Motion Controllers: Part 1 - Microsoft Kinect

[hedges]

Well I said I'd do a more in depth look at both of the new motion controllers for these platforms so here it starts.

I'll begin with the Kinect first, seeing as there seems to be more Xboxers on here than PS3 owners.



Here's the orginal Project Natal Trailer from June 2009



Microsoft Kinect has been in the public eye for over a year now, originally titled Project Natal it was first revealed at E3 2009 where it's revolutionary controller-less motion capture brought a large number of gasps from the crowd. If you're driving a car, simply hold up your hands like you would on a steering wheel and the camera system filled in the blanks and tracked your hand movements to let you steer with your hands.

Using one RGB camera to capture the image and infrared depth sensors to fill the room with an IR wash it calculates a person's distance from the camera and can track up to four players separately. This has a bonus effect of not relying on the RGB for it's data so it can work in complete darkness. On top of this it can also track and figure out bone positions of a person so you get a very close match on screen to your actions.

The original prototype for the Kinect had an onboard processor that would help speed up translation of the data, but this has been removed for the current version we see, I think this could have been a cost issue as they have had to shift the data translation to use the Xbox's processor now effectively utilising 15% of the processor power just for this. I'm hoping that it doesn't lead to a knock effect onto the quality of games, but I don't think the talented people at microsoft will let that happen.

One issue I've seen so far from the device is the noticeable lag between a player's actions and what happens on screen, but I don't think that it is the game breaker that most people seem to think it will be. People adjust to this kind of lag quite easily and I don't see it causing that many problems for the average gamer.

What I am worried about is what appears to be a lack of games at the moment and the ones that were on show at the MS event seemed to be HD upgrades of Wii games. Only the Forza motorsport game seemed to be getting into the idea of things, but I'm worried that everyone demoing the system was stood up and the steering was the only thing you could control, personally I like control of the brakes and accelerator when driving. But looking at something like Children of Eden shows me the potential that the platform can have in the right hands.

E3 Forza Demo



Enough about the games though, because Kinect will also use your gestures for interacting with your MS Dashboard, letting you casually flick through things just by wafting your arms around and will also take voice commands. I do think the voice control is rife for abuse though, because from what I've read there doesn't seem to be specific voice pattern recognition so anyone can just leap into a room and shout commands at it and it will obey. I'm hoping we see Minority Report style interfaces but for the moment, flicking your wrist and shouting will have to do until someone tinkers with the UI.

Another thing that is being widely reported at the moment is the devices inability to track people sitting down, although this is mainly rumours and hearsay and I have yet to see any video evidence of sitting down being an issue, but the number of posts about it makes me think there's something to it. None of Microsofts demos featured people sitting down, but none of the games required you to, apart from the Forza demo.

My final sticking point is the price, it appeared briefly on microsoft's store for $149.99 so this image is all we have to go from.



This could well mean a price in excess of £100 here in the UK, but I really hope it isn't.

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I'll get a Playstation Move post up soon, but maybe not tonight...

[Techmonkey]

Nice write up Hedges, will have a full read at home tonight.

[Techmonkey]

Some more info on the Kinect controller:

Quote:Minimum Requirements Sensor
Colour and depth-sensing lenses
Voice microphone array
Tilt motor for sensor adjustment
Fully compatible with existing Xbox 360 consoles

Field of View
Horizontal field of view: 57 degrees
Vertical field of view: 43 degrees
Physical tilt range: ± 27 degrees
Depth sensor range: 1.2m - 3.5m

Data Streams
320x240 16-bit depth @ 30 frames/sec
640x480 32-bit colour@ 30 frames/sec
16-bit audio @ 16 kHz

Skeletal Tracking System
Tracks up to 6 people, including 2 active players
Tracks 20 joints per active player
Ability to map active players to LIVE Avatars

Audio System
LIVE party chat and in-game voice chat (requires Xbox LIVE Gold Membership)
Echo cancellation system enhances voice input
Speech recognition in multiple
This information is based on specifications supplied by manufacturers and should be used for guidance only.

[b]Source: Play.com

[hedges]

I look at those specs and the biggest thing for me is that it only tracks 2 active players, I'm assuming this means that only 2 players can play simultaneously on a game which is quite disappointing.

I feel like every time I read more about Kinect the more it has been downgraded since last years e3, I just hope that the removal of certain parts and abilities will reduce the price suitably.

I'm also worried that the camera only registers at 30 frames per sec, this is going to lead to laggy behaviour just from the data the system receives. This, when added onto the 10-15% of the processing power required from your 360 by the system could well mean that only wii style games appear on the system. With the popularity of the wii and it being in most households now (admittedly gathering dust for large numbers of people) Microsoft need to break away from this line of thinking and produce games that can only be done on Kinect, as of yet I haven't seen anything that makes me think that the system is a definite purchase.

[hedges]

Microsoft have finally confirmed the price for this yesterday...

The Kinect will weigh in at £129.99 for the unit plus a bundled game, Kinect Adventures (woo! I can jump in a raft!). I'm seriously worried that this price is too high for most potential purchasers, especially when you can pick up a Wii for only slightly more and that has 4 years worth of back catalogue and development of games to choose from.

But wait, there's more, there will be a new Xbox 360 arcade coming along based on the new slimmer design available for £149.99, but this only has 4Gb of storage on it, so you'll need to buy a lot of Xbox hard drives or memory sticks once you run out of space. This new Xbox will also be available as a bundle with the Kinect and is priced at £249.99.

Now that I've pretty much covered everything for the Kinect I'll have to get on with the Playstation move controller post.

[Nosnibor]

I'm struggling to see how the Kinect will fit in with the 360s image as a "serious" gamers console. The games look more and more like the kind of games that Xbox gamers slam the Wii for, so how are they intending to make this a worthwhile purchase for Xbox owners. Nobody would spend £129 on a piece of kit they won't use so on what basis do Microsoft expect people to buy the Kinect?!?

[hedges]

To me it seems like they're trying to capture the already established Wii crowd, which seems to be a little bit of a crazy plan. Admittedly Sony aren't doing much better, but at least they seem to want to integrate their glowing ice cream controllers with more "core" games like Killzone 3, Socom 4 and Resident Evil 5.

Neither company is showing any particular game or product that makes them essential purchases.

[Nosnibor]

Agreed. Sony and Microsoft seem to have realised that they missed a trick not integrating motion technology into the PS3 and 360 originally and have jumped on the bandwagon too late in my opinion. Especially at the prices they're talking about!

I'm waiting on more info on the "Ice-Cream Controller" (come on Hedges get a wriggle on! ) but the Kinect system?!? No thanks. I'm not going to just buy something for the sake of buying it, even if it is new and shiny, Microsoft need to justify the price tag and give people a reason (AKA decent utilisation!) to buy it.

[Techmonkey]

Yeah I cant say that the Kinnect is in anyway drawing me towards it.

I also have a Wii that is now gathering dust so I cant see me spending £150 on another. If they have made it cheaper and as you have said integrated it in to other well known games then yeah maybe, but for now it's a no.