Microsoft Kinect: The AnandTech Review
by Brian Klug on December 9, 2010 3:20 PM ESTKinect Interaction
The primary interactions with Kinect are pretty simple, there are really only a handful of gestures. To start using Kinect from the normal dashboard, or pretty much anywhere, you wave your hand. That lets Kinect lock onto which hand you’re going to use to gesture with, and it applies almost everywhere - be prepared to do a lot of waving. Waving in the normal dashboard brings up the Kinect dashboard, which is essentially a Kinect-specific ‘lite’ version of the main dashboard. It’s a bit disappointing that Kinect doesn’t nicely bolt onto the main dashboard, but all the core functions like launching games and doing Kinect specific tasks are covered.
Inside the Kinect dashboard, you can navigate around and interact with your hands, or by saying “Xbox” and any of the words on the dashboard. It works pretty well, but honestly I haven’t found myself using voice very much.
Selection is done by holding your hand over an item - a progress circle rings around and chimes, letting you know you’ve made a selection. Moving from page to page on the Kinect dashboard involves hovering over the arrows at left and right and swiping appropriately. It’s probably the only gesture I don’t really think is perfect, but it works.
The next main gesture is universal pause, which involves holding your right arm at your side, and sticking your left arm out at 45 degrees. Holding it there also brings up the progress circle and chime, and then pops up the game menu.
This is essentially analogous to pressing the center Xbox button on a controller, though Microsoft calls this the Kinect Guide, from here you use the hand gestures and selection to either escape out to the dash, return, view awards, or launch the Kinect tuner. That’s really all there is to it, as further gestures are game and activity specific but always pretty intuitive. I've put together a small video showing off interaction and navigation, and a small tour of some of the Kinect apps.
Voice Commands
When I first saw the Kinect voice commands, there was a lot of talk about other players being able to effectively troll Kinect users by yelling “Xbox Pause” or “Xbox Stop.” I randomly would shout that, and found it interesting that there aren’t too many - abruptly stop and exit what I’m doing - voice commands, and especially not any in games. Most of the time, you have to say yes afterwards, so if you want to troll, say “Xbox Pause Yes.” In fact, outside of the dashboard and a few of the Kinect-specific apps like Zune, Last.fm, and ESPN, there really aren’t a whole lot of voice command areas.
I guess that’s a good enough segue into the apps and games themselves. The first thing you should know is that everything requires an update - that’s not hyperbole, literally everything seems to require a 50 MB update. That’s all the Kinect-specific applications like Zune, Last.fm, videoKinect, and ESPN. Games also all require updates, but they’re smaller. 50 MB is about average for all the other applications, however.
I realize it’s nit-picking to complain about updates, but the whole process would be much more bearable if it was one monolithic update at the beginning instead of the scatter-shot frustration of having to wait every time you try something new. It isn’t PS3 level, where you literally need another console or distraction to occupy yourself with while you wait for device firmware, then game updates to apply, but I’d be lying if I didn’t think about how eerily similar the situation is.
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Noriaki - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Yeah, I just meant the 350 part. Referring to it as the 360 S to distinguish it from the 360 Pro makes sense to me.Noriaki - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
PS: Thanks for the in-depth coverage. This is the first time I feel like I got a good idea of what having a Kinect in my living room would mean for practical things like where my couch lives.Aikouka - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Brian, have you tried out DanceMasters (DM)? I noticed you commented on how your girlfriend compared Dance Central (DC) to DDR where DanceMasters is actually created by Konami.I own DM and have played the DC game, and I have to say... you'd probably be disappointed in the DM menu system as it is a tad bit harder to control. Way too often I found myself skipping past the option I wanted (as all options move left or right) and you then have to raise your (right) hand to select it. The problem comes when it might see you move your hand out to the right and actually shift your choice over one right before you raise your hand.
The part where I think DM beats DC is the actual dancing. In the demo for DC, I found it awkwardly difficult to pay attention to the way the dancer was moving (left or right, etc) and the upcoming movement that was shown on the right side of the screen. When my brother and his girlfriend played, I noticed one huge trend... we *all* would miss the first dance move after they changed from one move to another.
This is kind of better in DM, because it uses arrows that signify how your hand (or hands) should move in a second or two. There are also circles that will appear on the screen and you must hit them with either your hands or feet (obvious depending on the location). The last movement is the "pose silhouettes" that appear on the left and right side and are green in color. They move to the center of the screen and when the two silhouettes combine, you are supposed to be in that pose. The only problem is that it's not terribly picky on what you do in between these three types of inputs and another problem is that it loves to put circles beneath your feet (so you keep moving), but they're hard to notice. I found this easy to combat by simply always moving your feet.
Overall, there's a huge difference in the style of music between the two as well, which influenced my decision. I've never been a "Top 40s" kinda guy and I've played DDR quite a bit, so I went with the game that had the music style I was used to ( and also considering that I've heard quite a bit of Eurobeat, which DM also has ).
The one thing that was always fun about DC was the "freestyle" section where it shows you as this sort of glowing silhouette and you just do whatever dance you want. At the end, it will play this back to you in a sort of time-lapse video (which you can then save).
To talk about a different game, I noticed some problem with jumping in Kinect... mostly in the rail-based obstacle course. Maybe I was just doing little hops and Kinect didn't register it... maybe it was a problem with the cargo pants (khaki color, so they're fairly flesh-toned) that I was wearing. It was pretty crazy though... at one point I had to duck down, so I dropped to my knees and then needed to switch sides, so I pulled out the Starfox-esque barrel roll! Kinect did actually sense that correctly.
The one thing I did notice is that it is *very* common in Kinect Adventures for it to yell at me about getting too close or too far... especially in the bubble popping mini-game.
Brian Klug - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
I haven't checked out Dance Masters, but I'm starting to think that I definitely should. I think at the time when I originally put together this list of games, that wasn't available and I overlooked it. I'll grab it and maybe update with a page or two.It's interesting how dancing games are quickly becoming something Kinect is very well suited for. I definitely agree about jumping and the clothing choice, I have a pair of cargo shorts that just don't work with most of the titles, and Kinect Adventures does yell a lot about position, agreed.
-Brian
GSJ - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
If only i could use this with my p.c.....ExarKun333 - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
I purchased the Kinect soon after the launch and I came to pretty much the same conclusions are Brian. The lag is there, but acceptable. More importantly, the games are FUN. MS did a great job with this launch. The hardware is easy to install and configure, and the games are easy to pick up on. I agreed 100% that the menus in DC are superior to the method in the Dashboard. Maybe an update at some time? :)knowom - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
267ms on a DAW would be completely unthinkable in fact most people that play or record music try to stay below 10ms.I'm just using that example as a clear easy to demonstrate reason to why 267ms is a abysmal amount of input lag you can completely rule out music based kinect games as well as any twitch/quick reflex input games or applications.
SodaAnt - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
In the comment about the laser probably being 650-700 nm, that is wrong. 650nm is the wavelength of a normal red laser pointer. Normal IR diodes lase at either 780, 808 or 980nm.Brian Klug - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Hmm it's on the fringes of what I'd consider visible, but 780 probably is a much better choice. I'll update.-Brian
mcnabney - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Okay, I am probably the only prig to bring this up, but the distances required seem to be a problem for some not often thought of reasons.9-12 feet of clearance appears to be required, which means the sofa will need to be 15' back (unless you move it every time you fire up the Kinnect).
I would point out that you would need to have a 55"+ HDTV to fully benefit from the 1080p image from the Kinnect playing area, For regular game playing / movie watching on the sofa (behind the playing area) you would require a 100"!!!!! screen to fully resolve the 1080p image that the Xbox360 or a BluRay player is capable of displaying.
For this thing to really work in a robust media environment (and most living rooms) it should have been able to to work perfectly with the user standing 3-5' from the screen.