Microsoft Kinect: The AnandTech Review
by Brian Klug on December 9, 2010 3:20 PM ESTESPN
So how are the apps? In general there’s nothing to complain about, they just work. ESPN isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but it’s interesting since the video-scrub and select gesture lives in here. If your ISP is a compatible partner, you get access to a variety of live games, event highlights, and other videos. I’m on Cox, note that there’s ISP branding in the top right below the ESPN symbol showing that my ISP qualifies me to use this feature.
It’s actually pretty cool you can pull up a list of live events and stream them whenever you want. They’ll continue streaming for a short time inside the large screen until you scrub to other videos.
Inside of an actual video, the controls are a bit interesting. Moving your hand up to the top brings up a video scrubber bar, where you can control fast forward and rewind speed by moving your hand left or right. Moving your hand down then selects the current frame and starts playing. There’s not really any buffering, you just start with a low quality connection and gradually scale up. HD isn’t bad, but there still are some compression artifacts and blocking with fast motion, but it’s close to Netflix quality.
Interestingly enough, when watching live events one of my immediate curiosities was what happens during commercial breaks. Sure enough, a few minutes in and I found out:
Though that’s boring, the fact that ESPN is willing to risk it all and offer streaming live events to Xbox Live subscribers is pretty awesome, and I can’t complain about the Kinect interaction. The only awkward part of this experience is that the hand gestures are best suited to you standing in front of the display - as with all Kinect interactions. It’s a reasonable expectation that you’d want to watch a game or video sitting down, and although you can select things with your hands whilst sitting, it just doesn’t work as well.
Zune
The Kinect Zune client is probably the most barebones of the notable preinstalled Kinect applications. Fire it up, and you get a screen with the usual suspects in the same Kinect style - a grid of large tiles.
What I find a bit strange here is that there really aren’t many audio commands cues beyond suggesting a movie. In fact, the problem really rises from the fact that Kinect doesn’t understand words, names, and titles that aren’t in its voice recognition corpus.
ESPN gets around this by cleverly having you vocalize which number video you want played - video one through six are your options. You can’t just speak the name of the game or the title. Similarly, you can’t search.
Last.fm
The Kinect-tailored Last.fm experience is similarly laid out. Six tiles you can hover over and make selections with the same way the rest of the Kinect interface Microsoft has put together works.
What’s interesting about both the Last.fm and Zune applications is that hovering over the large back arrow takes you back into the controller-land versions of these applications. You’re transported essentially right back into the vanilla experience that existed before Kinect - this is just another way of getting there. Waving your hands around inside those experiences brings you into the Kinect-ified versions of those programs.
The big question mark in my mind is where the Kinect version of Netflix is. Netflix on Xbox 360 is admittedly rich enough to get by without needing a Kinect environment, but it’d be nice to see Netflix given the Kinect treatment the same way the rest of the core Xbox services have been.
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docmbm - Sunday, December 12, 2010 - link
Or is it?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbLOFGSEDo
Well try it and give us an update.
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Docmbm
Hrel - Sunday, December 12, 2010 - link
I REALLY hope new consoles are at least announced at this coming E3. Even if they don't come out till summer 2012; I wanna know developers have them and can finally move past DX9. I mean seriously, it's been out for what, 10 years now? Time to move forward. DX 11 all the way.nikon133 - Sunday, December 12, 2010 - link
Some time ago I would say the same, but...I was playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on PS3 for long time - more than six months on and off - mostly enjoying online play after I finished campaign. Recently I got new ATI 6870 graphics for my PC and, having now whole PC more than decent enough, borrowed PC version of Bad Company 2 from my friend.
My box is now capable of running this game in full HD with all the bells and whistles (I think I've got only AA disabled as I'm finding native 1920x1080 on 23" monitor perfectly adequate) so I was expecting to be blown away with difference between those two versions. I wasn't. While PC version does look better, I honestly expected much more for 2 generations of DirectX hardware difference, not to mention all the other resources my PC has over PS3. Higher resolution, smoother shadows, a bit more effects (smoke, fog, sandstorm...) are visible for pixel-peepers, but once I get immersed in the game, I really didn't feel PS3 version inferior, even if I was playing same levels on both platforms one after another.
Later on I tried Dirt 2, Burnout Paradise... and to the same conclusion. PC versions, to my eyes, were not better enough to make PS3 experience inferior.
I have a feeling PC programmers are getting a bit lazy and spoiled with all the hardware power they have, they are not putting much effort to optimise their code to the last bit of power. Surely Quad Core with 8GB of RAM, X-Fi Gamer audio and latest DX11 graphics with 1GB of DDR5 should be able to smoke DX9 graphics with 256MB of RAM and 256MB of system RAM much more than this..?
Back to the topic - while I'm not much into jumping and waving games - part to my humble 42 years of age - I see potential in them, especially that modern consoles should be offering fun for the whole family. I actually got PS Move and am throwing Frisbee and doing other Sports Champions games with my lady often enough to justify this purchase. Games are not BC2 grade, but they are quick fun in their own game.
Are you guys planning to review PS Move system as well? I enjoyed your Kinect review and would like to see your opinion on other comparable gear.
CptTripps - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Bad example on BC2 as it uses DX11 to simply speed up the shader performance, it adds nothing visually (from what I have read).I am suprised on the Dirt2 conclusion as I found the PC version far superior.
You are right though, the dx9 console versions look and play fine.
I played the move a little and it's not for me, a high res wii basically. I thought the hardware worked very well though.
I may pick up Kinect as the wife and daughters want it (plus they will finally let me sell that POS called the Wii).
m3kw - Monday, December 13, 2010 - link
They should make a video capture of what you during the game play, and when you are done, you can select a option that says "This is how stupid you looked, select to watch", and another option to send to youtube and facebook. The video will be split screen one showing the game and the other showing you. LOL! Is actually will spread like a viral video.Todd33 - Monday, December 13, 2010 - link
Was the author starring at a big MS check the whole time? So many errors (sports being 1:1), Adventures being great, that's why is is averaging 60% and being called shallow mini games with no depth. Where are some test on the resolution, does a wrist motion in bowling or TT do anything or is it all exaggerated arm motions?How does the $150 cheaper than Sony's $99 bundle? Not to mention with the wii you get a whole console for $199, not just an add-on with 3-4 decent games and 12 more shovelware. What about the future of Kinect, can it do anything other than shallow mini-games and dance crap?
This article just exaggerated all the good and then downright ignored any negatives. I guess I will stick to arstech for more realistic reviews.
CptTripps - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
You can get a Wii for $200 and play single player games at 480i.... awesome.With the 99$ Move bundle you get a camera and one motion controller, add another $50 per motion controller plus another $30 per navigation controller, times that by 3 and your 99$ price point just flew out the window.
At $150 being able to handle up to four inputs make any price point arguments stupid as you would easily spend that on extra controllers.
The 360s with kinect for $300 is a great deal and will support 4 players right out of the box. If you think that is a horrible deal that's your problem, but try to be realistic and not throw out BS arguments.
medi01 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Last article on PS3 dated 5/16/2005, eh?I wonder, how does this "press" thingy work.
Who decides what gets reviewed and what not.
Is it pure 'patriotism" in revieweing only what "US company" does (let's forget the fact, that we talk about transnational companies that manufacture in China), or something else?
Tuvok86 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I tried Kinect adventures at a friend's place and I've found the lag very irritating the arkanoid-like game with the balls was almost unplayablema2ree - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I find your article very impressive and informative. Your a bright and funny young man. Thanks for the article.