So Kinect is kinda awesome.*and other stuff*

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Choice quotes

The Xbox One is about 10x the resolution of the current version and can read the folds in your face and discriminate among your fingers even at 3 meters. Hand positions can now be read for better fidelity in bowling and rock climbing games. The team have even created a target shooting game that uses your hand and eye positions in place of an actual light gun.

As amazing as that is, Nick had even more surprises. He showed a Kinectic produced mask of his own face that can the be mapped to in-game models. Rather than the gamer pic versions of yourself in games like Rainbow Six, you can now import your own face geometry and even your BMI onto character models in the games. The whole game also tracks your face during gameplay and will reproduce your real life facial expressions on the in game models.

Dan Greenawalt, Creative Director of Turn10, creators of Forza, talked about more of the haptic a and rumble motors in the controller. The individual rumble in the triggers are being used to provide feedback on the tire performance, so players will have even more awareness of grip and braking.

So most of this looks real cool. And here is a video from a panel at EVO

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Some other cool stuff is that the Kinect will see who is holding the controller and instantly switch to their profile when they take over.

What do you all think?

I'm pretty sure you already know what I'm probably going to say, but that spycam does has some unique assets.

Ms has said they will fight in court to protect their customers. You can believe that or not but the features it has are cool. Keep the tinfoil hat stuff on the side for now.

FINALLY! I can't tell you how many awful rock climbing games I've played this past generation.

Yeah and they said the old kinect worked as well and we know how that turned out

I am one of the few people I have talked to online that will admit to feeling satisfied with my original Kinect purchase.

I believe that interacting with a controller is an essential part of playing video games and what matters most is if the game has been designed to function with the intended peripheral. For example, in Kinect Sports, I loved playing boxing or ping pong, and have even played those games recently. Child of Eden was amazing for the six hours I put into it (after I turned on the advanced controls at least).

I admit that the original Kinect felt like it was a beta product, and I am lucky enough to be able to enjoy the Kinect under ideal circumstances every time. Yet, after reading about the new Kinect, I am excited for the new gameplay possibilities that it can offer to gaming. I just hope that developers are willing to put the time and effort into designing their games properly for it.

Improved resolution is nice but as long as it requires families move their furniture around to use it then it is still broken. It does us no good that it can now track my fingers if I need to rearrange the family room.

3 feet min distance.

Yea, I bet people watch you non stop while you play, and or masturbate, or both if your a pro gamer. Thats how they separate the casual from the hardcore gamers! Seriously who are the people who are actually concerned about being watched from their Xbox.....News flash your not that interesting.

Well no shit, but I don't want to have a camera watching every little thing I do. If your perfectly comfortable with that, then more power to you.

You got a Laptop? Has a camera. Go outside? Street light cameras. Go in a store? Security cameras.

There are dumpsters, hobos and assholes everywhere too, doesnt mean I want to invite them inside my house. ;p

Dammit, second time you got me again with that. I guess my ignorance got the best of me again. Now I can't help but think about the illuminati.

I don't even care about the new stuff. If the Kinect actually works like the first one was supposed to it's already awesome.

On top of that there's a group of bored hackers who spend their time hacking people's laptops so they can control their cameras and then trade the control amongst themselves. It's only going to get worse. I suggest you move to Montana and unplug.

All of the marketing data!

Think about how dope the ads are going to be now.

Your phone camera has a camera. I thought it was weird to see a nubby newer security-camera in my local barber-shop.

I'm very excited about this Kinect stuff. I'm excited for the XBLA games we don't know about yet. Just the weird stuff we haven't even thought of yet. What about an indie where you yourself walk in the game world, and illumiroom can enhance your experience, where only you can see the object in your room, but not in the TV screen, and you have to grab it or something, physical or projected.

At this point, I'm actually prepared to buy maybe both near launch, but yo we'll see.

I don't want to control my games with my body and I don't have kids. ENOUGH SAID

"There's a sale on Botox in your area-"

"Don't you sit there and judge me, Kinect"

Still not small enough. I live in a condo with a small living room area dominated by a couch and coffee table, among other furnishings. I'm also taller than the average person.

I don't really have any issues with the kinect, but but Microsoft did help the NSA accessing Skype data, both audio and video. That said I still blame the government and US Anti Terror legislation for this, even if I would like to make MS accountable. In any case, it is not impossible that this kind of technology could be abused.

Remember when Microsoft said it was going to cater for Europeans this time around. Yeah nothing i see is catering Europeans.

So, i have this thing ordered. I hated Kinect 1.0 pretty much a piece of shit.

I can see myself using this version, if it works theoretically as it's depicted.

But call me tin foil but since it can read you heart rate, body mass can Microsoft then go and take you data to insurance companies and then they will up the price on your insurance since you are depicted as a out of shape slob?

But what ever i'll probably get a workout game or something.

Wait, wasn't all this info out at E3 already? That's where I heard it last at least, why are we suddenly bringing it up again?
And yeah, the Kinect sounds like it will be alright.

What I find really funny is that there are still people who think that either
a) The kinect actually shows a whole room of FBI Agents or Microsoft Employees a live feed of you.
b) That they're interesting enough to be "spied" on. You're not. Trust me

I rolled a Templar, personally.

wait what? what does that have to do with an article about the new kinects capabilities? Did you expect there to be some clause saying

"oh yea and europeans get 2 years of xbl free"

As a Brit Microsoft's invasive camera technology makes me feel right at home.

Well invasive camera technology isnt going to impress europeans and a Steep price like £430 and 500 euros

Like they did with Skype huh? As for the features I still have to see anything col related to gaming. and no profile saving is not really cool.

@jimmyfenix: how much do kinects go for nowadays? 100 bucks? maybe 80? and this version of kinect seems to be a whole great deal better. Of course the price is going to be higher. I can understand wanting a choice between getting kinect or not, but youre getting what you pay for. And also ive read up on the privacy options for the kinect and you can turn most of what people dont like about it off. I dunno, i just fail to see the problem

and my earlier point was that none of this article was about what the x1 was doing for europeans, so the comment seemed out of place

@mano521: Some Microsoft employee has said that Kinect is as expensive as the console itself.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-15-kinect-costs-almost-as-much-as-xbox-one-to-make-says-dev

Sounds pretty cool to me, not excited for kinect games, but everything else it can do.

@grilledcheez: so far the Kinect only game we have seen is that sports one by rare. Hopefully they can build around the Kinect and have it do other cool stuff in games.

Ehh, sounds cool on a tech level but it still sounds like something I can easily live without. I rather buy the better hardware that's cheaper instead of something that is overpriced cuz of a camera.

I think the hardware is finally good enough to do some really cool stuff, and now it's up to developers to figure out what to do with it.

If they can work in eye tracking we might soon see head tracking for console games.

The good kind I mean like being able to check your gauges be leaning in or peeking around a corner.

This really excites me about the new Kinect. Head tracking kinda sorta worked in Forza 4, but not in a meaningful way.

The only thing I think is cool about the Kinect is that you can turn on your Xbox by talking.

I don't understand anyone with 0 concerns about the new Kinect after the NSA/MS/Skype stuff. It's not about whether or not you're that interesting, it's about willingly giving them the access to your living room at all times. I wan't interested in the first Kinect and I'm doubly not interested in this one.

Yep and they said 'Your security is our priority,' and it turned out they had a specially made back-door for the NSA. I am really not a tinfoil kind of guy, but the security implications of having an always-on camera which can recognise that level of detail in your house, after what we have just found out is kind of scary.

Remember when the kid scanned in his skateboard in the Project Natal demo? Even if you were excited about what they're saying, you'd be a fool to take it at face value. Whether it's regarding what the Kinect can do, or what it can't do (like send information about you to various government agencies).

(And before anyone says it, Henry Ford never said "if I asked them what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.")

I am quite happy if I can buy the Xbox One withouth the Kinect. That way I can save 100 dollars.

Its pretty annoying how much Microsoft wants to push Kinect to the users. I really doubt that developers can implement Kinect into games in a meaningful way.

Instead we gamers are forced to accept Kinect because Microsof wants to make xbox the entertainment center of the household.

If Microsoft wont change its policy then I probably wont buy an xbox one this generation.

@nardak: @nardak: @leebmx: they did not give them the keys. The government made them hand over the information. You can't just say no. It's like refusing to pay taxes.

And the reason they are not making a non Kinect sku is because they made a promise to developers that the system will have it.

They also promised developers that it would have DRM like whoa in the form of an always-online connection.

I use hotmail, gmail, facebook, my ISP is storing all the websites i visit.

If "they" want my information they'll just look it up in their database.

If i ever dont want it "Watching" me i will UNPLUG the box from power

How do people not think these features are cool? The future man, future.

They sure didn't put up much of a fight. At least Yahoo sued. And Apple and Google held out a lot longer than they did

The Kinect sounds like a neat piece of technology that I couldn't care less about.

If every action you take is still half a second behind what happens on screen it will still feel half assed.