Microsoft Does Want Core Games, FPS for Kinect

[exfileme]

Looks like Microsoft is aiming towards the casual gamers first.

Microsoft Does Want Core Games, FPS for Kinect : Read more

 

[jossrik]

I played kinect once and Frankenstein beat my butt at racing...

 

[eklipz330]

well who didn't see this coming? it was inevitable.. but i have a feeling this thing can fall flat on it's face, virtual boy style

 

[kinggraves]

Until we see solid 4 person simultaneous gameplay out of Kinect, Wii/Move would have them beat at involving the whole family at once.
There are demographics that would be more comfortable without the controller, like hyperactive children, but there are also those more comfortable WITH a control wand. Elderly folks might be able to wave a wand around and play, but they aren't going to get up and party with Kinect.
People have also made it clear there are some genres that just won't go well with Kinect. People don't want to make a "gun hand" to play a FPS, they want an actual trigger to pull.
It's not a problem of MS having core games for Kinect, it's an issue of whether or not people are going to want to play them.

 

[razercultmember1]

tl;dr thumb me down i like it like that >:|

 

[demosthenes81]

im just waitin for some kid to blow up his tv with his old mans hunting rifle playing call of duty or halo

 

[Guest]

I can't see why they couldn't use Kinect and a controller simultaneously. I'm thinking something akin to the bad guy from the movie "The Incredibles" who controls his "evil robot" with a remote/controller strapped to his wrist.

 

[thegreathuntingdolphin]

Although I don't think the Kinect would be good for FPS (for that matter neither is the Move...and don't get me started on Wii FPS games!), a Time Crisis type game would be pretty sweet where you can dodge bullets, crouch behind cover, etc.

 

[frye]

I think it could be used well for squad based games.

Take Ghost Recon, for example. Don't tell me it wouldn't be cool to actually use your hand to tell your team to move forward, hold position, etc. You'd still use the controller to aim, switch weapons, shoot, etc.

Same thing could be applied to Mass Effect.

 

[gotcha99]

The problem with Kinetic - especially in relation to FPSs is that all the processing of detecting the motion, interpreting it correctly (think flailing arms here) and correctly matching it to movement of the character is done in the Xbox360s main processor.

This leaves significantly less processing power for making cool looking graphics etc.

Basically the Kinetick code must:

1) Decode the video (from the camera)
2) Do image analysis on each image to detect motion at a reasonable speed (maybe 10 FPS is good enough)

Image analysis can be heavy - just think about the "image filters" in Photoshop (edge find). Just for one image it can take a few ms and here the full processing power is available (no need to do advanced 3D graphics at the same time). Now do it at a speed of 10 FPS ... leaves you less then 100ms processing time pr image (less because you also have to "forward" the input to the game itself after you decoded it and the game has to react).

Also you need at least to analyse two images and find the difference to be able to get any idea of what the motion is. So effective you motion resolution is maybe 5 FPSs ... this gives a "controller lag" in the order of 100-200ms ... HUGE in FPS games.

Obviously if the video is encoded in something like Mpeg4 there are already some motion vectors as part of the encoding - however now you have to use your processing power to identify the righ motion vector for the right person (in particular if there are more users in the frame or if there is a noisy background (think pictures, couches, book-shelf’s, windows etc.).

I would expect it works back against a plain background that gives a high contrast to what the person is wearing.

I think this feature is no more then a gimmic - and would not expect it to take really of unless:

1) Input processing is done in separate hardware
2) Said hardware to be an integrated part of the console
3) The next generation of consoles

 

[anamaniac]

I'm wondering what the next generation of consoles will offer. This seems to be little more than a mass open beta for a product.

 

[Vorador2]

Anybody remembers that video where Sony's Kevin Butler did Pew Pew Pew with his hands.

Yeah.

 

[swamprat]

Particularly given the price, it would have seemed quite a sensible plan to have offloaded a lot of that type of processing to the additional piece of hardware...

Given that trigger pulls are relatively subtle as motion goes, it could be that FPS titles want to use additional separate guns too - that might either allow additional accuracy, or relatively cheap accessories.
That'd limit the benefit of kinect to movement / positioning of multiple players -and you get into the third person and not having people being able to see where they're shooting etc - which sounds messy

 

[sceen311]

[citation][nom]thegreathuntingdolphin[/nom]Although I don't think the Kinect would be good for FPS (for that matter neither is the Move...and don't get me started on Wii FPS games!), a Time Crisis type game would be pretty sweet where you can dodge bullets, crouch behind cover, etc.[/citation]I almost had fun playing the first iteration of call of duty on the wii, but instead of aiming at the screen I had to worry about aiming in reference to the censor which is lame.
It's funny but I think it's fair to say the most accurate gaming gun I ever used was the one from duck hunt and I don't remember having to even calibrate it.
but anyway dodging bullets sounds pretty cool.

 

[stridervm]

[citation][nom]thegreathuntingdolphin[/nom]Although I don't think the Kinect would be good for FPS (for that matter neither is the Move...and don't get me started on Wii FPS games!), a Time Crisis type game would be pretty sweet where you can dodge bullets, crouch behind cover, etc.[/citation]

A Time Crisis type of game where you can dodge using your body? It has already existed.

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4__ssaLrTo

 

[Zingam]

Microsoft should realize the simple fact that not having a wand in the hand is not fun. Empty hands are not fun!

 

[zaznet]

Only one user is a Live Gold account on my Xbox. If the other players all need Gold to participate in Kinect games in my living room then that would stop me from getting Kinect as I'd never be able to play with just my friends or I'd have 2-3 generic player gold accounts on my Xbox and paying twice as much for the Live Gold features.

 

[IM0001]

You guys really are going at Kinect the wrong way. The fact that they do have this tech dialed in as good as they do is a huge step forward and also because they have to Compete with Sony Move right out of the gate means they both will have to have some good testing and proof it works right out of the box. On top of that, sure the games that come out first may be a bit more casual/family oriented, but seriously, think of the future possibilities. I don't give a wooden nickel about FPS with Kinect directly (maybe later they will add a controller to the mix and make it a full motion FPS who knows), but they do have a whole new tech to make games off of that even the Wii can not compete with, use your imagination a bit guys. Think outside of what you have seen for things that they could do with this tech, both Kinect and Move will both have their more focused type of games and such, but the fact that Kinect does have full motion body detection is pretty remarkable and looks to work really well. (Sony's Move will be a little less full body, but more accurate and better for true FPS and other detailed games). Think outside the tech box here, even if this is only the first step before the next Gen of consoles come out, its pretty amazing what the are going to be able to do now. The one main benefit I believe this will do is hopefully get people off their butts and interact with their games while also becoming a bit more active. With the Wii you could cheat it, hopefully you can't with Kinect. Sure we want to relax sometimes and just sit and play our games, but in the term of the home market to the younger kids, making Video Games a bit more active is not a bad thing in this day and age.

My .02

 

[tosvus]

I hope they do some kind of change to this, to allow for a couple of controllers like Move or Wii. I don't see how you can do FPS without it.

 

[tosvus]

I hope they do some kind of change to this, to allow for a couple of controllers like Move or Wii. I don't see how you can do FPS without it.