Kinect is not required to be plugged into the xbox one

[wco81]

Well if K2 is meant to be for augmenting the controller rather than replacing it, what is the advantage in having to use gestures that make you take your hand away from the controller?

Especially if the action actuated by that gesture could also have been accomplished with a button press?

Wii took off because it appeared intuitive, even to people who didn't game. Swing the wand to make the onscreen character swing the tennis racket.

But now you have a combination of controller actions and gestures? And if the K2 is suppose to be able to track individual fingers, is that really going to be in play if you're using the controller at the same time?

I don't think augmenting controllers is the way to go. Has to be all or nothing, meaning you have to be able to do everything you could on a controller, with no disadvantage in latency.

As has been said many times, K2 is going to have to make its bones on non core-gaming applications.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Leaning naturally is a lot more straightforward and less complicated than doing something like, "Hold LT and use the left stick to lean." It also prevents you from wasting a precious button like LT on something like leaning. Same with switching views (x-ray, as in this demo). You've no longer wasted a button on this likely non-twitch action. Lifting the controller to raise a shield is maybe something that could be more twitch. Maybe it works well enough. I wouldn't want to play a fast sword and shield game that worked that way. For that particular demo where you are fighting at range, it may be suitable.

Augmentation with voice and motion control is a smart way to go. You can add more depth to the controls of a game while at the same time making them easier. And absolutely nothing about that prevents you from making full Kinect only games (Kinect Sports Rivals etc). You can do both. The resources for Kinect are taken from the system allocation according to vgleaks. So in a sense a lot of what Kinect does comes "free" to developers. Your Kinect enabled game should not be at a disadvantage compared to a non-Kinect title.

 

[Billy Idol]

Kinect demo, you can clearly see the lag... i get an original kinect sense when i see that game...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01y1vXBl1-8

EDIT: And before i am eating alive, the technology is really awesome, as can be seen after the Kinect Demo Game.. Now they just need to build a game that is as awesome...

Not impressed. To be honest, quite the opposite. K2 might be improved over K1, but is still not acceptable for 'a bit more serious' gaming experience.

I mean, the dodging was like one million years off. He did maybe manage to dodge 50% of the plasma balls...meh.

After seeing this demo, my hope for a proper responsive Kinect boxing game are quite low.

It's nice for kids and party games though.

 

[wco81]

I can see an advantage if most people do not master the controllers. Like if only a small percentage master and use the modifiers and combos that games have and you can use the motion to simplify the inputs. (But then again, some people who didn't bother to learn more advanced inputs may not bother with a combination of controller and motion inputs either).

I don't know about you but sometimes I lean while playing games, inadvertently without thinking about it, like you try to bend a long kick in FIFA and your body kind of mirrors the motion of the ball without thinking about it.

I guess the games will give you an option to replace, augment or turn off motion/voice input completely.

 

[Arwin]

Kinect demo, you can clearly see the lag... i get an original kinect sense when i see that game...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01y1vXBl1-8

EDIT: And before i am eating alive, the technology is really awesome, as can be seen after the Kinect Demo Game.. Now they just need to build a game that is as awesome...

You'll have to forgive me, but this is such a n00b way to implement Kinect. It's basically gesture recognition to replace a button press. This is going to lag far more than any 'direct' control. It is partly understandable that they go about it this way, considering that they are trying to implement a combination of controller + Kinect control. But if you want to be really effective, you need 1-1 mapping of movements, because then you don't have to wait for interpreting a certain motion. What they are doing now is a dead-end, and will never be as good as pressing a button.

Considering the dodging, that should basically be 'always on', tracking your body position permanently. Not perform a button style dodge move only when you cross a certain threshold.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Kinect has a lot of possibilities. I hope people are smart enough to see that. It's up to MS and Devs to implement these things in a way that matters to both hardcore and casual gamers.

For myself, Fantasia: Music Evolved, Kinect Sports Rivals, instant profile switching, and the TV features more than justify the $100 price tag.

 

[wco81]

If any of these possibilities were really that interesting, we would have seen them by now.

Developers had time with the Wii and the first Kinect.

Incrementally better tracking and latency isn't going to open up new gameplay ideas if they haven't before.

Like I said, non-gaming features will have to be the way it makes its mark.

And the price tag is more since the TV features require XBL Gold. So if MS marketed K2 for TV features alone, then some buyers who didn't really want to game heavily but got the X1 anyways may be shocked to discover an ongoing service fee, which is nominally for gaming but covers all these non-gaming features.

 

[-tkf-]

The lag really doesn't look that bad. It's obviously improved over Kinect 1. It's still not super-twitchy, but it looks to be good enough for the types of control augmentation they were demoing. Tapping the side of your head to switch views is pretty cool. It frees up buttons for more important twitch actions. I'm not sure I like the targeting for the missiles, but I expect some other clever uses.

Just make sure you tap your head when you are upright and not leaning/covering to the left, you can see that he taps his head and the kinect2/game thinks he is raising his controller to get cover.. classic Kinect right there..

You'll have to forgive me, but this is such a n00b way to implement Kinect. It's basically gesture recognition to replace a button press. This is going to lag far more than any 'direct' control. It is partly understandable that they go about it this way, considering that they are trying to implement a combination of controller + Kinect control. But if you want to be really effective, you need 1-1 mapping of movements, because then you don't have to wait for interpreting a certain motion. What they are doing now is a dead-end, and will never be as good as pressing a button.

Considering the dodging, that should basically be 'always on', tracking your body position permanently. Not perform a button style dodge move only when you cross a certain threshold.

As i said they need a genre redefinition on the games that is needed, for example a click and point adventure, imagine playing Monkey Island with kinect, instead of using a mouse/keyboard/controller you simply move around in first person perspective with gestures and reach out and examine everything with you hands. Fit the games around the controller, not the other way please.

Microsoft, you are free to take this idea as long as you produce a PC version as well..

 

[Scott_Arm]

Just make sure you tap your head when you are upright and not leaning/covering to the left, you can see that he taps his head and the kinect2/game thinks he is raising his controller to get cover.. classic Kinect right there..



As i said they need a genre redefinition on the games that is needed, for example a click and point adventure, imagine playing Monkey Island with kinect, instead of using a mouse/keyboard/controller you simply move around in first person perspective with gestures and reach out and examine everything with you hands. Fit the games around the controller, not the other way please.

Microsoft, you are free to take this idea as long as you produce a PC version as well..

I went back and watched it again and I see the part you're talking about. I wouldn't assume that it's a limitation of the hardware so much as it is not a combination of movements the game recognizes. It could be something that they could fix easily.

I do agree that the most interesting things would come out of people designing games around tech rather than pushing the tech onto "standard" games. I still don't see what they're doing in this demo as being any kind of a negative though.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

If any of these possibilities were really that interesting, we would have seen them by now.

Developers had time with the Wii and the first Kinect.

Incrementally better tracking and latency isn't going to open up new gameplay ideas if they haven't before.

Like I said, non-gaming features will have to be the way it makes its mark.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. I think the tech has improved enough that you're going to be surprised by the level of innovation.

 

[AzBat]

The demo was built specifically to show novel uses with a controller. I'm sure other developers who are making actual games could come up with better uses. In the end the demo was just something simple to show how Kinect could work in a core game environment. I would say give it until GDC next spring to see if Kinect has better use in core games.

Tommy McClain

 

[liolio]

I'm not sure about what this thread is about I'm extremely wary about the existence (or relevance) of a costumer that would buy the XB1, paying for kinect in the process and that would not connect it.
All that thread sounds like FUD in my opinion.

 

[zed]

If any of these possibilities were really that interesting, we would have seen them by now..

thats the thing, how long has MS and its first party studios had kinect 1 and kinect 2, theyve had years yet in all this time theyve shown no great kinect games (mainly party dance etc stuff). All this talk of you just wait there will be some amazing stuff coming out in future how long do we wait for 2020?
latency needs to dramatically improve
WRT leaning to control movement, IIRC all the ps3 controllers could do this either leaning with the whole body or just the arms. And this is with minimal latency. How many games used it? Whilst its a nice idea I agree. Why havent more games taken advantage?

 

[XpiderMX]

Kinect demo, you can clearly see the lag... i get an original kinect sense when i see that game...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01y1vXBl1-8

EDIT: And before i am eating alive, the technology is really awesome, as can be seen after the Kinect Demo Game.. Now they just need to build a game that is as awesome...

The part after the game demo is almost lag-free.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Well if K2 is meant to be for augmenting the controller rather than replacing it, what is the advantage in having to use gestures that make you take your hand away from the controller?

Gestures to replace multiple button presses would be a boon to a huge number of people. I have friends and family that already get confused by the number of buttons on an X360 controller in regular games. Expecting them to actually do LT + button or RT + button is hopeless as they already get flustered and confused by just the 4 buttons (ABXY) when the action gets going, often hitting the wrong thing. They then get frustrated and just stop playing and watch the kids play.

If Kinect can make games more useable by those people, that's a lot of potential that might actually start gaming. They always tell me how neat X game looks, but that they would never play it because it's too "complicated." They aren't confused by the mechanics when they say that. It's only the controller that they find frustrating and confusing. They don't want to spend hours learning how to use a controller naturally when all they want to do is jump into a game for 30-60 minutes and then go about with the rest of their day.

For myself it allows some games to [rant] STOP USING THE SAME FREAKING BUTTON FOR MULTIPLE ACTIONS [/rant] then I'd be extremely happy. I don't want the same button used for picking something up to also be the button used to revive a teammate and open doors. What happens when something I want to pick up is next to the door out of the level that automatically loads the next level (@#$#ing controllers with their limited number of buttons).

As a PC gamer that infuriates me to no end. Especially when the game gets ported and it still uses the same god damn button for multiple actions. ARGH!!!!$%#$#%@#$@%@#$@#$!$

As a real example. Batman: Arkham Asylum (I finally played it because someone gave it to me for free) has the same button for countering as it does for aiming. I can't even go into how many times I hit that and instead of countering I aimed my god damn item and then I'm sitting there like a dumbass waiting for the enemies to hit me. @#%@#$@#$

Yes, that's a huge pet peeve of mine.

Regards,
SB

 

[MrFox]

If you need both hands on the controller, eyes on the screen, sitting on the couch, what do you do gestures with?

 

[zupallinere]

If you need both hands on the controller, eyes on the screen, sitting on the couch, what do you do gestures with?

I shudder to think.

 

[fbomber]

If you need both hands on the controller, eyes on the screen, sitting on the couch, what do you do gestures with?

Who, sitting comfortably on the couch to play games, would be moving left and right to "dodge" attacks?

For all the promises coming from people here, that we have to wait for the kinect2 to be properly used, I say: I´ll wait, while playing the PS4. When a good game is designed that really takes advantage of that thing MS forced down our throats, I´ll buy the X1.

And thats coming from a X360 and Kinect1 owner.

 

[AzBat]

People have no patience in this day & age. They want everything right now. Maybe I'm naive to think that if you build some great technology somebody, somewhere & some time will do something really cool with it. When that happens I'm all the bandwagon fans will start coming out.

Tommy McClain

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Who, sitting comfortably on the couch to play games, would be moving left and right to "dodge" attacks?

For all the promises coming from people here, that we have to wait for the kinect2 to be properly used, I say: I´ll wait, while playing the PS4. When a good game is designed that really takes advantage of that thing MS forced down our throats, I´ll buy the X1.

And thats coming from a X360 and Kinect1 owner.

I lean left and right when dodging attacks in game all the time. I also duck when I duck in game and raise my head to try to look over hills and walls. It's instinctual for me, I don't do it on purpose, I just do it.

Regards,
SB