XBox Kinect - the experience so far

So you've all heard about it, and not surprising when Microsoft had an advertising budget of $500 million to keep us all informed.  Kinect is the latest XBox 360 add-on to give you gesture control of your Xbox interface, and interactive gaming without the need of a controller.  As I already had a 360 Slim that I purchased earlier in the year, all I needed was the Kinect sensor add-on.  In the box you get the Kinect unit, a power supply that makes the sensor compatible with first generation 360 units, and a copy of Kinect Adventures.

I admit it, it took me a while to get this setup, primarily due to the launch of Call of Duty Back Ops, but also needing to re-tech my house to the living room, since my home office didn't have a big enough space to jump around in.  Hence a further £650 on a new TV which will be reviewed later.

Setting up was easy; place the sensor in front of the TV and connect to the AUX port on the back of the 360S.  This port is a modified USB port which has extra power specifically for the Kinect unit.  Next was the room scan, and here's where I had some difficulties.  My living room is a basic rectangle with two sofas on adjacent walls.  The TV and Kinect unit are on a stand in the corner.  The room dimensions are approximately 5m x 3m, and during the calibration was trying to get us to stand where the sofa was.  Funny, but didn't do the room calibration much good.  User calibration was much better.  We already had XBox profiles, and using the Kinect ID application linked those profiles to the physical characteristics of each player.

Next we moved onto gameplay.  Kinect Adventures is all we have at the moment, and has you jumping around with a variety of games.  You can go rafting through rapids, popping bubbles in zero gravity, and even on a track where you have to duck and jump obstacles.  The technology is good enough to auto-recognise players as they move in and out of the playspace, so a one player game quickly becomes a two player game.  Occasionally it did get this wrong, specifically between my wife and my eldest son, and I think this is something to do with them being close in height, and that William tends to stand in front of Kathy leading to potential sensor confusion.  It's easily overcome in the menus by selecting your avatar.

The only other issue worth commenting about is my 4-year old.  Getting him to stand in the right place for calibration was a nightmare, and what took everyone else just a couple of minutes, took about 25 minutes with Callum.

All-in-all, Kinect is a great piece of kit.  For my wife to say 'it's very clever the way it detects you and instantly updates the in-game player' carries more gravitas than any technology review.  The last major IT revelations for her were BT Vision pause live TV and record from a programme guide, and iPlayer on the iMac.  She also said without prompting that it was way more fun that the Nintendo Wii.  If Kinect can achieve that with just a few hours of gameplay, imagine what's possible with feedback data and a couple of Microsoft pateches.

William had a great idea about the playspace calibration.  He suggested that we should be able to mask off areas in the space that can't be used.  For us Brits with small houses, it kind of makes sense.

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.