my gf is really excited about kinect, mainly Dance Central. But she has a pretty small room in an apartment. I'd be generous and say she has maybe a 4'x5' open area. Which is enough to move around and dance in, but we always see Kinect demoed in a large open room with the people standing fairly far from the camera. I remember microsoft saying like 8 feet recommended or something. Are there any details of people demoing the camera in smaller spaces or from close up, maybe from the beta program. I'd say the camera would be probably less than 4 feet from my gf in her room since she would stand in the middle of that 4'x5' patch.

I dunno. But since there are a number of Japanese developed games recently announced, it can't require that much space. Japanese people have notoriously small living spaces.

Every time the Giant Bomb mentions it, they talk about that they may have to move their couches to play. But, we can't say for sure how well this will work out till it comes out. There's going to be a lot of people on these forums buying it and telling us what they think.

yeah 6 to 8 feet according to leaked manuals.  That is going to rule a lot of living rooms out.  I mean I have that much room but there are like coffee tables and stuff in the way and I aint for moving all the furniture to play Kinetanimals or whatever bullshit.

I got to use it yesterday and although the room wasn't tiny, it wasn't huge and we were standing pretty close. Maybe a metre to a metre and a half away from the screen depending on the game?