Thursday, November 25, 2010

My Take On Kinect


So, It's the time of the year where folks are scrambling to get that one great gift that everyone in the family will enjoy for whatever holiday they're celebrating. One of those possible must haves is Kinect, Microsoft's highly touted motion control device for the Xbox 360. I recently got to put my hands on Kinect, and while it has flaws, It will probably be a hit regardless. As far as details go, this is my take on the device.

First off, the Kinect makes interacting with your Xbox a new experience, especially considering that gamers can use a number of voice commands to initiate a lot of important functions. As of right now, there are only a few prompts that are recognized by Kinect and there's no time frame as to an update to the device's firmware.

Setting up Kinect doesn't seem as complicated as some would have you believe, but you most certainly will need a great deal of space when setting up and using Kinect. Kinect requires 9 feet of space to work properly, so those in small apartments will be quite frustrated with set up when all they want to do is play. Long story short, if you don't have a lot of room, you may want to skip Kinect.

The most important part of this whole thing is whether or not it plays as well as advertised. The only annoyance I can foresee is that every original player will have to be calibrated to the unit. If not, it won't read properly, and will result in quite an annoying experience. Once it's calibrated to each player, Kinect can provide a great experience for folks looking for a way to bring families together around the TV. Will Kinect be used for Gears of War 3 or Ninja Gaiden 3, right now, I don't see it, but the folks at Microsoft are probably hard at work on a way to use Kinect for more "hardcore" games. Does it justify the seemingly steep price tag? For me, it doesn't just yet, but it's still a great device and something that will provide lots of fun for gamers and their families.

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