Feature | Kinect

It’s finally here. Kinect. A gaming revolution if you believe the hype from Microsoft or a gaming devolution if you listen to Sony or Nintendo. The peripheral formally known as Natal, first announced at E3 2008, has a shopping list of promises to live up to and a whole world of potential possibilities ahead.

Put simplest Kinect is Microsoft’s answer to the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation Move. Designed to compete directly for the same market that has driven the Wii into stratospheric worldwide sales, Kinect is a Wii for the next-generation, a sophisticated motion tool, an interface into the future of the video game world.

At least according to Microsoft. In reality, at this very early stage, Kinect is a brilliant concept (although one that debuted 8 years ago with the PS2 Eye Toy), but one that suffers from sticking too closely to everything that made the Wii successful and not really offering anything mind-blowingly original.

Kinect itself is designed to do away with the conventional controller interface. Unlike Eye Toy, Kinect doesn’t need any additional input in order to play, everything is down via gestures or voice recognition, something that takes a while to get used to at first, but soon becomes second nature.

Kinect itself, upon first viewing, is a mind-blowing piece of equipment. Loaded with infrared cameras, multiple microphones and tilt mechanics, Kinect certainly looks the part of the future of gaming.

Setting up the Kinect is relatively simple. Those with older, non-S style 360′s will plug the unit into a rear USB, into the wall and you’re good to go, those with S style 360′s can plug and power all from the one 360 USB port. That’s the good news.

The bad news is a little harder to take. Get ready for some heavy lifting to get everything out of the way, ’cause you’re gonna need it. Kinect needs room, a lot of room. For single-player you need at least 1.8 metres between the camera and the player, for multi-player double that and also extend the amount of side space you need. That in itself is a large chunk of your living room making Kinect impossible to play for those with small bedrooms or living areas. Sorry.

Once you’ve re-arranged your entire house all you’ve got left to do it calibrate the system. Slightly more complex than the PlayStation Move calibration, Kinect ensures that it can hear and see you properly through a series of simple tests to determine your basic dimensions.

Once you’ve finished calibrating your onscreen avatar will appear and you’re now good to go. Although the lag is greater than Wii or Move, the Kinect response and movement of your onscreen avatar is one of the first real joys from Kinect and a great, primal response to where the technology could be going in the future.

While the initial launch line-up is a little on the underwhelming side, the future for Kinect is supernova bright. With strong support from third party distributors and enormous backing from the giant that is Microsoft, Kinect isn’t going to go away any time soon.

What the house that Bill built really needs to truly sell Kinect around the world is that one killer app that drives the hearts, minds and wallets of gamers and regular consumers to join the Kinect kraze. But only time will tell what that game is going to be and if Microsoft can deliver it before Kinect becomes just another video game fad.

We also got the chance to play some Kinect launch titles – check out our reviews for Kinect Joy Ride, Kinect Adventures and Kinectimals.