Microsoft Kinect Hands-On: Lots of Potential, Limited in Current Scope [UPDATE]
UPDATE: Kinect ships millions of units and Apple reportedly misses opportunity to launch Kinect itself.
Microsoft (MSFT) released the Kinect motion control system to much fanfare yesterday, and I was fortunate enough to get one for my home on launch day. After spending some hours with the XBox 360 peripheral, the Kinect feels like a great idea that is awkward in execution. It will not change the way consumers access multimedia this holiday, nor, at this point, will it give the Nintendo (NTYDO) Wii or Apple (APPL) TV a run for the money on Black Friday. There's plenty of potential here, but Microsoft obviously needs more time to make it a must-have accessory.
First, the good news:
Controller-free control: Being (almost) free of a controller is pretty amazing. Provided you are at the right distance (see below), the Kinect was sharp and responsive. A hand icon appears on the screen relative to your motion. Holding your hand over a menu option for a few seconds selects it. The Kinect experience isn't quite the now-cliched Minority Report experience, as the setup is more pause-and-move than flipping through screens quickly, but it a great step in the right direction. Even the small Nintendo Wii sticks feel clunky after using the Kinect motion controls.
User awareness: The Kinect actually uses facial recognition to tell which user is in front of the machine. The XBox 360 will then pull up the appropriate multimedia profile with the onscreen avatar, current status, and other details. As hinted during the Kinect event in June, users in the future will be able to have their favorite media available without touching a button. (The facial recognition worked fine, despite some misnomers that it wouldn't pick up people of color.)
Excellent speech recognition: Really, the Kinect's listening ability is exceptional. Say "XBox" followed by a command and the machine reacts instantly. It is contextual, so the commands are limited to the options available onscreen. The multimedia potential here is awesome, but, because of the limitation outlined below, still unfulfilled at this point.
There are a ton of issues Microsoft needs to work out, and most of them are based on promises given during its extensive Kinect unveiling last summer:
Only about half of the multimedia connects: The Kinect's biggest selling point is controller free media management, but the user can't have much of it yet. The hyped ability to comb through your Netflix movie catalog, pushing the covers horizontally and tapping on the desired one, isn't available here. Neither is the ability to navigate the basic XBox 360 menus. Instead, once the Kinect is activated, Microsoft sends users to yet another separate menu with limited options. Beyond video games, the Kinect-enabled multimedia areas are ESPN 3, Last.fm, and Microsoft's own Zune Marketplace. They all work fairly well, but it's still not enough to make Kinect a preferred multimedia hub.
Still controller dependent: Beyond the multimedia issue, even basic choices require users to have the controller in reach. For instance, some of the Kinect options actually require tapping a particular button when, with better planning, Microsoft could have truly made it controller free. To paraphrase a common complaint on the online message boards, why would I flip-flop between waving my hands and grabbing the controller when I can just use the joystick and get it done faster?
Really big living room required: Microsoft wasn't kidding about needing space for the Kinect, as, as the picture above indicates, the camera needs users to be at least six feet away to be recognized. Purchasers will be moving furniture or, at the very least, working around it. Unfortunately, even more than six feet is required for the initial setup. When I initiated Kinect, it asked me to step well beyond the six feet, to about eight feet, for it to recognize me. Like I said months ago, the Kinect system is not practical for the average urbanite living in Silicon Valley, Manhattan, or any other spot where space is premium. Comparatively, the Wii controllers can be comfortably used as close as four feet from the television.
Lackluster games: As noted in the past, the handful of launch titles are fairly boring family fare. The one potential breakout hit is MTV Games' Dance Central, which may do for dancing what the company's Rock Band did for instruments. The problem with the other titles is that they do little-to-nothing to improve what Nintendo, the masters of interactive family entertainment, did four years ago with the Wii -- creating a better-looking bowling game doesn't cut it. The best-selling Microsoft games include Halo, Call of Duty, and other mature titles, but the milquetoast options, along with the undeveloped multimedia hub, give hardcore gamers no reason to buy Kinect right now.
Kinect is a start in the right direction, especially when we look at the potential, as my BNET colleague Erik Sherman notes, of Microsoft applying the technology to PCs and tablets. Most importantly, many of these limitations can be fixed with software updates. As of right now, however, the lack of multimedia integration and the still controller-dependent experience will make it a wait-and-see instead of a must-have this holiday season.
Photo courtesy of Microsoft.
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