I don't get why people are so quick to defend a company's best interest. Some of you guys sound as if kinect fails you will lose your jobs / wife / cars / insert important thing in one's life here.

It is Microsoft's job to sell me on the kinect and so far it's just an interesting but deeply flawed tech demo. They have their work cut out for them to really improve on this or just let it go (I personally wish they'd focus their attention elsewhere but alas, microsoft appears to be set on this path).

It's most definitely not becoming a standard across all games just because it's packed in with the Xbone, Ps4 doesn't have a kinect or direct alternative out of the box, so the majority of games will probably not have any motion functionality (unless the Xbone dominate the market, which seems very unlikely at this point).

I think this will be like the Vita back touch in the long term, it's there and first party devs will be forced to use it, but hardly anyone will come up with a worthwhile concept for it.

Actually, the only hardware that's needed for voice recognition is a microphone. The PS4 comes with a headset. If developers really wanted to, they could do voice recognition on both consoles. They could have done this with the PS3, but they get help with marketing from Microsoft with the "better with Kinect" line when they throw in voice recognition on 360 games.

@rafaelfc said:

And I don't get why anyone who says anything positive about the XBone or Kinect is instantly written off as a shill or a blind fanboy. I'm not defending Microsoft's interests, I'm simply defending my right to enjoy Kinect as a device - which I did, very much, this generation even if it was little more than an expensive Dance Central delivery mechanism.

XBOX PORN! XBOX OFF! XBOX ASSEMBLE

How about entire games?

Dance Central

Kinect Sports Rival

Fantasia.

Voice controlled squad commands in Ryse.

Zombies active listening in Dead Rising 3.

Profile/controller recognition.

OS interface control.

If there's going to be a cheaper console then my guess would be on it being some subsidized thing. No way they are cutting the main one unless their sales forecasts are pictures of nuke explosions.

If this is all the Kinect got, then we have a problem. Sure, the Dance Central games are pretty cool and Fantasia looks alright, but not for 100$.

Well this is just what we know at launch.

And you might be able to do voice commands that with a headset, but let me see you do that with a headset. Come back when you have games that actually does that.

No you can't talk to your console with a controller. I can't come home from work, lay on my couch, close my eyes, say "Xbox On", "play music" if all I have is a controller. Kind of defeats the purpose.

@alexglass: How lazy can you be? If you are so tired that you can't even look at the TV and navigate the menus with a controller for a minute, then go to sleep instead or call an ambulance.

You are right though. Even if the headset is capable to use voice commands, games are not supporting it, which is kind of bananas.

Why does it have to be laziness? Why can't it just be comfort, relaxation and the fact that's cool? I love power seats and power windows in my car too. Sure I can roll down my window just fine, but i prefer pressing a button. Is it also laziness if I prefer typing out a document on a computer and printing it versus hand writing it?

And enough of the headset being capable of being used for voice commands. It's just not true. You need decoding software running on hardware for that to work. And that's why Kinect makes that a breeze for developers. Not to mention, with a headset, once again, it kind of defeats the purpose. You have to put it on, and give one of your friends one each when they come over. Can't talk to it from a distance. Don't want to play a single player game with a headset on. And it sure as hell can't see you and recognize gestures. For that you also need a camera. And if you want to do what Kinect does, not just any camera, but one that's capable of detecting 3D objects in 3D space, as well as an IR sensor for low light conditions.

Would love to find that $10 mic that does all this that people keep talking about...

There have been games that do voice controls with a headset. This isn't a hypothetical. If a developer wants to actually do it, they can.

I think Dance Central is cool, I bought it and a Kinect for my 7-year-old niece, but not one for myself. It's really the only semi-valid point you've made. And that's only because other motion-controlled dance games don't register feet/legs.

Most everything else can be done with Move. Nothing I've seen from Fantasia so far indicates that they couldn't have ported it to Move. The big difference is that Move is no longer packed in with the PS4. You may disagree with it, but I prefer not having that pack-in a required purchase.

I disagree with you that at launch there really isn't anything that validates that extra $100, but there might be something in the future. Which is why some people would have liked the choice to buy Kinect on its own when that moment happens for them.

I don't think anyone is saying that all you need is a headset, and *presto!* voice recognition. The developer would need to program for that voice recognition. You don't need a special headset for it. So you are wrong about a headset not being capable of being used for voice commands. It's been done before.

I do think that there are probably Kinect API to make it easier for developers to do it on Kinect. We don't know if there are any API on PS4 or Move to make it easier for developers to implement there.

Actually, I don't want anything what the Kinect does. No voice recognition and especially not motion sensing.

The voice recognition does need decoding software, but the XBONE is powerful enough to run that in the background, right? Also, I'm a sad sack of a human being who plays his video games alone, so no need for multiple headsets.

But enough of that. All that talk from me was just me being trying to come up with n alternative for one of the Kinect's functions. I would rather miss out on the comfort, relaxation and coolness than pay 100 bucks for it, which is a considerable amount of money when you don't have a job.

No.

Edit: Then again, I remember a time when changing the DRM for the Xbox One was deemed an improbability by the same person.

good i also want to buy it

As soon as I figured out how to turn off rumble, I did.

I will always turn it off, because I don't like it.

Force me to use it, I wont.

Tell me I don't understand the potential of a controller vibrating in my hand, you're full of shit.

I used to get into arguments with my ex over the fact that she has no "imagination".

I would get stuck painting our rooms horrible colors I knew would be horrible, and I would spend hours moving furniture around our sons room just so she could see what I already saw in my head hours earlier.

Kinect is a camera and a microphone, it's not magic.

Knowing that, I know I don't want to talk to my Xbox, I know I don't want my Xbox looking at me.

Why do I want Kinect? I don't and having that forced on me makes me not buy an Xbone.

Forcing stupid ideas on gaming customers is Nintendo's job, not Microsoft.

@mike76x said:

@syed117 said:

Gamers are extremely short sighted. They laugh about features and potential they have zero understanding of. Things we accept now as the norm seemed just as ridiculous when they were introduced. Rumble in controllers, analog sticks, triggers as we know them, a unified online friends system. I don't want two boxes with nothing new to bring to gaming besides shiny new graphics. I'm getting a ps4, but from a hardware perspective, they are pushing pixels and not much else.

I don't know if the new kinect will bring anything new to table, but the potential is there. It might add up to nothing, or it could mean direct speech and gestures become a major way to interact with our games.

As soon as I figured out how to turn off rumble, I did.

I will always turn it off, because I don't like it.

Force me to use it, I wont.

Tell me I don't understand the potential of a controller vibrating in my hand, you're full of shit.

I used to get into arguments with my ex over the fact that she has no "imagination".

I would get stuck painting our rooms horrible colors I knew would be horrible, and I would spend hours moving furniture around our sons room just so she could see what I already saw in my head hours earlier.

Kinect is a camera and a microphone, it's not magic.

Knowing that, I know I don't want to talk to my Xbox, I know I don't want my Xbox looking at me.

Why do I want Kinect? I don't and having that forced on me makes me not buy an Xbone.

Forcing stupid ideas on gaming customers is Nintendo's job, not Microsoft.

Kinect is going to be a method of input for playing video games. It's standardized and it's about the equivalent of people saying I don't want to use a controller when switching over from the Atari joystick. The good news is, it doesn't replace the traditional method but it does offer additional control methods, as a number of combinations beyond just touch input. Beyond buttons.

There's simply some things that just can't be done with a controller or vice versa and some people want innovation in gaming, something that Kinect can deliver. It quickly become obvious that the analog stick was far superior to the d-pad for controlling a character in 3D space. Analog triggers were superior to a normal button to control the acceleration in a racing game. I think the same will turn out for Kinect where certain actions will just make more sense that were previously cumbersome on a controller, new actions will be made possible that simply were not before, and certainly some new genres or game-types will also be born out of it. The Wii U and Kinect have contributed to making possible some unique genres, that while it may have only been limited to a certain audience, that doesn't define the limits of the tech. Have barely scratched the surface.

IMO, the most immediate benefit to core games, will be voice recognition in squad-based games and/or A.I. co-op control. There are only so many actions you can put on a D-pad for giving commands to a squad or a party of characters. And the more commands you add, the more complex it becomes, and the more it stops the gameplay and flow of the game. If you can simply speak out the commands to the A.I., you can increase that level of co-operation far beyond 4-10 basic commands, without increasing the complexity if you make it intuitive enough so that the A.I. understands and responds to natural language and common sense orders. You're also doing this while maintain full control of your character without having to stop the gameplay to give a command, allowing for real-time co-operation with A.I that wasn't possible before.

I don't really have any reason to pick one up as I hardly even used my 360 because the exclusives were bad but if there was a few games that I wanted to try and thought about picking one up this is definitely the only decision that would change my mind. I don't even care about a price cut near as much. Purchasing something that supports spying inside of your own private propety is just a huge step in the wrong direction for mankind imo. If they can get away with this then you can pretty much expect a camera in everything you own in another 10-20 years time. They are probably being funded by the NSA to keep the camera in there so if they get low sales it might not even hurt them as much as we think.

I highly doubt they will drop the price. I am 99% sure they will never drop Kinect. Its an item they promised to devs EVERY console will have. The reason devs never developed for kinect is because of the install base.

Doesnt dance central sell shit tons?

Doesn't Justin Bieber?

Yeah it sold a few millions. But more importantly, it's the Youtube videos and Fridays and Saturday nights, after 3am with a big open living room floor, 2 strippers and a bottle of wine that matter. Not that I would condone such practices but... great graphics! :)

The only thing that will make me consider getting it is the removal of mandatory Kinect. When Titanfall comes out I'll be tempted but that is where I stand.