Microsoft pulls apart a Kinect camera, tickles your non-gaming fetish
By Richard Lai 
posted August 7th 2010 3:41PM
posted August 7th 2010 3:41PM
posted August 7th 2010 3:41PM
Microsoft Xbox 360
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I love the technology behind it, I just hope they give folks a compelling reason to buy one.
Let's see something that the competition can't do, Microsoft.
And I'm still not clear how you are going to have shooting game. Do you have to yell BANG or stamp your foot? Or are we just going to end up holding controllers like the Wii and Move?
I'm sincere when I say I am hoping they can bring it and impress everyone.
@Pingles
At E3 they showed Child of Eden, which is a shooter.
I think he means FPS. CoE is on rails (doesn't make it any less of a great looking game though)
@Pingles reports are that this device has finger tracking capabilities but that it would come after launch in a software update
@Raffi256
Lol, are you serious? Child of Eden? a shooter, then check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1_N_g093C4
@Raffi256 There's also a paintball game in Deca Sports Freedom, but I wouldn't exactly look to Hudson for best practices on how to create a shooter using Kinect. Nevertheless it's a 3rd person shooter that lets you navigate around a 3D world with your feet while shooting with your fingers. At the very least they deserve credit for being the first to try.
Child of Eden takes the Tony Stark approach to shooting, you just hold out your palm and it shoots wherever you aim.
Oh I can't wait, I'm getting one for free from my high school...
@Air King Sorry where is your school? back when we were there they made our parents take our Micro's away
I actually got horny.
Jk
Although I do wonder if the motor has some vibration to it.
@SskyNnet
awk...
I think it will flop.
I just don't like it. This nor the Move from Playstation.
Just stick to what works and make it better please...
There's already 1 title after 9 months of development that is swaying a lot of video game journalists (Dance Central).
Give them both a bit of time to mature and show what they have to offer, before you make up your mind.
PS. Traditional controllers are as good as they're going to get. That control scheme has been stagnating for a while.
@APV
The Wii sales numbers show this sort gameplay (running around in your living room, imitating the motion etc...) works, and taking the controller away is making this sort of gameplay better.
@APV You better play with your iPhone fart games, we all know the farting was the first game human invented, and i think you will flop, i just don't like how your nose looks
I'm REALLY hoping that someone hacks this into a cheap motion capture device. Or hell, even a cheap 3D scanner.
It's got the laser emitter and 2 cameras so presumably it's got the hardware that would be needed and it's obviously made to do some amount of spacial tracking.
That would be sick.
@Hazdaz It wouldn't really take any hacking at all. It works by mapping and tracking your skeletal structure, so it should be able to do MoCap, just add software. It seems MS has a lot planned for this tech, including use as a input for computing.
Yeah if they opened this up in XNA I will go hog wild with this.
@JaylanPHNX
That's still "hacking" it, especially since I am not even talking about using it from within the XBox environment at all... I'd love to see some enterprising folks find a way to connect this to a standard PC and either control it, or be able to import it's information into some 3D animation programs.
@Hazdaz Connecting it to pc has no poiny now, the magic happens in microsoft drivers and algorithms, without them you will just get a webcam and another ir camera
@arash
Presumably you'd also get a depth map out of it, which you could do some cool stuff with.
@Raffi256 How? do you get a map out of 2 webcams connected to your pc? i would be happy to know and microsoft would be happy to offer you a job there
@arash
2 cameras would give you a stereoscopic view - thus depth. Add to that the fact that the Kinect also has a laser emitter. Not sure exactly how it is used in the Kinect, but seeing as how this is a motion-tracker, if the laser is used to sweep a room, it could also be used for depth information.
Almost as cool as Apple's proximity sensor!
And doubly functional.
Wait, double of nothing is...
Scratch that comment.
@duc916
lol proximity sensor, it's probably just a single photodiode.
This has so many more possible applications beyond motion-controlled gaming. If it works, and the innovation comes, MS could be looking at something as revolutionary and as the mouse was when it first appeared.
@JaylanPHNX I probably can't be more agree with you sir, its so nice to see someone intelligent in this ZOO
Good thing about this is, Microsoft only hold the rights to gaming application of this technology.
Hopefully they bring their own version to the desktop, because they have put in a lot of work on the software side to recognise the human body.
@JaylanPHNX
It seems to me that this technology can be applied to other applications outside of gaming and personal computing. The 360 might be just a tech demo for these other applications. Microsoft could make a heap of money off this thing not just from gaming.
It doesn't make any sense, Engadget said there's "infrared projector paired with a monochrome CMOS camera" yet the article said the Kinect shoots out lasers and camera sees different depth as different colors.
Its all greyscale.
The things closest and ping the fastest are white, then grey then black.
I will probably get both this for my 360 and Move for Sony. I am really interested to see how developer choose to utilize this software. One thing I am waiting to see is what paraphernalia Microsoft release with this. Microsoft is going after core gamers also and I don't see them wanting to stick with just the regular 360 controller for those games that will need buttons (i.e. shooters). That one thing I see the move having right but since it would be easy for Microsoft to develop something like a controller (wouldnt be surprised for them also to take the form factor from the Wii like Sony did) which adds to the Kinect, Microsoft has the upper hand. Sony would need an entirely new motion device to add the feature the Kinect has. Cant wait till its out on the market.
@DaBears
Let's hope that they do not release Totem Ball II for the Kinect.
This thing does look rather expensive.
I could see MS taking a hit on this thing.
I look forward to our new generation of virtually trained mimes.
where is the android video game system? they can't sit still in a room long enough to form a plan.
Are those four squares the mics? Seems like really odd spacing having 3 on one side and only one on the other. I would think you would put two on the right further spaced out and try to fit one between the left camera and the middle camera, but that's just me and I know nothing about this kind of thing, just seems odd.
I'm finally buying an XBOX 360 because of the Kinect. I bet the fitness games will rock! Alot more fun than hitting the treadmill or yet another aerobics class for an hour.
The only fitness game I know of is pretty impressive, It will correct you on your form, tell you to work harder and count calories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-iZjILgm8E
But the game that I'm getting, Dance Central, is pretty active too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh7X6dksa8c
That video, is real people playing the game. You can see that they've been dancing for real at the end of the video.
preordering mine
Still not worth $150
I know there's a lot of hype but I just don't think I'm that excited
Kinect IS magical...nothing Apple has claimed to be magical is actually magical.
This is just an over priced copy of the EyeToy.
Since this is a whole new multi-input interface, game developers should develop a whole new class of games for it. They can use any combination of voice, motion, facial expression, and controller to create a game. Hopefully, there will be some innovative new games.