IMHO Kinect and Wii motion games are really perfect for young kids as they solve most of the problems that parents usually have with computer games: there's a physical activity, there're complex body motions that develop the balance and motor skills, and also the distance from the screen is changing all the time so there's less strain on eyes. Too bad it seems to be too small niche for the cost of it.
All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
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Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#72I suspect the next user interface revolution will be to use an AI camera to recognize your hand gesture movements to manipulate windows. And to recognize your facial gestures to pop up an interactive helper like Clippy.
You can control windows with your eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mBlgcnqttg
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Superhot is good too. Like callanetics - you have to move slowly and keep inconvenient poses :)
Superhot worked best of the three for me, but now I have played through... :-/
One of the best game mechanics ever squandered on one of the shortest games.
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#74The big problem I saw with the Kinect One was that it wasn't any better in practice than the Kinect 360 was even though it was a lot better on paper. I've been disappointed with depth cameras so far. I have one on my Alienware laptop that works well for face recognition but doesn't have an API to do anything else with it, probably because characterization of what the devices sees would be the first step to defeat it.…
> I've thought about getting a RealSense camera but have never quite pulled the trigger.
Pick up a Kinect v2 second hand (as little as $20) and a 3rd party PC adapter ($40 - $50 if my memory serves me correctly).
Bulkier than the Realsense but has more functionality out of the box (skeletal tracking mainly) and just as much 3rd party support in terms of libraries etc.
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but the early backlash and signaling from Microsoft probably scared off a lot of developers. A lot of mistakes were made. The costs were also a big factor. Perhaps the flaws with the tech were insurmountable. I can't help but believe with the same opportunity, using a different approach to market and promote the technology, it would have become a stable accessory with a very big customerbase. I've had many discus…
Those consoles already existed, the Wii and Wii U, Nintendo moved away from the whole idea. It's a good idea in theory but it didn't catch on and realistically kids just aren't a big enough market to concentrate on in the context of gaming, the average gamer is in their 30's and has a ton of disposable income, those are who the console manufacturers are targetting. If you do want a console for kids, well the Switch e…
Didn't catch on? The Wii was Nintendo's best selling console ever (apart from the original Gameboy), and outsold the PS3 from the same generation (and ever Xbox ever). It's quite likely that the Wii is the reason why PS3 was Sony's lowest selling console.
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#76IMHO Kinect and Wii motion games are really perfect for young kids as they solve most of the problems that parents usually have with computer games: there's a physical activity, there're complex body motions that develop the balance and motor skills, and also the distance from the screen is changing all the time so there's less strain on eyes. Too bad it seems to be too small niche for the cost of it.
They are not. They are difficult for kids to controll. Plus kids randomly hit furniture and people and anything else in the room.
Also, parental issues are a lot about addictiveness of games, kids acting aggressively after whether out of frustration or cause they don't want to stop and refusing to participate on other activities.
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, AI will calibrate and then calculate your bone movement by measuring tiny vibrations through earphones. Every moving part of you body could be measurable that way. And why would you move your hands if you don't directly interact with objects, you could track your tongue touching or sliding along your teeth, best interface ever.
I’d that doable? Is there a proof-of-concept? It would be an incredible interface, even if it just recognized some basic hand gestures using a bracelet.
Like this? https://youtube.com/watch?v=9HD6WkEgip0
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#78IMHO Kinect and Wii motion games are really perfect for young kids as they solve most of the problems that parents usually have with computer games: there's a physical activity, there're complex body motions that develop the balance and motor skills, and also the distance from the screen is changing all the time so there's less strain on eyes. Too bad it seems to be too small niche for the cost of it.
They are not. They are difficult for kids to controll. Plus kids randomly hit furniture and people and anything else in the room. Also, parental issues are a lot about addictiveness of games, kids acting aggressively after whether out of frustration or cause they don't want to stop and refusing to participate on other activities.
If a child acts aggressively when denied something they want then they need to be helped to learn better behavior control. I cannot imagine that before video games there was never any similar behaviour, perhaps it was over denied access to fuzzy felts, or your book you 'never take your head out of' :)
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#79From the article: “There were times when you’d be demoing [games] and nothing would be happening; you would just be rendering the video from the perspective of the Kinect on a big TV,” Skillman says. “And then kids would always charge it. That was weird. Kids would just charge the TV.” That is so true.. I've seen little kids do that so many times. They're not sure what to do so they just decide they better run up to…
> And the actual menus in that game were terrible... really hard to control and you'd give up and go looking for the controller.
I have Ring Fit for the Nintendo Switch. You attach one controller to the physical ring that you can push or pull, rotate or flick up and down. You can use ring motions to control menus, and even if I think it registers fine, it's much more convenient to use the controller.
I'm so happy that they kept that as an option, and I always use the attached controller rather than flipping the ring around. It's just quicker and more convenient.
Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen
#80Kinect was a political casualty, not a market one. There's no reason for it not to still exist (as an addon) save that they stopped manufacturing it.
I think it was mishandled. There was a lack of compelling software, particularly when compared to Nintendo’s Wii output that also relied on motion controls. Then the next revision was included with the Xbox One, increasing the overall price of the console while still lacking compelling software. If Microsoft had positioned it as an entirely optional accessory with a great library of exclusive titles, maybe it would h…
Motion gaming is so different from button mashing that it benefits from a clean separation that makes sure that nothing in the content library ever tries do dabble in both.
Nintendo got close with deemphasizing graphics on the Wii, but even they suffered from a mixed bag reputation. A bad console that is also an awesome fitness toy is worse than a good fitness toy that isn't a console at all. Marketing motion as an optional add-on is terrible. I believe that the Wii would have fared better if it had been even cheape/lower spec and motion focused with a parallelly introduced full version marketed as the Gamecube successor to keep the console expectations off it's back.
With today's technology (ubiquitous HD screens, consumer grade wired PCIe and well established GPU APIs) a possible compromise might be a low spec standalone motion gaming system that can optionally use it's full spec game console sibling as eGPU for added HD fidelty. The important property of this hypothetical ecosystem architecture is be that the motion part wouldn't be an optional controller for the big console, muddying the console's library with half-baked motion support but keep it's own focused library and just make that optionally playable with above-reference visuals for gear accumulators.