stories filed under: "kinect"

Xbox One Caves Again: Console Will Now Be Offered Sans Kinect

from the customers-rule dept

Tue, May 13th 2014 8:38pm — Timothy Geigner

It's been a relatively tough road for Microsoft's Xbox One, even as it's early in the console's life. You should recall that the console was initially designed to require some degree of online connectivity to work; a plan that was subsequently walked back after consumers revolted. It was the same for proposed limitations on used games, which caused similar outrage. The console was also supposed to not be fully operational without the bundled Kinect engaged, but that plan was also scrapped because customers hated the idea. Left in place were consumers questioning why they had to pay for the Kinect device at all, given the paltry sum of games that actually utilized it.

Well, the trend continues, now that Microsoft has announced in an absolutely tone-deaf blog post that there will now be an Xbox One offering that comes sans Kinect. The post, laughably, is entitled "Delivering More Choices for Fans."

Today, we're excited to share more ways your feedback is impacting the products we build. First, beginning on June 9th, in all markets where Xbox One is sold, we will offer Xbox One starting at $399*. This is a new console option that does not include Kinect. For $399, our new Xbox One offering will continue to deliver access to the best blockbuster games like "Titanfall," "Call of Duty: Ghosts," "Forza Motorsport 5," "Dead Rising 3," and the upcoming "Watch Dogs," "Destiny" and "Sunset Overdrive." You will also be able to access popular entertainment apps, such as Twitch, YouTube, and Netflix, as well as watch live TV and use OneGuide. Finally, you will continue to be able to use many of the unique features of Xbox One including the ability to get game invites while you watch TV, switch between games and entertainment apps, enjoy Twitch broadcasts, and upload your favorite gaming moments. Next, we're bringing more value to Xbox Live Gold members and offering all Xbox 360 and Xbox One owners access to entertainment apps whether or not you have an Xbox Live Gold membership.

Let's deal with these in order. The demand for a console that comes without the bundled Kinect device has been around since, oh I don't know, before the console was even released. To pretend that Microsoft is now benevolently bending to the will of consumers makes it sound like they haven't been aware of the demand until recently. That's not true. They're actually bending to consumer will of another form, the resulting trouncing of their console by Sony's Playstation, which has a better record (for this generation, at least) of actually delivering to consumers what they want. Relatively speaking, they're getting their asses kicked, and now they're scrambling to try to appease potential customers.

As for Microsoft finally releasing their entertainment apps to folks who aren't paying for the Xbox Live Gold membership, this isn't so much Microsoft giving their customers something for free as it is finally not requiring them to pay for the same thing twice. For instance, previously, if you had a Netflix account, you had to pay for that account and an Xbox Live Gold membership in order to use Netflix on your console. That's insane. Correcting insanity isn't something to be lauded.

Filed Under: kinect, listening to consumers, xbox
Companies: microsoft

64 Comments

Xbox One Sales Lag PS4 As Microsoft Slowly Figures Out You Can't Tell Gamers What They're Supposed To Want

Innovation

from the It's-innovative-because-I-say-so dept

Fri, Feb 21st 2014 5:18am — Karl Bode

Microsoft's Xbox One console (now affectionately referred to as the "Xbone") obviously had a rocky start, with the company having to back away from some of their more obnoxious DRM ambitions (and admittedly a smattering of actually interesting ideas) in response to user backlash. That effectively gave them public perception issues right out of the gate as the next-generation console wars got underway. That allowed Sony to enjoy a stretch of great press simply for giving consumers what they actually wanted and they had assumed was baseline functionality (like oh, the ability to still rent games).

Unsurprisingly, the latest data from the NPD Group suggests Microsoft's stumbles have contributed to Sony selling twice as many PlayStation 4 consoles during the month of January. That's despite some PS4 supply constraints in North America, and the fact that Sony's console has yet to even launch in their home country of Japan. As any good fanboy worth their salt will tell you, it's far too early to read too much into these results. Still, there's numerous obvious lessons here that still somehow haven't penetrated the somewhat thick, public perception shell known to ensconce the Redmond giant.

Microsoft could probably obliterate much of Sony's lead by simply cutting the price by $100 to match the $400 PS4. That, however, would require lopping off the gimmicky head known as their Kinect motion-sensing attachment, something Microsoft seems insistent on believing everybody still finds immensely innovative. Except the lion's share of gamers (there's always exceptions) grew bored with the concept of full-body game controls somewhere in late 2010 (or about two days after it was released). There's also the fact that the new-but-still-gimmicky Kinect 2.0 still just doesn't work very well for many people:

"The Kinect for the Xbox One is a sophisticated, expensive piece of equipment that adds very little to the act of playing games. I'm able to get voice commands to work around 80 percent of the time, but my wife and children have much worse luck...The system is still new, but every Xbox One owner now has a peripheral that has little reason to exist, aids their gaming in very few real ways and costs them a significant amount of money."

You can assume Microsoft will figure this out and offer an Xbox One without a bundled Kinect -- about seventy meetings, four-thousand internal e-mails, and one year from now.

Another stumble came because while Microsoft wanted the console to be the innovative heart of the television experience, the company lacked the courage or aptitude to make that actually happen. Fundamental technologies required by the audiophile set were oddly excluded, like HDMI 5.1 pass through. Microsoft also sacrificed functionality for control; omitting features available in the last generation of consoles like DLNA streaming and MP3 playback capabilities (one can only assume with the purpose of driving users away from piracy or competing services and toward Microsoft and Microsoft partner content). The Roku 3 does significantly more things on the video and music front arguably better, and it's around $90 and the size of a bloated hockey puck.

While many of these issues can be fixed or improved upon with software updates, Microsoft may not have the aptitude to course-correct their biggest stumble: the decision to hitch their shiny, sleek, new, black spacecraft to the innovatively-skittish donkey known as the traditional cable industry.

As with the Xbox 360, Microsoft seems intent on embracing the cable industry's "TV Everywhere" mentality, where the lion's share of your viewing options only work if you subscribe to a particular company's cable or broadband services (sometimes both are required). Cable executives and Microsoft think hamstringing a powerful game console into being a less functional cable box with a fractured viewing experience is the height of innovation. While Microsoft has been tinkering with original content, if the company was truly interested in embracing next-generation options they would have followed Roku's successful lead and embraced a much broader array of "channels" and services appealing to cord cutters -- like Plex.

The PlayStation 4 isn't exempt from criticism, given it too can't play MP3s and lacks DLNA streaming support also courtesy of anti-piracy myopia, but at least it's a console that appears to understand what it is, and Sony's intentions aren't buried under quite as many layers of assumptions and demands as to what consumers are supposed to desire. These consoles have an immensely-long life cycle and an ocean of updates will change them immeasurably over the next decade for better or worse; I have no doubt Microsoft can manage to keep the Xbox One in the contention if not beyond (competition is useful like that). But Microsoft would certainly take things a long way if they would stop telling consumers want they're supposed to want -- and actually deliver what consumers want.

Filed Under: kinect, playstation, ps4, xbox one
Companies: microsoft, sony

99 Comments

Microsoft Folds Again: Xbox One Will Now Work Without Kinect Enabled

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the about-face dept

Wed, Aug 14th 2013 3:33am — Timothy Geigner

Microsoft may have ditched its numbers as naming convention scheme for its consoles, but the company has been doing more one-eighties than a mildly talented snowboarder as of late. You may recall that when the Xbox One was debuted, Microsoft firmly stated that the console would require an always-on internet connection, would carry heavy restrictions on used and traded games, and would require the included Kinect to be functioning. Since that firm stance, Microsoft rolled back the internet requirement, eased up on their used games policy, and have now completed the backing-down-trifecta by removing the Kinect requirement as well.

Microsoft already stated that the Kinect doesn't have to be powered on, but at that time, it was still required to be plugged into the Xbox One. This, of course, remains a little nerve-racking. The paranoid among us suggest that the Kinect never actually shuts off, and Microsoft could spy on us in our undies. Speaking with IGN, Xbox vice president Marc Whitten confirmed that the Xbox One will no longer require the Kinect to be plugged into the console. Yes, another Xbox One reversal.

On the one hand, yay, Microsoft is listening to their customers. On the other hand, whoever in the company thought these ideas were worth floating to the public in the first place deserves some significant time in the employment penalty box. Nothing about these endeavors was in the least bit customer-oriented and, when we're talking about any policy that restricts that lack of customer benefit is going to be a deal-breaker.

The end result is and should be a boon for Sony, who has gone out of their way to run something of a "Sure, we're Sony, but at least we're not Microsoft" campaign. Rolling these policies back may be the right thing to do, but it also serves to keep what Microsoft had originally wanted in the headlines, and that's going to turn customers towards competitors.

Filed Under: kinect, xbox one
Companies: microsoft

83 Comments

The Result Of Stupid Protectionism: Microsoft Kinect Can't Be Used On Microsoft Windows PCs

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the really,-really-stupid dept

Fri, Jun 28th 2013 2:04pm — Timothy Geigner

With all the recent coverage of how Microsoft handled the Xbox One release, in which it had originally planned on limiting used games use and requiring an internet connection to function, before subsequently walking all that back amid the understandable outcry, you may have been under the impression that Microsoft learned its lesson. Perhaps you thought that they would no longer go about product releases in a locked-up, protectionist fashion.

Well, you'd be wrong, of course. Recent reports indicate that Microsoft is reversing the way they handled tinkering capabilities on their Kinect device for their new console, locking the device up this go around.

Ars Technica reports that "the new generation Kinect that comes packaged with every Xbox One console has a proprietary connector that cannot be plugged directly into a PC and that Microsoft is not planning to release an adapter to allow such cross-platform use."

Even if developers want to hack the sensor and use it, Microsoft won't like it. The company told Ars that Kinect for Xbox One "is not licensed for commercial use, supported, or under warranty when used on any other platform, including Windows."

This is a direct reversal of how they handled the Kinect for the Xbox 360, for which they encouraged developers to hack it and use it in ways Microsoft hadn't imagined themselves. This led to entire communities devoted to discovering new and interesting ways to use the device, not to mention a great deal of free R&D Microsoft could build upon for themselves.

But all that will be gone with the latest iteration. Unlike the exceptionally useful Xbox 360 controller, you can't even use the Microsoft Kinect with a Microsoft operating system. So thanks, Microsoft, for proving that hubris exists on a corporate level.

Filed Under: kinect, openness, pcs, xbox
Companies: microsoft

32 Comments

DailyDirt: Smarter Soda Machines

Too Much Free Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Oct 12th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Water fountains have improved somewhat over the years, but soda machines are really getting quite advanced. Not just limited to refrigerating sugary beverages, these vending machines are going to start tracking consumer behavior and offering some entertainment along with a frosty refreshment. Here are just a few examples of high-tech vending machines trying to connect with customers to sell more soft drinks.

A Coca-Cola vending machine in South Korea will dispense free Cokes if you dance for your drink. The machine uses a Kinect controller and promises not to make fun of your Gangnam-style moves. [url]
Intel has demoed a Coke machine that uses one of its Core i7 processors so that it can handle a giant touchscreen interface with interactive videos. Hopefully, the blue screen of death won't inconvenience too many thirsty patrons. [url]
Vending machines are going to start telling you how many calories are in the beverages they sell. Pretty soon, these machines will also start guessing your BMI and suggesting diet sodas... [url]
The Coca-Cola Hug Machine was dispensing free drinks to people who hugged the vending machine. Getting to first base with the soda machine didn't offer any additional benefits. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: beverages, kinect, pop, soda, vending machines
Companies: coca cola, intel

8 Comments

DailyDirt: The Human-Computer Interface

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, May 11th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Keyboards and mice have been the traditional input devices for a lot of computer users. Recently, though, touchscreens and other devices are gaining in popularity. Here are a few more interesting examples of ways to interact with computers.

A Microsoft researcher has collected a historical gallery of devices such as pen inputs, trackballs, joysticks, etc. This isn't an exhaustive collection of input devices, but it includes some interesting artifacts -- like the OrbiTouch. [url]
A bunch of "mixed reality" interfaces have been demonstrated where the user interacts with objects while a vision system (or some other collection of sensors) tries to interpret the actions as user input. Basically, just imagine combining Kinect with random common objects... [url]
An artist has created a video game where the players use their tongues to control a virtual bowling ball. This "French kissing" interface probably has a bit of an "eww" factor for most gamers -- but maybe there are applications for quadriplegics. [url]
To discover more interesting tech-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: hci, hmi, input devices, kinect, kissing

9 Comments

DailyDirt: Kinect Hacks Are Just Appetizers...

Computers

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, May 4th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Microsoft Kinect is a cool platform that provides hints of future user interfaces that are touchless. Kinect is also being used in other projects, though, that could help advance the field of robotics. Here are some interesting Kinect links for everyone (while we wait for the Kinect platform to mature and really deliver cool stuff in the future).

Microsoft Research has posted some videos describing how Kinect software visually perceives body parts. The paper explains how the software is a "decision forest" of decision trees that try to classify body parts based on a huge set of model body part images. [url]
Kinect's camera hardware can also be useful for robot visualization projects. Standardized sensor hardware that is relatively cheap could potentially give robot vision projects a little boost. [url]
Robot vision projects, in turn, could help blind people with advanced assistive devices. Strapping a laptop to a person's back, though, might not be the best form factor for a device to assist the visually impaired. [url]
There are several projects that hack together the Kinect and other techy gadgets. The OpenKinect community is growing and developing a few really cool projects. [url]
Still, some gamers are complaining that Microsoft hasn't released enough games that use the Kinect to its full potential. More games are expected to be announced at E3 later this year, but people with the hardware will have to wait several months for new Kinect-enabled games to be delivered to living rooms... [url]
To discover more interesting AI-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: kinect, openkinect, user interface, visualization
Companies: microsoft

3 Comments

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Xbox One Caves Again: Console Will Now Be Offered Sans Kinect

from the customers-rule dept

Xbox One Sales Lag PS4 As Microsoft Slowly Figures Out You Can't Tell Gamers What They're Supposed To Want

from the It's-innovative-because-I-say-so dept

Microsoft Folds Again: Xbox One Will Now Work Without Kinect Enabled

from the about-face dept

The Result Of Stupid Protectionism: Microsoft Kinect Can't Be Used On Microsoft Windows PCs

from the really,-really-stupid dept

DailyDirt: Smarter Soda Machines

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

DailyDirt: The Human-Computer Interface

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

DailyDirt: Kinect Hacks Are Just Appetizers...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

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