XBox Kinect - video conferencing for everyone

11th November 2010 will be a day to remember - Microsoft will launch globally the XBox Kinect kit and living rooms will never be the same again.

In April this year, Microsoft announced their Q1 earnings, and along with it a statement that 40 million XBox 360 units had been sold.  40 million.  It's a massive number, and a further 4.2 million have been sold since then.  With holiday season just around the corner, you can bet that people are asking the console question.  And Kinect may have a sting in the tail for Sony and Nintendo.

When Nintendo introduced the Wii it was a revelation, engaging people to move during their games, and becoming part of the home AV suite and bringing families and friends together.  At that time, Sony and Microsoft were firmly rooted in the old school gamer mindset; handheld controller, the best graphics that the console can handle, and targeted at people with high disposable income.  The Wii was perceived as not good enough graphically for the hardcore gamer, and generally aimed at children.

Needless to say that Wii Fit and the balance board opened a different market - that of the interactive home exercise market.  Hardcore gamers remained on the Microsoft and Sony platforms, but Wii was generating its own market.  The sales numbers speak for themselves - according to VGChartz.com Wii has 47% market share with 75.1 million units sold.  Microsoft have 27.7%, and Sony have 25.2%.  I think this is about to change.

Kinect for me will be the trigger for XBox sales to go crazy.  That and the fact that the new slim version is so much better than the previous one.  BUilt-in hard disk, smaller footprint, and wifi make it a really great console.  Kinect with its movement games will enhance that, but for me it's videoconferencing that will really make XBox come to the masses.

For years we've been hearing about videoconferencing in business, saving organisations countless millions in expenses, and countless man-hours from not having to fly to meetings all the time.  It's now time for that technology to migrate tot he home.  Don't get me wrong, Skype, iChat, Yahoo Messenger and the plethora of other instant messaging clients do a great job at delivering video from computer to computer.  I'm a big Skype fan as it's cross platform, and even my Mum can use it.  The thing is, it's on a computer in a spare room, or a corner, and isn't ideally located for family communications.  Enter Kinect.

XBox consoles need HDMI or Composite to display on TV's, which generally means more modern sets, which generally means 28" screen size minimum.  Imagine having a video call with your family from your living room, and seeing them in their living room?  All the benefits that businesses have had from the early 90's (PictureTel, Tandberg and Polycom) will finally come to the masses.

As with all technologies we're in a flux period.  Skype are embedding their software into Panasonic TV's, Sony already has the Eye for their PS3 range, and Kinect is entering the fray.  My prediction is that for a time you will be committed to a single platform - by that I mean that XBox Kinect users will only be able to communicate to other XBox Kinect users and possibly MSN Messenger users on computers, Skype will only talk to Skype etc., however there will eventually be standardisation where any console will be able to make a video call to anyone on any video capable device.

I'll be getting my Kinect kit next week and will review fully in a future post.  In the dim and distant past I wrote my thesis on remote working, and postulated that video conferencing would give knowledge workers the freedom to do their job from any location, and managers the ability to oversee projects across multiple geographies from their chair.  To some degree I think that's happening, but the move to the living room is the ultimate goal for me.

Probably the best technology combination?

As I commented yesterday, over time I've become an Apple fan primarily driven by the Apple iPhone.  My own iMac and MacBook Pro are running OSX 10.6 and I have tried Parallels with Windows Vista on the MacBook.  I was disappointed with the results to be honest, the underlying OSX operating system become sluggish and at times unresponsive, so I soon removed it.

More recently, I've installed Windows 7 Home Premium on a 21.5" iMac for a family member.  What's great about this is that the hardware is rock solid, the iMac retains the Apple OSX operating system, and you can run a full Windows 7 OS through Bootcamp.

I was impressed by the results. The hardware is a Core 2 Duo processor running at 3GHz with 4Gb of RAM and 500Gb hard drive so you would expect reasonable performance with this specification.  However Microsoft Windows is notoriously bloated (or so I thought) and I expected the machine to be less responsive than with OSX.

I have to say that it's a match made in heaven.  Windows 7 runs extremely well on this particular iMac, and even Office 2010 is quick.  Bootcamp for Windows installs the correct hardware drivers, so the in-built camera, microphone and speakers are detected and used.  Skype works like a dream, and the whole thing sitting in a sleek and slender iMac.

I don't think it's a massive leap to see businesses going down this route; the hardware is robust, and the OS is one that businesses worldwide have been using for years.  Users need minimal cross-training, and less desk-space.

If my Microsoft-based customers want to look to the future, I'll be showing them this solution as an option.