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One issue could mar the success of the launch, though. According to a story at Gamespot, several employees with dark skin tones had trouble being scanned by the facial recognition software. This feature is designed to detect a player simply by entering the Kinect's field of view, eliminating the need for choosing a player profile before starting a game. "The system recognized one employee inconsistently, while it was never able to properly identify the other despite repeated calibration attempts," the article reports.
Although this issue may steal the spotlight away from the launch, it is not uncommon in webcams to have facial detection issues. Especially when using low-resolution cameras, dark skin tones can be harder to detect and track, something that has troubled other webcam makers in the past. Microsoft is asking for anyone experiencing a problem to contact them via email and stresses that the system is designed to work with people of all shapes and ethnicities.
User Comments: 51
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150$ is too much for me. Well it's better than compared to the EU price which is about 130 pounds!
I live in a second economical range country, and that's just too much. I'll wait till it goes down to 100$ maybe.
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Guest said:
Is this ever going to PC platform.??
Why would you want such crap on PC? Keep the PC for real games and gamers, not this crap. Move Facebook games to Kinect too.
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n00bzzy said:
Why would you want such crap on PC? Keep the PC for real games and gamers, not this crap. Move Facebook games to Kinect too.
This.
Ah, it's great when people just say the things I would say.
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I'm wondering if the issue with poor facial detection due to darker skin tones could be rectified with better lighting during game play. One solution to this problem would be to attach detection points on a poorly detected persons face and body. However, such a solution would take away from Kinect's fun factor and ease of use. Plus, such a solution would not be accepted favorably in social terms.
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Is anyone actually going to buy the Kinect? I think they're too late to enter the "wireless motion" market. The Wii has been out for years, and while the Kinect is an improved version, I think Microsoft has missed their mark, same with Sony.
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There is a great deal of potential with the kinect, but i am going to wait and see what kind of software comes out before i consider buying it.
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I think its gonna make a buz for while then everybody will prefer a controller, people are lazy, they prefer moving fingers than there whole body to a play game, (how cool is it if it comes with a hologram controller!), the only good part is that the interface control will be a lot fun and easy,
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make sure you buy one right away
do not wait for games to be written or for real reviews to come out
Microsoft needs your money now more then ever
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I think Kinect won't sell very well because of the crappy Wii looking games that are out up until and around Christmas, the only good fun looking one is Dance Central and that's just my opinion.
It's a shame because the technology is very good but unless Microsoft developed something revolutionary from 'the ground up' for Kinect then it's just going to fail.
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I've learned my lesson from being an early adapter before. I think I will wait until they work out some of the bugs, prices drop, and there are a few more games available. It does look like an exciting product though. I imagine that I will eventually get one.
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I'll wait for my brother to buy a LED tv,Kinect will have more sense then since i'm playing on a 22" LCD monitor,but i'm looking forward to acquiring it very soon...
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Isn't Microsoft supposed to test their products before the ship them out? Don't they
have any black developers?....
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I'll wait it out and see what Microsoft has planned down the road. It's pretty obvious that this launch was geared towards the more casual friendly with family games and not core gamers like most of us. What peaked my interest though was the discussion of hybrid games (Kinect + Controller), which if done right could be amazing. [LINK]
On top of that one the greatest things with Kinect is what it could accomplish outside of gaming. Kinect clearly has a lot of potential and I don't see why Microsoft won't exploit it and bring this product beyond gaming.
Regarding the "racist" Kinect issue, it has already been debunked over at Consumers Report. They attribute the issue to low-level lighting which is pretty much identical to the racist HP laptops that the media discovered last year. [LINK]
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I have always said this is gonna fail. Maybe I am wrong. I can't see ''hardcore'' Gamers using this,
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Wow, the Dark skin issue better be fixed or im gonna be in a big debate whether i should get it or not!!
still i like where Microsoft is going with this and although they did copy nintendo, a little, they still made it pretty well. Although im not so sure whether they'd be able to sell 5 million units
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Not surprising at all kinect seems awesome I guess there isnt really a reason for not getting it unless u already have a wii or u dont wanna pay alot of money (150) if u have an xbox or 399-499 without....
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*Microsoft Employee*
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guru1294 said:
Wow, the Dark skin issue better be fixed or im gonna be in a big debate whether i should get it or not!!
Check out my link, the issue is with lighting over all. And not being recognized doesn't impair your ability to play from my understanding just your recognition in regards to your Avatar.
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Just whack on some shoe polish on your face and then you can sue MS
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treetops said:
You can use this on any xbox 360 from what I read. I will be buying one on black friday, this is the main reason I bought a xbox off ebay a few months back
. To all you dark skinnies clown make up ftw? -
treetops said:
Btw it only mentions it having an issue with face recognition, thats probably just for logging on, you can do that with a controller, I doubt you will use your face in game lol. Maybe bewitched the game or something.
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strong sales expected? lol, they better wait seated!
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@gobbybobby, it's entirely possible that hardcore gamers aren't going to use it, but then again, hardcore gamers aren't that enthusiastic about the Wii, and it sold much better than the other consoles. I bet Microsoft is counting on the same effect. Let's fact it, hardcore gamers are a minority. Not on the 360 (or PS3) currently, but they could become so even there.
I think that Kinect can be useful for certain types of games, i.e., those where full body motion is natural. Dance games are an obvious example. Can't see it taking over hardcore games, though.
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I think its pathetic what sony and microsoft are doing... some of those games are identical to those on the wii, they're by no means new or unique. I'll accept the new ideas but i'm not seeing a lot of those.
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naah. Kinect is new technology. Not accelerometers. MS has jumped the gun on this one though. I do face detection and gesture recog for a living and there are no 100% solutions out there in academia yet, so MS is just hoping that people will follow their guidelines to set kinect up and not complain too much. That said, MS is trying to use their E3 approach here, 'embrace, engage, exterminate' or something like that. They want to be remembered as the folks who first brought gesture recog to the market and hope that this pays off when the big-bucks apps arrive on the scene for gesture recog. E.g. for enterprise users (imagine not having keyboards) or for business presentations (not having to click through). Still, that's about 10 years away. MS has to wait for a whole new generation to come in before they can expect the new kids to adapt to the new tech. The current generation is still fixated on social networking. Imagine, MS and facebook together, 'schedule an event w/ all your friends to play volleyball in Antarctica (rendered environment) using kinect-enabled web technologies'. DAT's where the money's at me-homies.
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