OK I like the Kinect I think its a great piect of hardware. It fails because microsoft focuses way to much on voice commands vs Camera Tracking. They need to allow the Microphone headset to control voice commands and use the Kinect as what is a camera 1st mic second.
If they focused more on the Motion capture than making us yell at our TV’s then maybe it would have some success.
Funny thing is, I never use my Kinect for motion control. The voice aspect is the only reason why I even have it. Whether I’m recording clips or I’m just too lazy to pick up the controller to pause my show or I don’t feel like fiddling with menus.
Then again, I’ve never liked motion controls, so adding more motion support wouldn’t do anything for me.
Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
Kinect sports boxing was fun as hell if they focused on evolving the motion capture maybe we would have a Killer Instinct Kinect Version. But no more way to yell at my TV.
I have a headset why cant I use that for voice commands?
I do agree that being able to use the headset for voice commands would be pretty awesome. Especially once Cortana integration gets set up. I could potentially have a conversation with my Xbox. That would be rad.
The real problem with Kinect is people got burnt out on the 360 Kinect and became reluctant to give the new Kinect a chance I think if they waited for the Xbox One Kinect as well as the Xbox One would’ve been far more successful.
Because they lost focus of what it is really a tracking camera…there were some good games, Kinect sports, Dance Central, Child of Eden… We need a good fighting game for Kinect.
My one question about motion control. Why would I move my entire arm to perform an action that I can perform with the push of a button?
That’s why I think motion control in general didn’t catch on. It worked on the Wii because it was an innovator and made big leaps, but afterwards the glory of the gimmick kinda fell away for a lot of people when they realized it was making things more complicated than it needed to be.
It doesn’t help that it adds another $100 or so to the price tag of an already expensive console.
If it wasn’t for the Kinect sensor, I wouldn’t be able to hear anyone online. You see, I suffer from severe hearing loss and am required to wear hearing aids as a result (without them, all of you would sound like the teachers from Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts Gang - and if you don’t know what their teachers sound like, then YouTube it). Because I wear hearing aids, specifically that are “over-the-ear” hearing aids, I can’t use the headphones that come with the console or even the stereo headphones that are much, much better. They interfere with my hearing aids because if I have both the headphones and my hearing aids on, I get massive feedback in the form of a shrill whistle, which trust me, is NOT something you want to hear directly in your ears.
This is why I like the Kinect sensor - I have it calibrated perfectly so I can use it to communicate with others with a minimum of feedback from my end. Their voices in turn, come through my speakers loud and clear, which I can hear much, much better than any of the console’s headphones. Without it, I’d be miserable.
That’s why I think the Kinect is a much bigger success than you suggest, @KillerSwift7.
Besides, using the voice commands to instantly turn my console on or off, change the volume or channel, play/pause/stop/rewind/fast-forward video, or to switch instantly to any game or app, is simply spectacular, especially if I’m trying to multi-task, like when I’m also trying to fold laundry. 
The camera-aspect is cool too - don’t get me wrong - I love using it to shake off zombies in Dead Rising 3, to lean in and out of cover in Battlefield, or to look around my car in the Forza Motorsport games. They’re just not as useful, IMO, and don’t always work as well as they should (personally, I think “head-tracking” should really be “eye-tracking” instead - I hear that’s had a lot of success in other areas).
the problem is actually that nobody cares about motion controls. It was interesting to play the first few games for it, after that everybody knew that motion controls will never appeal to the hardcore gamers.
I care about motion controls. I don’t want to yell at my tv though. I have a headset so they need to allow voice commands through them. Then they can focus on the camera and the delay time, which is not half bad. Maybe we would get some games worth playing for the Kinect.
Motion controls are great (but could aadmittedly be a lot better overall), but I think they’re best used as an “option” of sorts - they help add to the experience. It’s the games that REQUIRE the Kinect sensor to be played that I think are doing it wrong (which, if you noticed, are none of the examples I’ve given above in my previous post).
If they focus more on the camera aspect though rather than Mic weed get better quality Kinect games. I have an idea about how KI could even work with the kinect but people dismissed it too early and going to be too skeptical anyway.
i will dismiss that too before hearing it but im curious.
I feel like the audience that is really into motion controls is a fairly quiet minority for the most part. The backlash for motion controls in games after the Wii has been almost universally negative. There’s a reason that Microsoft eventually came out with an Xbone that didn’t come bundled with Kinect at all.
I think a major issue especially with the Kinect is a lack of physical feedback. With a controller, you physically push a button, and you perform an action. With motion controls, the number of variables that get in the way of performing that action (distance from TV, amount of stuff in the way, the number of people in the room, posture, dust) multiplied by the extra amount of effort it takes to perform them vs using a simple gamepad is going to be a huge turn off for a lot of people, as evidenced by Microsoft’s virtual abandonment of the Kinect, and Sony and Nintendo’s complete abandonment of motion controls.
The only field I feel that motion control is truly viable isn’t in games, but in graphic design. There is a PC accessory in prototype that will allow an artist to manipulate 3d models using their hands similar to how a drawing pad lets an artist simulate the use of a pencil. There’s even talk of holographic displays that give physical feedback. That’s right, HOLOGRAMS THAT YOU CAN TOUCH. I think that’s a much better use of the technology than trying to make video games more athletic.
The best way to fix it is to launch a bunch of high quality kinect titles simultaneously or close together each one demonstrating a different use of Kinect, but that ship has sailed as gamers immediately get upset when they hear Microsoft is focusing on anything Kinect related. I still believe had they just not released the 360 Kinect and waited for the technology to improve people would’ve been more open to Kinect this gen and we may have actually seen some amazing games.
How to correct?
Phil Spencer speaking out on it. Backing it rather than dissing it.
Compatible games.
Cool implementation or use of Kinect.
Responsiveness or accuracy. Loved D4 but very very sensitive controls, too sensitive
The biggest problem with Kinect is that the thing just doesn’t work as well as it should. I’m convinced there would be more interest in motion controls if you could actually control things instead of working hard and seeing your inputs dropped like crazy, only to then shrug your shoulders in frustration and have the thing suddenly pick up the movement. My kids want to hold their arms out and fly like Peter Pan, and use Kinect to control an on screen dragon or pet a puppy. But it doesn’t work very well.
For me the only game it worked well with was Dance Central. I love this game and I see the power of Kinect. Sadly, this and Zumba were my only two highlights. Two dance games that I naturally won’t play 200 hours like a MGS phantom pain or witcher 3.
You mean like Fighter Within?
I think that Kinect absolutely has it’s uses, from more practical applications like @GalacticGeek was talking about to certain games where the movement made sense and felt necessary like Dance Central or any of the myriad of exercise and mini-game titles that came out like Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and Kinect Sports respectively.
I feel like the problem came in when trying to merge controller-centric game genres with the Kinect’s controls. No one seemed to tackle the idea of “how can I make a game in genre X that not only feels like it’s for Kinect, but is actually more fun when using Kinect?”
Yes, Child of Eden did a great job as a shoot-em-up type of game, but there weren’t that many success stories beyond that awesome title. Honestly, the Wii ran in to the same issues. Everyone loved Wii Sports and Wii Fit, but most of the other stuff that came out for it was shovelware. Just your average, run of the mill, licensed minigame garbage.
There was motion integration in the more successful titles, but a lot of it felt tacked on or somewhat unnecessary. I don’t recall a lot of games that came from controller-centric genres that where really combined with motion controls to create a better experience beyond a limited few.
Maybe it’s more a matter of the camera not needing to be where it should be for full tracking. Maybe people simply don’t want to physically perform actions that they can perform more easily and accurately with a controller. Whatever the case, I tend to think that motion controls was a fad that had some good ideas, some real usage, but maybe wasn’t quite as suited to being an all around gaming-centric phenomenon that it was built up to be during its heyday.
Curious to see if VR will go the same way.