Kinect update could greatly improve performance, report suggests

@Ashitaka yes, i like it when hardware is released and AAA games come out immediately at launch. that's what happened with the xbox 360 & ps3 consoles right?

@Ashitaka

It just launched last month. Give it some time.

@Ashitaka
They will come soon. Not all developers would jump on the Kinect asap but wait for a time frame that would suit them. They probably waited for Kinect sales to rise to see if people are interested at all-- people are, and I am one of them.

@Ashitaka
Steel Battalion and the other good, innovative games were on show at TGS.
Try to keep up, mate.

@Ashitaka

You could say the same about the Move. Right now it feels like the PS3 launch all over again with Sony fanboys assuring us that if we "just wait until __________ comes out" it will magically get better.

@A Sandwich

First of all, what do you mean "magically get better", are you implying that a great game release would not make it better? And that the PS3 hasn't improved greatly since launch? Secondly, the Move was never meant or advertised to replace the core experience. It's just supposed to be an option. Where as Microsoft has laid everything on the line for Kinect. Not that there's anything wrong with either, it's just two different marketing strategies. And why even bring Move into this? He didn't mention Move at all.

@ravissimo Hey now. I know when the 360 came out I enjoyed Kameo and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I wasn't into the PS3 at launch so I can't say anything about it because I don't know, but the 360 had a couple of "decent" games.

@TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2
Actually you have your argument reversed.

Kinect isn't advertised to replace the core experience. You still have a controller for core experiences. Kinect is intended to draw casual gamers who want a cutting-edge, controller free experience.

If what is meant by the core experience is a gamepad style controller used with FPS, then Move is designed to replace the core experience. I'm not insinuating one is a better option over the other, just that the way Sony has marketed the Move is to replace the gamepad.

Microsoft is targeting a market which it doesn't have a strong position in, the casual games market. Sony, conversely is largely targeting the core gaming market.

Last month, in North America, that meant of the 1.37 million Xbox 360 consoles sold, nearly half of those (over 590,000) were Xbox 360 & Kinect bundles. Where as of the 630,000 PlayStation 3's Sony sold, only 1/5th of those (11,000) were PlayStation 3 & Move bundles.*

I wonder whose marketing strategy is working best?

* Based on numbers provided by NPD and analysis provided by Michael Pachter and VGChartz' Jacob Mazel.

@Jae Brav true, and the kinect has a couple decent games as well. dance central and kinect sports are great games that I've enjoyed thoroughly, but more excellent games require longer development cycles. you can't have halo, call of duty, assassin's creed, etc. type games all at once. it just takes some time for more excellent games to come out. I just keep hearing "where are the games?" and it's annoying, because this isn't the first time a hardware/console release has happened. i'd swear people who ask those questions are 12 years old, and they've never played any other older system besides the current gen systems.

@Adinnieken

I don't meant gameplay wise. I guess I should have used a different term. What I mean is that Microsoft is basically launching the Kinect as it's own console, where as Move is launched as a peripheral. Not meant to be a standalone thing.

@A Sandwich

Looks like this sandwich

*puts glasses on*

is full of bologna.

@Al Davis Put those sunglasses back on.

@Ashitaka

Yo Dance Central is the best dancing game I have ever played and it came out launch day imagine kinect two years from now.... also you got to give it some time.... it just came out less than two months ago.... what you expect a AAA title the first day..... it takes time.

@TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2
Except, according to Sony they're treating the launch of Move as a console launch. Unlike your previous comment, this one flies in the face of what Sony specifically said.

And while I realize you're referring to sales, once again Kinect stand-alone sales are out pacing Move stand-alone sales by a substantial amount.

Also, there have already been "hacks" that discover and track fingers. Seriously, there's a Minority Report style interface that some guys at MIT have come up with already! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlLschoMhuE

@ravissimo

"you can't have halo, call of duty, assassin's creed, etc. type games all at once."

You can't have any of those games. period. You might be able to get away with a stripped down Kinect version, but the level of input needed is not possible with Kinect. Think about all the actions you take in a 30 second period. How would you walk, run, turn around, fire an automatic weapon, reload, crouch, change weapon, zoom in, fire a single shot, throw a grenade then jump a barrier with Kinect that fast without actions being too similar? Most of the "hacks" you see floating around are impressive visually, but use relatively simple controls.

With Kinect?
Doing what, using your finger as a gu....

*lightbulb moment*

...im calling it!

That would be beyond awesome.

*pew pew pew!*

@Riley Freeman

Doubt that will happen for a little while. Kinect just gained some ground with the casual gamers. It needs some time to adjust to core gamers.

@Istari Spartan RDR would actually be pretty boss if you added Kinect support. Then you could point your fingers at the screen gun-style for six-shooters. Every time you "pull" your thumb the guns would fire where you're pointing. It'll never happen of course. :)

@Istari Spartan

I believe Kevin Butler called it before you did.

@Istari Spartan There is a program that reads colors from a standard webcam that allows you to play Half Life 2 entirely with you hands, and fairly accurately. With Kinect having a depth sensor it should be much easier to add that.

Are the PC applications we're seeing for move using the upgraded depth camera image already, or did no one know that the increase was possible? I'd be interested to see what someone could do with the increased resolution, if they aren't already taking advantage.

@BananaBoat - I have got to stop hitting reply, forgetting I've done it, then coming back from eating a sandwich and posting a completely unrelated comment.

@mrmobius Already does, you just need to mount it a little higher. My room is 9ft deep, take away from the dresser on the back wall, and the desk on the front wall, that leaves me at ~6ft between. With Kinect mounted at ~6ft up the wall there is more then enough room for me, and I have played sports in 2 player with no problem at all.

@Prboi I like the New-NXE better, BUT, I liked all the customizaiton options the Blade system had. Changing the images of the blades, changing to color of the guide menu, changing colors of nearly everything and mixing and matching parts from themes with parts from others. If we even got the remotest for of customization with the current dash. For example, the backdround of the Kinect theme, mixed with the friend icons of the Bad Company 2 theme with the foreground(the orb thing that covers the entire bottom half of the screen) color from the Night or 1 vs 100 theme. That is ALL I want.

@Prboi One of the advantages of being a software developer first and foremost. I remember thinking about a decade ago, how potentially 3rd party game developers would have made better first parties, than the existing first parties at the time. With a powerful enough, general purpose designed piece of hardware, savvy software developers can get just about anything to run on it - operating systems, APIs, BIOS, etc. We saw a bit of this when SEGA brought out the Dreamcast back in '99; developers were given the choice of which OS to run the system under. But with Xbox 360, Microsoft has taken the concept to entirely new heights. Every bit of software running on the system is tied directly to the development environment, meaning every bit of software on the system can be rewritten, updated and refreshed, so long as it still runs under the development environment, it will still be 100% compatible with the system itself.

The obvious benefit to this approach, is that you can continually re-invent the system as you see fit. And Microsoft has certainly seen fit to re-invent the system, and no doubt will continue to re-invent it, adding extra years to this generation.

The downside to this approach, is that developers are not allowed to write games in assembly code, direct to the system's hardware. A lot of gamers wrongfully assume that the PS3 is more powerful than the 360 (in truth, they are more evenly powered than most people, even in the gaming press, are willing to give credit for), but in actuality, the difference between the two consoles comes down to one being able to be written direct to the hardware, and the other not. Of course with the way the PS3 is designed (which was not for games, but for blu-ray decoding), as a developer, you really have no choice but to write directly to the system's hardware to get great results from it. Which is where the learning curve that took years to hurdle came from with the PS3.

Back on the 360, one of the other advantages not yet talked about with how the 360 is designed (with all software required to run inside of the development environment), is backwards compatibility on future Xbox-branded hardware. Once again the games on the system are not tied to the hardware, like every other console made before the 360 (and even the PS3 and the Wii). The games are tied to the development environment. Think of this environment like the Windows OS on a PC. We all know that when we buy a game on PC, we can get more powerful computer five years later, and the game we bought, will still run on a PC - no need for emulators, no need for special hardware or anything like that. The game is tied to running under the OS, and the OS is not necessarily tied to any particular bit of hardware. So long as the new OS has a similar kernel and registry system to the old OS, the games just continue to run. Well, Xbox 360 was designed in a similar fashion - Microsoft learning from their mistakes with the first Xbox. Games you buy now, even the games you download from Marketplace, should simply run on the Xbox 720, right out of the box; and it does not matter what hardware or hardware vendor Microsoft choses to go with for their next system. They could go with AMD (CPU) and a super spec'ed PowerVR (GPU) in the next system, and 100% of the games from Xbox 360 should run on the new system just as if they were running on the 360. It's a really sweet setup, which leaves Microsoft free to shop around for the best deals on hardware every time they decide to update to the next generation.

The PS3 on the other hand, having much of it's software written to the hardware itself (just like the PS1 and the PS2), are either locked to using similar hardware for their next console, or forced to keep the PS3's CPU and GPU inside of the PS4 (just like the launch PS3's had the PS2 chips in it, and the PS2 had the PS1 chips in it), to get proper backwards compatibility. Considering how much money Sony has invested in the Cell processor, I am going to go on a limb here and assume they will stick with the Cell processor for the PS4 (which is probably why Valve Software decided to finally support the PS3 after years of ignoring it). Since Sony does not own the PS3 GPU, there is no guarantee they will stick with Nvidia on PS4, but the possibility is still there - but ultimately that is a decision that comes down to which GPU vendor can deliver the best performance vs. cost ratio to satisfy Sony's needs on their next system.

Anyway, that's just a brief look into the difference in basic design philosophies behind both consoles. The 360 was designed with the outlook towards the future of the Xbox and LIVE as platforms that would continue to add to itself with each new (hardware and/or software) iteration - which is why it is so flexible to re-invention. With PS3, Sony looked at what they had done successfully in the past, decided if it was not broken then don't fix it, and replicated past design choices on the PS3. One console is more geared towards future profits, and the other, like it's two predecessors, is gear more toward maximizing profits today.

@Tachyonic Cargo

I don't know how you come up with this, Xbox 360 games are definitely tied to the hardware, especially the GPU. I could even write an XNA indie game that wouldn't run off the Xbox 360 by using certain microcode in my shaders that are unique to the 360 hardware.

@Tachyonic Cargo

Wow, that was very insightful. It's nice to know there are people out there who know what they're talking about instead of some fanboy who claims they know what they're talking about just to prove that they're console of choice is "better". Nice job.

@Tachyonic Cargo

This post should be an auto-reply to any console fanboy comment

@Tachyonic Cargo
wut

@Tachyonic Cargo "they are more evenly powered than most people, even in the gaming press, are willing to give credit for"

Then tell me why playstation exclusives always out shine the competeion? Your telling me that the xbox can pull off uncharted 2? With out cutting conners? I have yet to see a game come close to games like Uncharted, GOW3, GT5 ect...

Also, they've been working on this for how long? Why wasn't the resolution that high before launch?

@Tachyonic Cargo

hahaha c'mon maaannn...

you're all morons if you actually believe EVERYTHING this kid just wrote is truth, The games depend on the system, just not as much as other systems do prob. You actually think Microsoft thought of something that Sony didn't years ago, let alone Nintendo. who have been making systems since the beginning. No. The xbox360 isn't built any more special then its competitors.

and on top of that going with the Cell and Blu-Ray was the best decision and the one that took the biggest balls to go through with for Sony. It made games out shine anything that its competitors are putting out right now, even on the PC... making a HDD standard was also one of the many great decisions they made.

i'm not saying you're 100% wrong but you sure make it look like the 360 can pull off games better then the PS3 because of the way it was built which by now you should know is bullsh!t.

Its not anymore upgradable, unchangeable and uncustomizable then the PS3 is. The only point i can agree with is that the 360 was built around having LIVE manage a big part of it

@PR0F3TA

"A lot of gamers wrongfully assume that the PS3 is more powerful than the 360 (in truth, they are more evenly powered than most people, even in the gaming press, are willing to give credit for)"

really??

@mmmfishtacos

The reason why developers don't push 360 to it's limits is because they want to maintain the single disc format. Xbox 360 can easily pull off an Uncharted quality game but right now, the only developers that pulled so many things off on a single disc is Bungie. That's the downfall of DVD 9. But now, more & more developers are not taking chances on quality just to maintain the content on a single disc. Square Enix, Konami, & Bioware are releasing their games on 2 - 3 discs so that they can maintain the quality of their game & not cut corners like most devs do. I've said this before & I'll say it again, the only thing keeping games exclusive to their respective consoles is money.

@PR0F3TA You do realize MS has been in business far longer than their video game consoles right?

@PR0F3TA When the military needed super computer clusters to run advanced calculations they choose the 36.... oh wait

@Prboi

Memory is a main factor to what makes a game. Sure it can be the most beautiful game out there but if it only has 5 levels, what good is it? It also has to do with the engine used for the game. If it's built specifically for use with the PS3 or 360 then it would be a challenge to re-create it for the opposite console. But each console has their potential. Yes the PS3 is the (technically) more powerful console because of what you can do with it, but the 360 can easily match it. Right now, in terms of power, PS3 has the upper hand simply because of Blu-Ray. But with the Digital Download age on the rise, it's not so stupid to say that MS's next console will be download only. With physical media out of the way, developers can easily create games of super high quality & length

@mmmfishtacos MS has got to be happy with the amount of hate they receive from Sony fangirls. When you get hate like this you know you've made it.

You just brought up the military using ps3s as some kind of point. Grasping at straws like this is bullentein board material.

Anyway, it's a pretty lame excuse as to why they haven't even come close. Okay, let's take car modeling from Forza and Gt5, just compare that, there isn't any reason disk space should hold something back like that. It's obvious that GT's modeling is beyond what Forza has been doing.

@Jack Kevorkian: It's the development enviroment that is tied to the hardware and that is capable of being set to Windows, Zune, 360, etc.

@mmmfishtacos

Actaully yes it is. Forza didn't need 1000 cars to make their game good. If they had used more space, they could have easily made the game look more like GT5 if not better. But Forza is not a racing sim. GT5 is meant to look pretty because it's supposed to mimic real life racing so the closer they come to that, the better the game will be in their eyes. Forza is not a racing sim so realism is the least important to them

@Prboi
"The reason why developers don't push 360 to it's limits is because they want to maintain the single disc format".
So basically, Xbox developers are lazy to press one more DVD?

"Xbox 360 can easily pull off an Uncharted quality game but right now, the only developers that pulled so many things off on a single disc is Bungie. That's the downfall of DVD 9."
It could easily pull an Uncharted quality game, but we are yet to see one.

"But now, more & more developers are not taking chances on quality just to maintain the content on a single disc. Square Enix, Konami, & Bioware are releasing their games on 2 - 3 discs so that they can maintain the quality of their game & not cut corners like most devs do."
You know you're rendering your previous statement null with that comment, do you?

"I've said this before & I'll say it again, the only thing keeping games exclusive to their respective consoles is money."
That's what keeping Xbox exclusives; most of Sony's are first party ones. Just check the list of next year releases. Xbox has what? 2 first party games?

@mmmfishtacos

You mean the minority of 'premium' cars?

That took them 6 years to make.

@Nikkinik And by all that, i couldn't care less of which console is better or worse, but just hate when people is full of bull.

@Jack Kevorkian to be fair, hate is equal from both sides of the fence. Besides I'm not hating. Just pointing out the fact the sonys exclusive are better looking. Never even said they are better games.