Kinect user discussion thread

[Shifty Geezer]

There'll always be variations in populations. Whatever possible issues could exist will exist to some degree. Research is needed to identify numbrs, and with enough numbers a label is ascribed to a condition (dyspraxia for movement, dyslexia for reading and writing although it seems to me more amemory issue), but we're all placed in a spectrum of abilities. It's inevitable some people will struggle more with spatial motion gaming, others with reasoning, etc. At the end of the day you can't really account for everyone, and if something doesn't work for someone, either they have to struggle to learn it or accept it doesn't work for them.

For Kinect at large, of the number of people will struggle is significant, then it should have been addressed, but the development stages with testing on selections of the general population would have highlighted this, so I think your test subject is just unlucky.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I've read plenty of reviews and comments that seem to suggest Kinect doesn't work well, when for most of the athletic people I know it seems to work quite well. That's why I was starting to wonder if the problem wasn't the hardware for those people, but their actual coordination. Take a simple action like a pushup. Most people will do them with their ass in the air, or the crotch on the floor, thinking their body is perfectly straight, in good form, and it takes someone watching them to tell them they're doing it wrong. I've seen a lot of vids punching with both Move and Kinect, and I'm absolutely amazed that someone can't move their fist in a straight line from their body.

So, I guess my bigger question is this. They say controllers are intimidating, and difficult for people to use, and motion gaming will allow more people to play games. Is that really true if a lot of people are not very coordinated? I'm still guessing the people that would have problems would be a small minority, but I'd say amongst the "gamer" population that would be a much larger minority. I guess that's me believing a stereotype. Maybe non-gamers will be better at Kinect than gamers? I don't know.

The way a lot of Wii games work is just shaking or swinging the remote without much precision. Move and Kinect seem to push things in a direction where more careful manipulation and movement is required. Are move and Kinect as accessible as the Wii by being in some ways more precise or demanding?

 

[Nesh]

I dont think motion controllers are necessarily simpler or easier. Just like a controller they can be as simple as the developer decides to.
Controller-free gaming can be quite limiting as well. Controllers can have their benefits in giving you the opportunity to perform stuff that you cant in real life. You can assign all kind of actions to a simple button and all it asks from you is a press with your finger. No extensive movement of any kind.

So no I dont believe that body motion is the future and a replacement of controllers. They are more like a complimentary experience that goes hand in hand with each other

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So, I guess my bigger question is this. They say controllers are intimidating, and difficult for people to use, and motion gaming will allow more people to play games. Is that really true if a lot of people are not very coordinated?

That would come down to the software. Kinect games should be identifying what the player is doing and determining the outcome. Games that are 1:1 won't have any problems. Games that are gesture based should be able to identify an intention unless the player really is quite uncoordinated. I would hope developers are testing their titles against real people, and not just their hardcore, full-time professional games-playing test department, although given the sorts of play issues some games have, this clearly isn't the case for all developers!

 

[Scott_Arm]

More oddities with Kinect.

So, mine is working great. No problems. Yesterday my brother got one. He has a smaller play space, and the sofa is near behind where you have to stand. I have dark walls, he has light coloured walls. His ceiling is a little bit lower. I mounted my Kinect at about 2 feet off the ground, his is closer to 5 feet off the ground.

For some reason when we were playing with his, it would occasionally not see us when we were standing right in its view. We were playing Kinect Adventures, and at various times one of our characters would freeze up and we'd see the "identifying" icon pop up in the corner. We made sure to move everything that was reflective away, and we covered a shelf full of CDs just in case that was reflecting the IR around. We couldn't get the problem to go away. We tried with the lights off. Still seemed to happen at times. Not once have I had this problem at home.

I wish there was some way to debug. On the calibration screen it seemed to track our skeletons well, and the camera had full view of us from head to toe.

Is it possible if we stepped too close to the sofa that it was losing sight of our feet, which was causing problems? I think covering up the CDs did help a bit, but I didn't really do anything scientific to track how frequently the problem was happening before and after.

 

[eastmen]

somethin may be absorbing the pattern. Have you tried throwing a sheet on the couch ?

 

[Scott_Arm]

somethin may be absorbing the pattern. Have you tried throwing a sheet on the couch ?

Didn't try that. The couch is a dark navy. But would it really matter if it couldn't see the pattern on the couch?

 

[eastmen]

Didn't try that. The couch is a dark navy. But would it really matter if it couldn't see the pattern on the couch?

I have a green leather couch in the attic where hte kinect is most of the time. We had to put a sheet on it cause it reflected everything back at the camera. So i dunno i mabye your couch is absorbing it ?


We also had an issue where a computer chair was mistaken as a person a few times and we had to move the chair out of the room

 

[Scott_Arm]

His couch is a fabric, and isn't shiny, so it isn't a problem with reflecting the IR. But maybe he can try a sheet, to see if the colour makes a difference.

 

[eastmen]

His couch is a fabric, and isn't shiny, so it isn't a problem with reflecting the IR. But maybe he can try a sheet, to see if the colour makes a difference.

Yea but it might be absorbing it not reflecting it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

More oddities with Kinect.

So, mine is working great. No problems. Yesterday my brother got one. He has a smaller play space, and the sofa is near behind where you have to stand. I have dark walls, he has light coloured walls. His ceiling is a little bit lower. I mounted my Kinect at about 2 feet off the ground, his is closer to 5 feet off the ground.

For some reason when we were playing with his, it would occasionally not see us when we were standing right in its view. We were playing Kinect Adventures, and at various times one of our characters would freeze up and we'd see the "identifying" icon pop up in the corner. We made sure to move everything that was reflective away, and we covered a shelf full of CDs just in case that was reflecting the IR around. We couldn't get the problem to go away. We tried with the lights off. Still seemed to happen at times. Not once have I had this problem at home.

I wish there was some way to debug. On the calibration screen it seemed to track our skeletons well, and the camera had full view of us from head to toe.

Is it possible if we stepped too close to the sofa that it was losing sight of our feet, which was causing problems? I think covering up the CDs did help a bit, but I didn't really do anything scientific to track how frequently the problem was happening before and after.

When you started up Kinect Adventures, how close were you guys to the One Player area that was shown on screen? I think I've had some slight problems in 2 player when one player or the other started to encroach into 1 player area.

My setup is somewhat similar except my Kinect is almost 6 feet off the ground and slightly behind the TV. But that has it's own problems as the TV then somewhat blocks the players feet (Kinect does a great job extrapolating feet position when that happens). I'm still experimenting with camera location. But I have a feeling I'll have to redo my living area again. But I've been thinking of doing that even before I got the Kinect, so this is just added incentive to just do it already. Since I won't be using the Treadmill as much now that I have Kinect, I'm going to redoing it so instead of the TV being along the long wall of a rectangular room (to allow Treadmill to be next to Sofa) I'll put it along the short wall of the room. Same space for sit down movie watching, but more room for Kinect and no room for Treadmill in that room.

Regards,
SB

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think we were fairly close the the line that divided "good" from "best". Maybe one of us was stepping forward into the "good" zone. Still seems kind of weird that the camera would lose you and have to identify you if you passed through that imaginary line. The character would freeze up for a second, which was kind of annoying.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, we didn't have the freeze problem. Just where it didn't seem to track an arm or a leg for a second. I guess that's sorta like a freeze, but it would continue to track the rest. Haven't run into that with Your Shape, but then it's only one player so the "best" area is a lot larger.

Either way, once I feel motivated enough I'm going to move around my living room to give Kinect more room for 2 players. My girl will like that since she loves re-arranging furniture every few months.

Regards,
SB

 

[Scott_Arm]

I find it really odd, playing Kinect in my living room a few minutes ago, how much better it works in my space than it does in my brother. I think a lot of it has to do with being able to stand another foot or two back from the sensor, or maybe his is too high and it's looking at too steep an angle.

 

[Aenima]

Thanks for the user impressions of Kinect: It made me buy one. I've been on the fence about it for awhile - the first reviews of games and the platform seemed underwhelmed - but your impressions and feedback finally convinced me to get one.

I have to agree with everyone in here about the physical aspect of Kinect - it really gives you a workout. And that's a positive compared to typical couch gaming. Much of the critical comments I've read about Kinect was centered around Kinect as a replacement for traditional controls and/or games, but that's not how I see it. Kinect is an addition to the Xbox360, and as that will grow the platform into a different market than before, without losing its initial 'core' gamers. Playing Kinect Sports with my wife made me see that. My sister is making her husband and son buy the Xbox360 Kinect bundle instead of another PS3 (that broke, and before that they had a Wii) because she understands the concept behind Kinect, and can see how the entire family can get something out of the platform.

However, Kinect has a few quirks. Auto recognition is a bit off. My wife and I got mixed up a few times, which is odd as I'm 1,87 mtr. and she is 1,55! Changing places fixed it.
Secondly, the number of services which supports Kinect is severely limited - I live in Denmark, and the Kinect hub has very little to offer besides games. Yes, we have Zune marketplace, but without subtitles - even in english - that rental service is more or less useless here. The navigation in the Kinect hub also feel a great deal more clumsy than i'd expected it to be.

But as for gaming itself, I have confidence in MS' support for Kinect games in the future, and the first wave of games show promise - and my non-gamer girlfriend has, for the first time I can remember, actually had fun on a console with Kinect. So far so good.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I cave in and bought myself a Kinect too! Came with Kinect adventures and I bought Kinect sports as well. It's going to take few days before I'll hook it up though as I have to move some stuff around in my apartment.

These things seem to be flying off the shelves over here. It was already hard to find a stand alone units and lot of people I know have bought one. Everyone seem to be having fun with it too.

 

[NavNucST3]

I cave in and bought myself a Kinect too! Came with Kinect adventures and I bought Kinect sports as well. It's going to take few days before I'll hook it up though as I have to move some stuff around in my apartment.

These things seem to be flying off the shelves over here. It was already hard to find a stand alone units and lot of people I know have bought one. Everyone seem to be having fun with it too.

Even with the amount of room we have, we moved our dining room table on launch day and we have yet to move it back.

 

[NavNucST3]

Holy. Sh*t. I'm sitting here at a going away party and my 50 year old former co-worker just randomly dropped, "hey I bought that Kinect thing" me: shock "I think I have about SIX [emphasis mine] games"

She is addicted to bowling she says. No other console in her house first console ever......

Wow

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, I'm seeing stuff like that quite a bit. A couple families I know that had Wii family gaming nights haven't touched their Wii since Kinect launched also. I'm sure as the novelty starts to wear off, they'll start using both (Wii still has far superior family Kart games for example). But it is certainly interesting to watch.

As well one guy I know who is, or I should say was, a PC only gamer just recently asked me for game recommendations for X360 since his wife basically told him they are either getting a Kinect or he wasn't getting sex anymore.

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

Yeah, I'm seeing stuff like that quite a bit. A couple families I know that had Wii family gaming nights haven't touched their Wii since Kinect launched also. I'm sure as the novelty starts to wear off, they'll start using both (Wii still has far superior family Kart games for example). But it is certainly interesting to watch.

As well one guy I know who is, or I should say was, a PC only gamer just recently asked me for game recommendations for X360 since his wife basically told him they are either getting a Kinect or he wasn't getting sex anymore. Regards,
SB

Does Kinect get to watch?

Its funny the dirty people out there can take pictures with Kinect and send it to their friends.