The non-standard game interfaces discussion thread (move, voice, vitality, etc.)

[Carl B]

Dunno why this thread got closed sp I've opened it up again pending some other mod saying, "how dare you!," and putting an end to it.

Shifty, but if you check the thread history, you're the one that closed it!

I think you're closing things in your sleep these days or something.

 

[eastmen]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/microsoft-drops-internal-natal-chip

Microsoft has dropped a chip from its forthcoming Natal motion control system to save money, according to our sister site GamesIndustry.biz.

The chip, which was responsible for processing information for the Natal's 'bone system', has apparently been removed in favour of a software solution.

However, development sources have indicated that the change doesn't affect the existing system lag of about 100ms, while a software solution should enable Microsoft to update the system more quickly and regularly than a hardware one, and allow it to hit a speculated price point of less than £50.

So this one chip cost $100 bucks or so ? Otherwise that last report we heard is full of it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Shifty, but if you check the thread history, you're the one that closed it!

Go figure. Probably got caught up in various thread closes and openings managing thread spawns. Or I'm clsoing threads in my sleep. You know, if I closed every thread, I'd have no worries about moderating content any more...

 

[patsu]

I believe they will be able to track multiple voices in quiz show type games. For each team they can simply have the team pick a person to be team leader and only that person is needed to be followed. Mabye for quick games as a way to buzz in it might not work .But the 360 itself should be more than capable of picking out multiple voices from the audio stream of 4 diffrent mics

As far as I know, a 4 mic array can be used for multidimensional voice tracking and echo cancellation. e.g., tracking different perturbation of the same noise/voice input source (e.g., jitter, pitch, ...). They are not for multi-party speech recognition at the same time.

In a quiz game where several team leaders shout answer simultaneously, it's going to be worse.


EDIT:

However, development sources have indicated that the change doesn't affect the existing system lag of about 100ms, while a software solution should enable Microsoft to update the system more quickly and regularly than a hardware one, and allow it to hit a speculated price point of less than £50.

Perhaps this is related to the "2 version of Kinect" rumor we heard earlier ? If MS can get the software version working properly, then they can launch it under $100.

 

[tha_con]

Serious question: I keep seeing people who want to get kinect for the "UI Enhancements". What UI Enhancements? I mean, being able to navigate menu's is neat with your hand, but it is literally roughly 3 times faster when you use a controller. It's cumbersome, slow, and looks like it's nothing more than a tech demo. Why are people remotely interested in this?

 

[rabidrabbit]

Because of Minority Report, it looks cool and futuristic to be able to control your computer (console) by gestures.
Until it is as fast, versatile and 1:1 as in that movie, I see it only as a gimmick that'll get old soon.

 

[Arwin]

Serious question: I keep seeing people who want to get kinect for the "UI Enhancements". What UI Enhancements? I mean, being able to navigate menu's is neat with your hand, but it is literally roughly 3 times faster when you use a controller. It's cumbersome, slow, and looks like it's nothing more than a tech demo. Why are people remotely interested in this?

It all depends if you first have to get up to track down the remote. Besides that, some people hate using remotes, and you don't have to use it all the time either as there is also voice control.

In general I agree with you, mind - it should take as small movements as possible. But it could still be convenient and intuitive.

 

[BadTB25]

Serious question: I keep seeing people who want to get kinect for the "UI Enhancements". What UI Enhancements? I mean, being able to navigate menu's is neat with your hand, but it is literally roughly 3 times faster when you use a controller. It's cumbersome, slow, and looks like it's nothing more than a tech demo. Why are people remotely interested in this?

Judging from the demos, it could be faster using Kinect than the controller. I'm looking more at the voice control part of it and the part where you can search through a movie by using your hand as a virtual mouse.

Anyway, I'm not convinced yet regarding Kinect for games, UI or anything else, but I am hoping it gets to be everything and more that they are touting.

 

[Mindfury]

Chevrolet and Microsoft team up for Volt 'test drives' on the Xbox 360

Chevrolet and Microsoft have teamed up for the first-ever multiscreen advertising campaign that incorporates Kinect for Xbox 360 as a way to promote the Chevrolet Volt electric car launch later this year.

A demonstration this week at the 2010 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival showed a number of innovative ways that brands can connect with consumers through touch and gesture on the PC, TV, and mobile device. The demonstration highlighted Kinect for Xbox 360, which offers controller-free games and entertainment.

For advertisers, this provides an innovative way to connect with consumers by enabling them to physically explore and engage with a brand through voice and gesture, Microsoft said in a press release.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Judging from the demos, it could be faster using Kinect than the controller. I'm looking more at the voice control part of it and the part where you can search through a movie by using your hand as a virtual mouse.

If you have more than one page worth of media, it can also be quite significantly faster if you know what media you have.

Assuming it works, you'll be able to call out the name of the game, movie, music, media portal, whatever and instantly play it or be at it's page.

Compare that to scrolling...and scrolling...and scrolling some more.

If they get it working well, it'll also be a lot more handy than a remote or controller. Say watching a movie and you suddenly need to pause to use the bathroom or answer the phone or whatever. Xbox Pause is certainly faster than hunting for the controller/remote and then pausing. Well assuming you don't watch a full movie with the remote in your hands the whole time. Heck you can tell it pause while you're walking to the bathroom...

Theoretically if you have room full of people anyone could tell the Xbox to pause. Certainly handier than yelling across the room asking whoever is nearest the remote to pause it.

Again if you have a few people around and you're all wondering what to watch. Instead of passing the remote to someone to pick a movie, they can just pick it.

What would be fun is if you could input custom voice commands. Say you're wife went out shopping and your supposed to be cleaning up. Have a custom command, "Welcome home honey." that turns off the Xbox/Computer.

Regards,
SB

 

[(((interference)))]

Serious question: I keep seeing people who want to get kinect for the "UI Enhancements". What UI Enhancements? I mean, being able to navigate menu's is neat with your hand, but it is literally roughly 3 times faster when you use a controller. It's cumbersome, slow, and looks like it's nothing more than a tech demo. Why are people remotely interested in this?

Basically I want auto sign in - it takes too long, especially when all your friends have profiles on your system. Also, if it can sign it 4 players using face recognition for split screen in games like Halo, it'd be brilliant. You have no idea how long that takes, (people are inept).

And if you can quick launch games by just speaking, turn on and off the console etc. that's almost worth the price of entry.

But they definitely need a new way of activating buttons, rather than just hovering your hand over while the bar fills up, they should be able to track opening and closing of your hands to act as button presses.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Controlling a movie playback by voice would be difficult if you're movie is loud, or you'd have to wait for a quieter part in the movie before issuing the commands. Also, there is the possibility of Kinect understanding some of the movie's sound as commands.
Of course if you watch movies at a very moderate sound level, it probably won't be a problem, but at a home theater levels, I can see it becoming an issue.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Serious question: I keep seeing people who want to get kinect for the "UI Enhancements". What UI Enhancements? I mean, being able to navigate menu's is neat with your hand, but it is literally roughly 3 times faster when you use a controller. It's cumbersome, slow, and looks like it's nothing more than a tech demo. Why are people remotely interested in this?

Not having to look around for a remote/controller is a fairly compelling feature IMO.

But it is pretty gimmicky, i mean it doesn't work in the low light conditions right? So that pretty much kills one of the biggest selling points. At least you still have the voice recognition...

 

[scooby_dooby]

Controlling a movie playback by voice would be difficult if you're movie is loud, or you'd have to wait for a quieter part in the movie before issuing the commands. Also, there is the possibility of Kinect understanding some of the movie's sound as commands.
Of course if you watch movies at a very moderate sound level, it probably won't be a problem, but at a home theater levels, I can see it becoming an issue.

I wonder if it would be possible for the Xbox to give Kinect the audio output stream, and Kinect could use that stream to do noise concellation, and isolate sounds that did not originate from the device?

No audio engineer hear, but it seems like the data is there to potentially make something like that work.

Or I guess more likely, Kinect passes it's audio stream to the xbox, and the box does the heavy lifting of parsing out the device audio.

 

[patsu]

Not having to look around for a remote/controller is a fairly compelling feature IMO.

But it is pretty gimmicky, i mean it doesn't work in the low light conditions right? So that pretty much kills one of the biggest selling points. At least you still have the voice recognition...

That's why I think Sony should illuminate the Move controller when I clap 3 times in XMB.

 

[zed]

Controlling a movie playback by voice would be difficult if you're movie is loud, or you'd have to wait for a quieter part in the movie before issuing the commands. Also, there is the possibility of Kinect understanding some of the movie's sound as commands.
Of course if you watch movies at a very moderate sound level, it probably won't be a problem, but at a home theater levels, I can see it becoming an issue.

I can see lots of issues
Person scratches there head, TV changes channel, or turns off
person stands up, TV volume goes up, person puts there hands to their ears cause its too loud, TV interpretates this as something else.
voice commands like they work so much quicker when youre on the phone
(phone)what service do u require?
(zed)customer service
(phone)can you please repeat that
(zed)customer service
(phone)We hope you enjoyed the service, goodbye
buzzzzzzz
(zed)hey...

Honestly the only way this will work is if the PC had some very smart AI, we're not even there with a single person talking to a machine in a controlled environment, yet ppl believe they can do this faultless in a living room with ppl talking, moving around

 

[(((interference)))]

Not having to look around for a remote/controller is a fairly compelling feature IMO.

But it is pretty gimmicky, i mean it doesn't work in the low light conditions right? So that pretty much kills one of the biggest selling points. At least you still have the voice recognition...

It does work in low light conditions, that's the virtue of it being IR based, it should work regardless of the room lighting.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Not having to look around for a remote/controller is a fairly compelling feature IMO.

But it is pretty gimmicky, i mean it doesn't work in the low light conditions right? So that pretty much kills one of the biggest selling points. At least you still have the voice recognition...

It should be able to work in the complete dark for gesture/motion control as the camera has an IR emitter. Another bonus over having to try to find the damned remote in the dark. Now if this would also allow voice control of your room lights.

Too bad the X360 doesn't include an IR Blaster. That would have allowed them to possibly eventually include the ability to control all of your home entertainment devices (TV, Receiver, etc.) with Natal and gesture/voice commands.

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

It should be able to work in the complete dark for gesture/motion control as the camera has an IR emitter. Another bonus over having to try to find the damned remote in the dark. Now if this would also allow voice control of your room lights.

Too bad the X360 doesn't include an IR Blaster. That would have allowed them to possibly eventually include the ability to control all of your home entertainment devices (TV, Receiver, etc.) with Natal and gesture/voice commands.

Regards,
SB

I think you raise an important point my good kind sir. Why can't Microsoft open the Xbox 360 to third party accessories and applications? Its got 3 rear facing USB ports and a wicked interface so why not say to the home automation people, here plug in to the back, write an app and license us $X (could be 0) or anything similar for instance like a baby monitor. I.E. play your movies/games whilst keeping an ear out for baby.

Btw do you know what HDMI version the Xbox 360 S is? If its HDMI 1.3?1.4? It can control other HDMI 1.3/1,4? equipped devices right? So you could come home, slump on the couch put your feet up in the air and have the TV and Xbox 360 come to life automatically with no effort on your part.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think you raise an important point my good kind sir. Why can't Microsoft open the Xbox 360 to third party accessories and applications? Its got 3 rear facing USB ports and a wicked interface so why not say to the home automation people, here plug in to the back, write an app and license us $X (could be 0) or anything similar for instance like a baby monitor. I.E. play your movies/games whilst keeping an ear out for baby.

Btw do you know what HDMI version the Xbox 360 S is? If its HDMI 1.3?1.4? It can control other HDMI 1.3/1,4? equipped devices right? So you could come home, slump on the couch put your feet up in the air and have the TV and Xbox 360 come to life automatically with no effort on your part.

No idea on the HDMI version. I doubt it'll have the ability to control through HDMI. Considering MS doesn't have any vested interest in TVs, receivers, etc. I think they are most likely to take a wait and see attitude on that. Considering how many people appear to have issues with it on PS3 (when it works it's great, but it doesn't always work), I figure they'll wait until the technology matures before possibly implementing it.

For Sony something like that makes sense, as they can then cross promote amond their different products lines.

Regards,
SB