First Week with the Kinect

So as you probably know by now, we decided to get a Kinect for the Xbox 360 which came out last Wednesday. The Big Three consoles now all have their own "hands-free" controllers now, of course, but there's been interest in the Kinect because it truly is hands-free; there's no wand to be held.

First impressions? Overall it's fantastic! Once you've gone through the calibration of the system (and optional fine-tuning, which I recommend for rock-solid recognition) you're good to go. Below you'll see a list of Good, Bad and Neutral points; these are all personal observations of course.

Before I get into that though, there's a side-story to tell. A while back the missus and I decided to split the usual living room contents into two rooms. The living room on the ground floor would be a place to socialize without the idiot box becoming the central piece. We could read, dine, listen to music and entertain guests. We then converted one of the spare bedrooms to a Media Room, where the TV, DVD and XBox 360 lives.

One thing you need to know about the Kinect is that it likes a lot of space - at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) is needed from the TV to get a decent play experience going. The Media room is quite small and we only just managed to make a clear space. Even then, two-player games were a definite no and there were a couple of times I hit the wall to the left or the sofa behind me.

I mentioned this in passing to Linda last Sunday. I happened to tell her at the right time though, it seems, because she turned into Mrs. On-a-Mission, which she is wont to do from time to time.

To get to the crux of the story, we visited both Media Markt and IKEA that very day to buy a new Xbox 360 S, a new 40" TV and a second "Poäng" lounge chair and changed the living room around a bit. So the Media Room stays as it is and a portion of the living room has now become the Virtual Play Area. The Kinect has now become one of the more expensive items we've bought, if you throw in all the extra stuff we bought just to get a good experience out of it. Such is life!

Anyway, onto my observations.

Good Points

• No controllers in the hand
• Rock-Solid recognition. Set up the Xbox to recognize you when you come into the play area - works like a charm!
• Skeletal recognition has been spot-on. To paraphrase an English expression, it can tell my arse from my elbow
• Included game (Kinect Adventures) was a good choice; really gives you a good impression of what Kinect is all about
• Microphone calibration (on setup) is good. This allows for Noise Cancellation, so when you are in a video chat (for example), any background ambience or sound coming from the Xbox itself is removed
• Built-in servos allow the Kinect to move up or down to keep you in the picture
• 3D positioning is spot on - it knows when you're moving toward or away from the screen as well as left and right.

Bad Points

• First wave of games not to everyone's taste. In order to appeal to families, especially coming out for the Holiday Season, Microsoft have focused on family-orientated games. Personally I have no problem with that (as I'm having fun with Kinect Adventures and working out with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved), I can see that some people will be disappointed.
• You need space - LOTS of space. Microsoft recommend between 1.8 and 3 meters (6 to 10 feet) which I agree with, so if you have a small game room, rather than having the Xbox in a big living room, you're going to have trouble.
• Voice recognition is not yet available here in mainland Europe. That was another selling point to me when I pre-ordered it; then I read the news that it won't be switched on at launch, instead coming in Spring 2011. BOO to Microsoft.

Neutral Points

• There's been some rumblings about the delay between you moving and the Kinect keeping up. While I have noticed this delay (for instance looking in the Kinect Tuner where you can "see" your body as Kinect sees it), it's not been a problem in anything I've played with - even Your Shape: Fitness Evolved which, with some activities, needs you to keep in time with the virtual fitness instructor.
• You're not going to get the most awe-inspiring snapshots from the RGB camera - it's a VGA (640x480) camera using a Bayer filter so the picture can be a bit "speckly", especially in low light conditions. But you don't really buy a Kinect to become the next Photographer of the Year. Much fun is to be had from the likes of Kinect Adventures when it takes a snapshot of you mid-game and the pictures are decent enough to share - if you are brave enough!
• Some people have moaned about the price. For the kind of electro-magic packed inside the unit, I'd say you were getting a bloody great bargain.

So, to sum up: Kinect == Good! It's not going to be to everyone's taste, but then again, nothing ever is. I recommend you at least try it out though; go to your local store or, even better, go to a friend's house who has one and test it in the "real world".

Would it be worth buying an Xbox just for the Kinect? Personally I would have done, but again, this goes back to the point about the range of games on launch. It's not going to replace your first-person shooter anytime soon.

 

Yes, of course we got a Kinect

It a

rrived a day after the release date, thanks to the lacklustre Swedish Posten, but it's arrived - the Kinect that we had pre-ordered in July. There's mixed reviews come out, but then again, there always is with stuff like this.

Proponents of Kinect are enthused with the feedback and clarity of knowing where everyone is in the room. The first wave of games that came out at the same time are very "Family Friendly" and that reflects the drive that Microsoft wanted ready for the holiday season. Kinect Adventures is included in the pack and is a great way of getting used to having a hands-free controller - a bonus being that it takes random photos of you which you can post to Facebook later on and show everyone what an idiot you look like when playing.

Opponents of Kinect mention the relative shallowness of the games so far ("too" family friendly) and some people have been having problems getting Kinect to follow them properly - but that is explained quite clearly by the Kinect help guides that you need to wear clothes that contrast with the room colours and have good lighting.

Reviews are only ever other peoples' opinions though. Personally, I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with Kinect!

Six Years and Counting

When I first started broadcasting the BBB, it was an acronym for the "Bowness Bit o' Bollocks", with my surname, Bowness, being said slightly differently to sound like "Bonus". This was because it was an irregular mid-week bonus to The Z Show which was transmitted every Sunday with co-host Kenz. On 18 June 2005 I moved to Sweden. This meant the end of Z of course - while one could theoretically have two hosts in two locations, it just doesn't have the same dynamics because two people feed off each other with body language as well as speech. The BBB had become regular and - thanks to Slaygon - continued almost immediately after my move. The show came simply to be known as BBB and, for the sake of closure, was given the backronym of "Boz's Bit o' Bollocks".

The first BBB was on Wednesday 3rd November 2004. Tomorrow I would have been doing the show for six years. Initially, when I had worked out the dates, my reaction was "who'd have thunk it?" But the more I think about it, the less surprised I am.

I am, after all, doing a hobby which I enjoy. I'm playing remixes of old Commodore 64 tunes, which satisfies both the inner child and the inner geek. I was at the right age to own and appreciate a C64 and the SID soundchip inside, especially with the "two generations" of composers that came along[1] - hence, the inner child. Like-minded people came along, listened to the originals and made remixes using modern equipment - the inner geek.

More importantly, there's the listeners. The listener count has waxed and waned over the years but there has always been a core of regulars, some of which I have had the opportunity to meet in real life and some of whom have become good friends. The regulars know how the show works and I can count on them to come up with a line on the chat service that feeds my next dialogue between two songs.

I've never pretended to be professional by any stretch of the imagination. As I mentioned, it's just a hobby. When one thinks about it, it's just a random bloke from the Midlands playing tunes that he likes to play and having a laugh with a bunch of other guys that just happen to be listening.

That's the best feeling anyone can have.

Here's to six years of the BBB. Maybe we can raise our glasses in four years' time for the Big Round Number.

Thanks everyone!

[1] I've always thought that there were two major generations of SID composers. The first wave included the likes of Hubbard, Galway, Daglish et al. The second wave was Maniacs of Noise, the Follin brothers and so on.