Kinect Reviews

[ODogg]

Re: Kinect Reviews

Haha, I think its relative. It's not young overall but for gaming companies they look at the age of 35-40 as the ideal age for this sort of thing because that's when you're still "young enough to be playing" and "old enough to have expendable cash".

Also, I don't see how anyone could sit 9 feet away from their tv unless maybe they had a projector of 100" screen. I have a 67" samsung and sit 5 1/2 feet away. Of course then I usually sit closer than most folks at a movie theater as well.

All in all I'm just disappointed I can't get Kinect because I had planned to buy it day one.

[jmood88]

Re: Kinect Reviews

Oh and one other thing, I'm the exact target group that Microsoft and Sony is aiming for, I'm a young, male consumer with expendable cash who likes to be the first adopter of hardware. For example I had an iPad within 3 weeks of it's launch. So the fact that I'm unable to purchase a Kinect (despite really wanting to) does not bode well for the device I think...

You really aren't the target market though. First of all, like Cyros said, 40 years old isn't really young and second of all, Microsoft has said themselves that they are going after people who don't play very many games. The whole point of Kinect was to bring new people in who for whatever reason find controllers intimidating, not have everyone who already owns an Xbox buy one. If you were just a 40 year old guy who didn't play very many games but you bought one anyway then Microsoft would be happy about that.

Anyway, I have absolutely no interest in the games but like others said, the voice stuff and controlling the dashboard is what I really want so I'll be getting Kinect eventually but I'm not expecting any Kinect-only games to ever interest me. It will be interesting to see how developers integrate it into "traditional" games though.

[ODogg]

Re: Kinect Reviews

I see your point but my point I think is still pretty valid, gadget gurus like myself usually make or break products like this through word of mouth and initial sales. If we're passing on it then it probably means a dark future for it.

Just to expand on that, if someone like myself who really wants one but can't buy it then how does Microsoft hope to convince more regular folks, who IMO you correctly said is the target market and are somewhat "meh" about it supposed to be convinced to go get one?

[CaptainZombie]

Re: Kinect Reviews

I agree, they should've packed in Kinect Sports with this thing. That would've been a wiser choice. Bowling and table tennis look like a blast with some friends.

I think Sony made the same mistake with Sports Champions and not including a bowling and tennis game. Both MS and Sony are idiots..............look at what helped sell the Wii, those 2 packed in games alone were reasons why people were buying the Wii.

I measured my living room and I have 5 1/2 feet from my TV to my chair. Plus I game in the dark 95% of the time. Other than those two things I'd be all over Kinect. Honestly I think this has fail written all over it because of those two requirements. Most people have their chairs closer to their TV than 6 feet and game in low lighting conditions. Move will end up being more successful IMO.

I'm about 7-8 feet away from the TV and can't move furniture around. I couldn't get the PSeye to recognize EyePet, which was a concern. I wonder if the 7-8 feet would be enough for Kinect. I must have spent 15 minutes trying to calibrate everything and no dice, so I said screw it and gave up.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Kinect Reviews

Haha, I think its relative. It's not young overall but for gaming companies they look at the age of 35-40 as the ideal age for this sort of thing because that's when you're still "young enough to be playing" and "old enough to have expendable cash".

Also, I don't see how anyone could sit 9 feet away from their tv unless maybe they had a projector of 100" screen. I have a 67" samsung and sit 5 1/2 feet away. Of course then I usually sit closer than most folks at a movie theater as well.

All in all I'm just disappointed I can't get Kinect because I had planned to buy it day one.

5 feet from a 67" screen!? man!! Is your eyesight bad? That's extremely close. LOL

I sit about 7-8 feet away from my 47" and it looks perfect to me.

[DirtyJerz32]

Re: Kinect Reviews

Also, I don't see how anyone could sit 9 feet away from their tv unless maybe they had a projector of 100" screen. I have a 67" samsung and sit 5 1/2 feet away. Of course then I usually sit closer than most folks at a movie theater as well.

Damn that's close! I have a 63" and I set 9 feet away. If I sat any closer I would feel like I'm sitting in the front row of a movie theater and wouldn't be able to see the entire screen.

[ODogg]

Re: Kinect Reviews

My eyesight isn't bad (20/30 in one eye, 20/10 in the other); I just like the screen filling as much of my field of view as possible. I never understood why anyone would buy a 67" tv and then sit 15 feet away. I mean sometimes you have to depending upon your living room or whatever but it makes no sense to me why people would do it voluntarily.

CaptainZombie - are you saying you think PS Move wouldn't work for me either w/5 1/2 feet for my setup?

Oh and just one other point, I really cannot sit any futher back from the screen even if I wanted, there is a big post in my den preventing me from going back further. One thing I could do is push my TV back a bit closer to the wall but I'd think at maximum that'd give me another foot of space, putting me about 6 1/2 feet.

[ODogg]

Re: Kinect Reviews

DirtyJerz, I forgot to mention I have eyes like those lizards where the eyes are mounted on the side of their head, LOL.

[DirtyJerz32]

Re: Kinect Reviews

DirtyJerz, I forgot to mention I have eyes like those lizards where the eyes are mounted on the side of their head, LOL.

Like this, Lol!

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Kinect Reviews

My eyesight isn't bad (20/30 in one eye, 20/10 in the other); I just like the screen filling as much of my field of view as possible. I never understood why anyone would buy a 67" tv and then sit 15 feet away. I mean sometimes you have to depending upon your living room or whatever but it makes no sense to me why people would do it voluntarily.

CaptainZombie - are you saying you think PS Move wouldn't work for me either w/5 1/2 feet for my setup?

Oh and just one other point, I really cannot sit any futher back from the screen even if I wanted, there is a big post in my den preventing me from going back further. One thing I could do is push my TV back a bit closer to the wall but I'd think at maximum that'd give me another foot of space, putting me about 6 1/2 feet.

Do you play Wii in front of TV? Move requires about that much room if not a little more due to the camera.

[CaptainZombie]

Re: Kinect Reviews

My eyesight isn't bad (20/30 in one eye, 20/10 in the other); I just like the screen filling as much of my field of view as possible. I never understood why anyone would buy a 67" tv and then sit 15 feet away. I mean sometimes you have to depending upon your living room or whatever but it makes no sense to me why people would do it voluntarily.

CaptainZombie - are you saying you think PS Move wouldn't work for me either w/5 1/2 feet for my setup?

Oh and just one other point, I really cannot sit any futher back from the screen even if I wanted, there is a big post in my den preventing me from going back further. One thing I could do is push my TV back a bit closer to the wall but I'd think at maximum that'd give me another foot of space, putting me about 6 1/2 feet.

Do you play Wii in front of TV? Move requires about that much room if not a little more due to the camera.

I'm 7-8 feet away from the TV and I had problems getting Eyepet to work, but everything else worked fine. At 6.5 feet, you might be ok with some of the games, but Eyepet was a pain.

[ODogg]

Re: Kinect Reviews

Yeah I have the Wii and play it fine on my current setup without any issues.

[Zalf]

Re: Kinect Reviews

I think MS is only worried about us Tech Geek early adopters to the point that we have tons of our non-gaming friends come over to check out the Kinect in an environment that mates with the system as comfortably as possible. With the Christmas season and target audience they would rather have 10 large living rooms acting as perfect showrooms than 20 small houses/apartments with die hard early adopters trying to force the system to work.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if there is a week before Christmas update that frees up the requirements a bit. They can always come back and hook us Tech Geeks with a killer software title later after the holidays.

[CaptainZombie]

Re: Kinect Reviews

Yeah I have the Wii and play it fine on my current setup without any issues.

ODogg, I found this review on another site I visit. It might help you out.

In many ways, Microsoft's Kinect for the Xbox 360 is an innovative concept: ditch the controller and let your body interact directly. Sounds great on paper, but the Kinect is a bit more greedy with its space requirements than either the Nintendo Wii or PlayStation Move, and that could hurt folks with small apartments. Folks like me.

I've had a rough experience with the Kinect in New York City, mainly because my living room has only about 6 feet between my 32-inch TV and the edge of my sofa. The Kinect requires a good 6 to 10 feet of space between the user and it, according to documentation in the games we received. That's a huge amount of room in most urban apartments, especially as that space also needs to be open and unobstructed. The Kinect's setup process suggests you move furniture if necessary, a task that's impossible for me, and an unkind expectation for most people.

My living room is the controller (and it's tiny)
I was able to get my sensor to recognize me and record my movements, but at the distance I had set it up I had to practically stand against the edge of my sofa. If I moved a foot closer, the Kinect would ask me to back up again, which amounted to a narrow landing strip of room to play in. And with at least 5 feet of space between myself and the Kinect needed to be maintained at all times, any freedom of mobility while playing was killed.

What started as a promise of controller-free comfort slowly turned into a sensation of restraint. By comparison, Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort allows me to move anywhere, since its movement-sensing doesn't involve the IR component. I can stand up close or off to the far side of my TV, or even play sitting down. In the case of the Kinect, my background lighting also became a factor. The Kinect's wide-angle view covers an entire half of my living room; it's inevitable that the sensor would encounter a light in the background.

Any seated people behind me, such as my wife reading a book on the sofa, also risk being recognized by the Kinect camera and ruining my game. Bright daylight also posed a problem; in midafternoon, my southern-exposure apartment floods with light that blinds can do little to remedy. The Kinect was noticeably worse under these conditions.

Why I have to play alone
Multiplayer games, based on our first round of launch games, are played side by side...provided you have the space for that, too. Games like Kinect Adventures delineate two play zones: "Good" and "Best." Two-player games are possible only in "Best," a strip of playing-space a good 2 feet behind "Good." My living room's front-of-sofa zone is "Good" only. I could only get to "Best" by standing on my sofa.

Some titles, such as Joy Ride, allow multiplayer at closer ranges, but it's a hit-and-miss affair. Even worse, the Kinect's fine-tune settings involved focusing on a face icon on an included card that I needed to press up against my far wall. Clearly, I don't have enough space.

I'm not the only one. We asked other people about space limitations with the Kinect, and found city commiseration. MTV's Russ Frushtick said, "Ideally, you need 8 square feet of wide-open space. I don't think anyone in New York has that. I basically had to make a makeshift shelf behind my TV, since it wouldn't rest on top of my TV, which is sloped. With that, I just barely had enough space."

My fellow CNET gamer Dan Ackerman had the same problems in his living room, except he balanced his Kinect on the back of a Halo: Reach Collector's Edition case: "I had about 6 feet from the front lip of the couch to the camera. This allowed for the 'good' but not the 'better' play space for most games, although I had to lean backward over the couch to even get that to register. I'm sure the space requirements seem less onerous in areas better suited for spacious suburban living rooms--Redmond, perhaps."
Small TVs not invited?

Since 6 feet is the bare minimum of space needed between a player and the Kinect, there's also some subtle discrimination against small TVs. According to CNET's TV buyer's guide, 6 feet of distance equates to a 42-inch screen. Seated a foot back on a sofa, that screen size should even be larger. That's a judgment made in terms of ideal home theater immersion; you could play games on a smaller screen from that distance, but it'll be a challenge on your eyes.

My 32-inch HDTV was hard to make out even at 6 feet away; I'm normally sitting closer when I play games. I'm sure most owners of small TVs naturally set up their living spaces more tightly as well, adding even more potential problems to Kinect setup.

Another consideration for people with kids: as CNET's David Katzmeier pointed out, the Kinect assumes you're playing in a living room, or some other spacious family entertainment zone. What if the Xbox 360 is in a kid's bedroom? While a Wii or a PlayStation Move could make do with smaller spaces (the Move's minimum recommended range, 3 feet, is half the distance), the Kinect would be rendered useless.

More than half the world's population already lives in cities. If these people have apartments my size or smaller, they'll all have problems. The Kinect could be the game industry's first space-discriminating peripheral.
Kinect, I want to use you; you're just making it awfully hard for me.

[ODogg]

Re: Kinect Reviews

That's a spot on review, thanks for posting. It's a great analysis of the overall problem, and as I said, why I believe Kinect will be a FAIL. I'm thinking of people I know and their living rooms and I cannot think of anyone who has 7 feet or more PLUS a 46" TV or larger. I can think of either or but not any with both. My sister has a huge living room and the space but only a 32" tv for example. Then I have a large tv but only 5 1/2 feet of space.

BTW - it's cool to note that the review says 3 feet for Move, so my 5 1/2 feet shouldn't be any issue).