November 4th 2010 9:12 pm PT

Holy, that’s a lot of links! It is appreciated. My Starred items in Google Reader were getting a little congested.

OXM online has all the Kinect games reviewed as well:
http://www.oxmonline.com/article/reviews/xbox-360/g-l/kinect-launch

Some of this stuff looks better than I expected. I’ll be picking one up eventually.

Most disappointing is Joy Ride which sounded like so much fun before it was turned into a Kinect game.
http://www.oxmonline.com/article/reviews/xbox-360/g-l/kinect-joy-ride
Official Xbox Magazine
“Joy Ride has almost no redeeming qualities as a solo experience. Your only hope for siphoning any actual happiness from it is to tap a friend and share in the misery together.”

Far to many!!

Think I will pick one at random

My personal review as of now… If your single and into the core games i.e with a strong story you probably wont care for it right now anyways. BUT if your like me and have kids you will love it. Its actually really fun! and has a lot of potential. A+

PS it does require a lot of space and I can see that being a huge factor as well.

POW! Wall of text IN YOUR FACE.

I was disappointed to see that I can’t currently control Netflix with Kinect voice or gestures and was wondering if that feature is planned for the future in either Netflix or Hulu plus or if it will just continue to be only available on Zune marketplace. I use NEtflix on the Xbox heavily and will use Hulu Plus heavily when it comes to xbox but I don’t really use Zune at all and I bought Kinect just to be able to control my media (Netflix and Hulu) with either voice or gestures or if that is not something I should expect to see and that I should probably return my Kinect.

There are also article’s about room space, our living room isn’t big enough, when is was reading the distances you need.. hopefully they can update the kinect to adjust itself for smaller rooms or spaces.. I orderd mine so waiting till it comes out and arrives.. to bad that you need a controller when a specific message pops up, saw it on kotaku.com and it has some other flaws, bugs that needs fixing. Found it here see link and watch video: http://kotaku.com/5680932/examining-kinects-minority-report-effect

Ugh I want Kinect, but I don’t have a space in my house for it…

Amen Whetzel. Took the words right out of my mouth.

Major Nelson,

Any reason why Netflix doesn’t allow us to use Kinect? I could of sworn that videos showed Netflix in the Kinect Hub and it’s not there. Netflix was the only application I was hoping for controller free navigation with. Any word if we’ll ever see an update?

Why can’t we take pictures to use as our personal picture? My friend just tried to do it with his Vision Camera and he was able to. I can’t take a picture for my profile with kinect though.

Loving my Kinect and have loved using it since I got it in Sept. Netflix needs Kinect support ASAFP!!

Hey Whetzel. You’re gonna freak out but…dude…like…you won’t believe this. Ok? You ready?

*inhales*

THE CONTROLLER ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE. QUIT WORRYING.

Dude, did I just like, freaking blow your mind? Sweet, now quit whining.

@ Whetzel: Honestly, why do you even have a Wii if you don’t play it? There are plenty of great Wii games out there now and coming up if you just LOOK for them. You can say the same thing about any console or handheld if you just let it sit there and ignore it! lol

Had to move couch back, no problem. Coffee table, moved that too. Worked fine. Played some Adventures, sat down on couch, no motion controls (too far back, sigh). Voice control works good, EXCEPT it DOESN’T CONTROL NETFLIX, or the main dashboard. sigh.
Come on, Microsoft, I’m a programmer and how hard would it be to extend the voice control to the rest of the system, hmmm? geesh. Basically I still need that stinking controller if I want to lay on the couch and watch any video. While you are at it, could you add kinect voice control to Windows Media Center? Thanks.

Please do a write up for this week’s Xbox LIVE Arcade releases.

I second the questions about NETFLIX and DVD support. Major if you don’t have an affirmative answer can you please at least say you are looking into it and follow up with us?

TIP: About space. The game requires like 6 foot. I tried positioning the camera sensor at the TV base and it said that it could not read the floor and I had to move it closer to the edge of the table which took away more space. I had to battle with space on my living room. Then I tried positioning the camera on top the TV (Used duct tape since I don’t have the mount, until I go buy one). It worked like a charm and it seems like it only required like 5 feet… I guess is because the floor can easily be seem. It also worked well with my 3 year old kid (I was concern about that).

I’m definitely looking forward to getting one. I went to best buy yesterday and ended up playing kinect for about an hour. Me and my friend strayed to the PS Move demo after awhile. One game later we realized the kinect demo was still open and went back for a few more rounds of reflex ridge.

The Ars Technica review is pretty close to my view having been involved in the beta. The installation documentation says that you need to stand back 6 feet, but this is not true – you need a good 8 feet of space to play. I have the Kinect mounted above my TV and have 6 feet 3 inches space. Playing Kinect Aventures is practically impossible, because I cannot step back far enough to plug leaks in the floor in ’20,000′ leaks and if I stand far enough forward to be able to move freely, jump up and down etc. in the River Rapids game, then I am told I am ‘too close’.
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The sensor is a very clever piece of tech, but does it really enhance the games? XBox is my primary gaming platform, but I also own a PS3 and a Move. Sony took the view that the best approach was to improve on what Nintendo did with the Wii. And they have succeeded superbly. The Move is highly accurate and works extremely well in the games I have played, crossing many genres, from the superb Table Tennis game in Sports Champions (which is streets ahead of the Kinect version in Kinect Sports), to games requiring accurate pointer control like Flight Control HD, to light gun games like Time Crisis, to environmental manipulation games like Heavy Rain.
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The Kinect has so far only shown itself capable of the sort of games where you twist your body into different shapes and this is reflected 1:1 on screen (the best example of which is Dance Central) or where you make an exaggerated and abstracted action which is then translated in some way to action on screen (in a similar way to how you perform an abstracted action using a normal controller to control on-screen actions). For example in river rapids you lean left or right to steer and jump to jump. In Joy Ride you hold your arms out as if you are using a steering wheel and pull them backwards and push them forward to activate a boost. The key question is whether adding Kinect controls make the games better, or whether they are like lazy ‘waggle’ controls on the Wii, where the developer has added motion control because they can, not because it is right for the game. In my view the River Rapids section of Kinect Adventures is enhanced by the motion control, but the game is only really fun for a few times – it lacks depth and variety. Joy Ride on the other hand had the potential to be a fun little carting game, but the motion controls actually detract from the experience – the steering control is not accurate enough, you have no control over acceleration or braking and the activation of the boost is very hit-and-miss.
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I really hope that some clever people find new and exciting ways to use the Kinect, but at the moment games which are enhanced by accurate motion control and/or on-screen pointers are best served by the Move and games which are not enhanced by motion control at all, are best served by an actual controller.
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It’s difficult to see where the Kinect fits in. It leaves a very narrow spectrum of games where the Kinect is the best type of controller – those games which benefit from whole body tracking, such as dance games and similar party games. Maybe somebody will come up with a whole new genre of games which nobody has thought of before which can only be accomplished with the Kinect, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.
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In summary, I think that Kinect is a highly advanced, extremely cleverly designed and programmed piece of tech, but which is ultimately, sadly, a solution to a problem which doesn’t exist.

@BryceS, Very nice write up.

weakwill has no concept of money, just like the majority of Xbox Fnboys that like Kinect.

I just went through so much hassle to get my bedroom ready for Kinect. I purchased Kinect on launch day and tried to deal with a space that was barely enough for Kinect. By barely, I’m talking around 6 feet exactly with no room to move around. I moved everything in my bedroom around from the bed, bookcase, video cabinet, dvd shelf, night stand, and of course, an beat after doing it. I guess I didn’t help matters since I played about 2 hours of Kinect Adventures with a friend online prior to doing this.
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But now that it’s all together, I’m happy. I still don’t have enough room for 2 people to play, but I’ll deal with that as I’ll mostly play online or let my friends try it. I expected very little from Kinect and came out very happy after purchasing it.

I was pretty hyped about Kinect for my kids (3 and 4), but it’s really not living up to what I expected.
With Kinect Adventures, my kids constantly are moving too far back or too far forward to have a consistent interaction. In addition, to do a lot of stuff, you have to really coordinate keep your hand in a box to select menu items. My kids are too hyper for that. Forget about calibrating them for Kinect Id.
For myself, the waving and stuff is really too sensitive. It’s not easy. Secondly, I am having a really hard time controlling this thing while sitting. I thought that would be easier as well.
::Hopefully, this is all just launch ire, and the software will get better. For now, it’s something I could have waited on. Especially since there’s no Netflix support. I was really looking forward to that. NOT WORTH $150, yet. [Come on Microsoft. Win me back!]

MrHaru, leave the English language to those who know how to use it.

Here is a link to the only Kinect game for adults that aren’t women… Fighters Uncaged.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/fighters-uncaged