141 - Kinect

[matt]

In this dev diary, I talk about the Xbox One's Kinect, its potential, and why it might make sense to make it optional.

[ranger_lennier]

I wish Kinect was more popular, because it's great technology, and I actually really like the idea of adding physicality to games. But I have to agree that the software isn't there yet. What did we get at launch? Fighter Within sounded cool, but the 23 on Metacritic didn't exactly encourage me to rush out and buy an XBox One. Kinect Sports Rivals scored better a few months later, but 61 is still pretty meh. I think I'll stick to Wii Sports. Using voice controls for TV is neat, but feels like a solution in need of a problem. Remote controls work pretty darn well, so I'm not sure that would be worth paying much for even if it worked perfectly. And many people say it doesn't work perfectly, so they're better off just not bothering. I wish Harmonix had a game out by now. I loved the Dance Central series. It's the first dancing game that I felt was actually scoring me based on how well I danced.

I may just have to skip ahead to VR + omni-directional treadmill. That has to be the closest thing to a holodeck we'll see anytime soon.

[matt]

The voice controls are interesting. I have something like a 10% success rate with Xbox on, but Xbox pause, and xbox go to netflix, work really well. Be careful not to say "xbox play netflix" because that brings up Xbox music or something stupid.

Honestly, I find myself missing the voice controls when I am playing back media from other devices because if I am running to the kitchen or the bathroom (both of which I find myself doing more than I'd expect), it's great because I can pause/play it as I walk in/out of my room. There is a delay from when you say Xbox play to when it starts, so I've gotten the timing down to a science, so I can say it, and it'll start playing right when I am in sight range. It is pretty cool and futuristic.

I have never used snap, "Xbox Record this", the Xbox TV pass through, or any of their other voice/media functionality. I was using the IR blaster briefly, but I already have a multifunction remote that does better since it blasts on vs. off rather than power toggle, so the Xbox One was turning off the receiver if I was switching from something else.

Is all this media playback stuff worth $100? Well, not to me. Maybe to someone!

Perhaps if it completely replaced my cable box for IPTV, then it'd be more exciting but I never watch live TV (I use MythTV to record - it's like a Linux TiVo platform with commercial cutting and whatont), so any sort of cable box control is not interesting to me anyway.