Reviews - Kinect Sensor - Xbox 360

[HEXUS]

Is Kinect the must-have present this Christmas? HEXUS.gaming takes a look at Microsoft's new motion-sensing periperhal.

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[Kjnowak]

I do actually want this quite a bit and this review does help, the only 2 issues that I still have are a) the types of games out aren't that exciting for me (which I know it's early days still) and b) Just not sure of the build quality, I know Steven remarked

"First impressions are very good. Kinect looks like an expensive piece of kit, well made and nicely designed"

...But I'm wondering how long until the motors die?

[Terbinator]

You can set Kinect up to handle/recognise you in different lighting conditions any how. Granted, I haven't ran ours with the lights off completely to see how it fares in the extremes.

[Steven W]

You can set Kinect up to handle/recognise you in different lighting conditions any how. Granted, I haven't ran ours with the lights off completely to see how it fares in the extremes.

cool, I didn't see that you could change lighting conditions. My room is fairly dull, people always say its quite dark even in the daytime, so I've been impressed with how it's picked me up easily.

[Steven W]

I do actually want this quite a bit and this review does help, the only 2 issues that I still have are a) the types of games out aren't that exciting for me (which I know it's early days still) and b) Just not sure of the build quality, I know Steven remarked

"First impressions are very good. Kinect looks like an expensive piece of kit, well made and nicely designed"

...But I'm wondering how long until the motors die?

Out of the games I've played, I'm actually loving the fitness games. I want to get fit but can't arsed to go to the gym, so I've been getting fit with Mel B for 20 mins a day. I feel fit already.

However, there arent' the games out there yet. I can't forsee any problems with the sensor itself, it's really just whether developers create the games to really maximise its potential. I think that will come, but it could be a long wait and they may be few and far between. It's certainly not worth it just to move around the Kinect dash.

[Stringent]

The games aren't there yet. I reckon maybe next year we may see some decent titles making use of the technology. But for now I am not going to spend any money on it this Christmas. Also I wonder how long of a novelty factor it will be. The Wii was a novelty factor it was cool, then got boring because the Wii isn't as powerful as the XBox or PS3, and the games are really aimed more at the family orientated gaming (not to say there aren't decent titles).

In short, lack of decent games means no sale for me. Now if that Star Wars game demoed at E3 was out ... maybe.

[crossy]

Pretty good (/fair) review from Hexus - agree with just about everything said.

Got to say that I'm impressed how well this actually works - I'd had much experience with EyeToy on the PS2 in the past and was expecting a little faster version of that. The setup was a royal pain (especially when you're eager to see what the liddle black box'll actually do), and mine subsequently decided that it needed a recalibration after one game.

Kinect Sports imho is easily a match for Wii Sports Resort - certainly my youngest kid thinks so. I'm impressed with how precise it actually is - moving my behind just a little bit seemed to be reflected pretty accurately in my car for Kinect Joy Ride, (apologies if that was too much info for some folks). Kid was showing how she could put top spin on the ball in the ping-pong in Kinect Sports just by changing her arm motion.

Only downside - for me at least - is that Kinect is unusable in the small room that I've got the XBox in normally. So every time it's to be used the whole XBox caboodle has to be moved downstairs into the living room. Upside of that I suppose is that I go from 19" monitor to 40" TV - which is pretty useful. Still, the process does mean a 5-10 minute delay in gaming. Oh, and kids aren't impressed with the voice control, which ignores them completely (wish I could sometimes!)

I wish Microsoft well with this - seems to be good device, well implemented. I can't help thinking if they issued a .NET SDK - preferably one supported by Mono so it was cross-platform - that they'd sell quite a few more.

[Terbinator]

Well they're at least bringing XNA support IIRC, not that lack of official support has stopped some from wielding the device in certain ways.

Anyone seen the guy controlling Super Mario with this yet?

[Andeh13]

Very good review! Having never liked consoles I am somewhat wishing I was a bit more into them now, that sounds like such an impressive bit of kit!