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All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

polygon.com

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Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#81

Post by homarp »

lozenge wrote: post #31
thevagrant wrote: post #22

I still use Kinect for my young kids. They love it (Xbox One version). My original Kinect broke so I picked up a second hand one for $10 somewhere. I think Microsoft was on the cusp of a huge opportunity and blew it by listening to hardcore gamers. Kinect type accessory that comes with the console (like Xbox One) should have a big market potential. For myself, I only got interested in it once I had kids and by then,…

$100 makes a huge difference to a console's sales. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExaAYIKsDBI

psvr sells though.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#82

Post by deltron3030 »

blackrock wrote: post #56
deltron3030 wrote: post #54

Earlier 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.

That would be pretty slick indeed. Although it might prematurely wear out my gums and enamels. But then, what if you have a sudden gag reflex? Or a random epileptic seizure? And the AI thinks you want to do a format /f c:, or a rm -rf / command? Hmm.. the OS had better firewall off those special commands.

You might have to get used to it, like with speaking. And yes, a safety net that's already baked into your workflow could prevent bad consequences from potential input errors.

Use trash instead of rm -rf for example, it makes sure that files you remove land in your trash bin. Look this program up if you don't already use it, seriously.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#83

Post by Singletoned »

Xbox Fitness was the best exercise app I've ever used in my life. The most thorough work outs and hardest sustained effort I've ever put into exercising. I was absolutely gutted when they "sunsetted" it.

They killed it so aggressively that they deleted it off your console so that there was no way you could play it. There was clearly internal politics going on behind the scenes.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#84

Post by 3princip »

watwut wrote: post #76
ivanhoe wrote: post #71

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.

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.

>They are difficult for kids to controll.

Not really, depends on the age of the children, by age 5 they are likely to become very good a the games. Speaking from experience, my young children play Wii Sports games.

You could argue that no gaming at all is the best option. Maybe, that's a separate discussion. Given the choice between "classic" gaming and motion controllers, the Wii model wins by a huge margin. It cannot compare, the parent comment describes the benefits really well.

There is something to your point about post-game hyperactivity, but that can be dampened with some parental intervention. The same behavior can be observed after sugary drinks, vigorous play...

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#85

Post by lotsofpulp »

tudorw wrote: post #78
watwut wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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' :)

I am under the impression that some video game designers are using psychological techniques similar to those used by slot machine makers to take advantage of every weakness in the mind to create an addiction. If so, it’s not comparable to behavior from reading a good book.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#86

Post by watwut »

tudorw wrote: post #78
watwut wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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' :)

Actually, this issue is worst with video games then say lego or toy cars or dolls. The off-tablet activities seems to be easier to stop for kids and definitely less addictive. Kids are also calmer after stopping them (less likely to take frustration on siblings, less irritable).The selfish advantage of video games is that kids stick to them longer then with other activities, so the parent has more of uninterupted time.

tl;dr: kids behavior changes depending on which activity they do or did last hour

I mean, seriously, it is the similar with adults. Gamer after long session is more irritable, still frustrated from looses and not exactly pleasant to be around.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#87

Post by watwut »

3princip wrote: post #84
watwut wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>They are difficult for kids to controll. Not really, depends on the age of the children, by age 5 they are likely to become very good a the games. Speaking from experience, my young children play Wii Sports games. You could argue that no gaming at all is the best option. Maybe, that's a separate discussion. Given the choice between "classic" gaming and motion controllers, the Wii model wins by a huge margin. It cann…

> There is something to your point about post-game hyperactivity, but that can be dampened with some parental intervention. The same behavior can be observed after sugary drinks, vigorous play.

Yes, but parent will still dislike the need for that "parental intervention" that did not had to be. Plus, younger sibling or friend or other relative do not deserve to be on receiving end of that behavior.

When I see my kids to turn into little assholes after sugary drinks, I would have limited or stopped them entirely too. Or be like "no the issue with sugary drink is not that they dont get exercise, it is how they act". (My kids dont have that issue with sugary drinks).

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#88

Post by dageshi »

Singletoned wrote: post #75
dageshi wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah it didn't catch on. The Wii U bombed, Kinect on xbox bombed and the actual number of games that took advantage of the features in either was pretty low compared to the total games released in those generations.

Wii/kinect is a gimmick that a finite number of good games could take advantage of and once they'd been released there wasn't really anywhere else to go.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#89

Post by CoolGuySteve »

jinushaun wrote: post #58
thevagrant wrote: post #22

I still use Kinect for my young kids. They love it (Xbox One version). My original Kinect broke so I picked up a second hand one for $10 somewhere. I think Microsoft was on the cusp of a huge opportunity and blew it by listening to hardcore gamers. Kinect type accessory that comes with the console (like Xbox One) should have a big market potential. For myself, I only got interested in it once I had kids and by then,…

It wasn’t about hardcore gamers. I think you forgot that the Kinect made the Xbox cost $100 more than the PlayStation. It probably singlehandedly gave Sony the crown for this console generation. Microsoft eventually dropped the Kinect and the price and sales of the Xbox picked up considerably.

The hardware in the XBox One is also weaker than the PS4 to compensate for the added expense.

RDR2’s performance/resolution is particularly brutal on XB1 judging by the Digital Foundry video that compares all the systems.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#90

Post by abdulmuhaimin »

PaulHoule wrote: post #10
ghaff wrote: post #6

Around that time, it looked like a lot of innovation was happening in input devices. There was Kinect. But there was also the Wii, 6 degrees of freedom controllers, and others I'm forgetting about. But it mostly sort of petered out.

I think the Wii was successful despite the Wiimote as opposed to because of it, but people didn't understand that at the time. Nintendo's first party games added a few fun details using the motion controls, but other than Wii Sports and a few novelty titles there weren't many games for which motion control played a pivotal role. There was a SimCity game that tried to use the WiiMote like a light pen, but between the…

A Wii without Wiimote is basically a Gamecube. Even as a Nintendo fan who absolutely hate Wiimote, you gotta recognise it, especially when playing with non-gamer. Casual are enjoying playing it with Wiimote, and it became a reason for those people to buy it.
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