One month on from the Kinect launch, and Microsoft’s motion-control hardware has just hit 2.5 million sales - a phenomenal number, especially when compared to the PlayStation Move’s 1.5 million sales in the first month (and when you consider that a number of Move gamers will have picked up multiple controllers). We gave the Kinect hardware a glowing review back at launch, fully enjoying what we believed not just to be the future of gaming, but also the future of technology in the home.
With 28 days of Kinect gaming under our belts, do we still feel the same way, or has the shine finally been rubbed off? Other review outlets we’re not so kind about Kinect, complaining about issues with motion lag and living room space. We can honestly say that after several weeks with the hardware, we’re still completely in love with it, and are eagerly awaiting what 2011 will hold. Join us now as we explain why all the naysayers are wrong.
Do you really need a huge living room to play?
A good portion of the internet had a good old moan about the space needed in front of your TV to play properly with Kinect. The recommended area required is 6-10 feet, which is roughly 2-3 metres. Plenty of Kinecters said that they simply did not have this much space, and that the hardware was unable to pick up all their movements.
We call shenanigans on all this over-exaggerated tomfoolery. The area in which we’ve been testing our Kinect is a tiny apartment with an average-sized living room, and we had no problems whatsoever. Sure, we had to slide a coffee table against the wall, but other than that the space available was perfectly fine. Measuring the area we’ve been working with, our maximum length from the TV to the nearest obstacle is 2.2 metres, or 7.2 feet - at the bottom end of the recommended area, and yet completely reasonable for playing.
The only time we ever found that space was a slight issue was when playing multiplayer, but even then it was only certain games that would cause problems. Every game where you’re on the spot moving your body went off without a hitch, and it was only games where both players were moving their feet all over the place when entanglement happened.
The most interesting aspect of all this talk of playing space is that the official maximum recommended viewing distance for your TV is much further than Kinect is asking. For a 28” widescreen television, SMPTE recommends that you should be sat at least 10.6 feet away from the TV - 0.6 feet further than the maximum area Kinect requires. In other words, if you don’t have the space to play Kinect, then SMPTE standards state that you’re not far enough away from your television anyway!
Is the motion lag really that bad?
Again, this issue has been blown way out of proportion. In the majority of Kinect games, there is barely any visible lag between your movement and the movement of your character on screen - and even when there is, it rarely affects play. Certain games definitely do have problems, but it is usually in games where quick, last-minute movements matter. For example, in the rafting minigame in Kinect Adventures, you need to jump a second before a drop to make it count (although the game is very forgiving).
Many of the games feature no noticeable lag whatsoever - we didn’t once find that Dance Central was having issues, and Kinectimals didn’t present us with any lag either, suggesting that either there is a method for combating lag, or certain developers have not yet pushed Kinect to its full capabilities. Over the next year we’re bound to see Kinect titles eliminating the majority of lag from all experiences.
Was the Kinect launch line-up so terrible?
Launch line-ups are interesting, as they’re always such a talking point whenever new hardware is released, yet just six months later no-one even remembers what the initial line-up was like! So Kinect didn’t have the most incredible games on arrival - our highest score awarded to a Kinect launch game was 8.5 for Dance Central - yet compare it to, well, pretty much every single gaming launch line-up that has ever happened, and suddenly it begins to look completely reasonable.
Let’s compare it to the Xbox 360 2005 launch, for example - back then, we were ‘blessed’ with the likes of Perfect Dark Zero, PGR3 and Ridge Racer 6 - good, but not exactly the most amazing set of releases. Then you had a bunch of PS2 ports and plenty of sports titles, including two NBA games, NHL 2K6, FIFA 06 and the latest Tiger Woods. In total there were 18 Xbox 360 games on launch, compared to Kinect’s 14 - hardly much difference at all.
The issue with launch line-ups is that the majority of developers don’t want to jump on the bandwagon until they can see that there is money to be made, and it is a worthwhile business move - and now that Kinect has sold very well indeed, you can be certain that plenty more developers and publishers will be getting a piece of the action in the coming years.
It’s far too expensive, isn’t it?
We’d be lying if we said that the price didn’t shock us - when the $150/£130 tag was first announced, we definitely let out a quick ‘How much?!’. However, once you begin to compare what you’re getting with other motion controllers out there - aka the Playstation Move - then it slowly dawns on you that you’re really not getting a bad deal at all.
Consider this - to fully experience the Move, you need a Move starter pack (one Move controller and the PlayStation Eye for £50), another Move controller (£30), two Navigation controllers (£20 each) and a game (£30). That’s a total of £150 if you want the full multiplayer experience - £20 more than what you’d need for a multiplayer game of Kinect with Kinect Adventures.
Add into the equation the fact that Kinect features facial recognition, voice recognition and a depth sensor, and suddenly Kinect is looking mighty fine for the asking price.
Conclusion:
So, has Kinect won the motion-control battle then? In terms of sales there’s still a far distance to go, as Sony announced yesterday that the Move has sold 4.1 million units. Where entertainment is concerned, however, Kinect has definitely won our hearts and continues to do so weeks on.
If reading reviews has put you off picking a Kinect up, we’d suggest finding a store where they are demoing the hardware and giving it a go for yourself - you may well find, like we did, that it is one of the best gaming experiences you’ve had in a good while.
