decide from the beginning.
For all the multiplat games that support Voice Commands 1 CU should be reserved for this task no matter if you have PsEye or not, no matter if you will use this feature or not.
And so, as I have said in the "VS Audio" discussion, I have strong feeling that the "14CU+ 4CU rule" is coded and already established by Sony, at least for the 3d party developers.

And speaking of this, DF some times ago received confirmation from a developers that Sony mandate some kind of reservation for remote play or camera implementation.

 

[hesido]

And so, as I have said in the "VS Audio" discussion, I have strong feeling that the "14CU+ 4CU rule" is coded and already established by Sony, at least for the 3d party developers.

And speaking of this, DF some times ago received confirmation from a developers that Sony mandate some kind of reservation for remote play or camera implementation.

I don't think Sony would put all those extra CU's and lay them to waste. Is there a link to that reservation for remote play? If you mean that titles need to support remote play, that's just a case of providing alternate controls for remote play, compression and streaming is done by the secondary OS chip, I suppose..

 

[Shortbread]

I have strong feeling that the "14CU+ 4CU rule" is coded and already established by Sony, at least for the 3d party developers.

Can you please stop with this 14+4 nonsense! You have posted this argument/statement in multiple threads already. The 18 CU can be used in any manner/configuration as seen fit.