Why The Kinect 2 Is Scary And Awesome At The Same Time

GP writer Jared discusses the pros and cons of the Kinect 2, and why the cons should especially be of concern to the consumer.

[IBleedXbox]

SMH at this point i dont think any xbox fan is getting the Xbox one.

[Gildarts]

I am buying One on day One.

Only thing thats really bothering me is 24hour online checkin, that is just stupid. but maybe it doesn't have to do that when you have the disc in it.

It can do everything the PS4 can and More.

Multitasking with Kinect and TV integration is a big deal for me.

And for those saying Microsoft is going Casual. You only need to look at the Controller to know that they haven't forgotten about us. That thing is just perfect. E3 will be for games.
I am expecting them to actually beat sony with their sheer amount of games. they haven't increased their First-party studios (even more then Sony now) for nothing.

It only does everything.

[insertnamehurr]

Enjoy being kinect recorded while you jerk your tiny penus.

[GusBricker]

I'm sure someone will make an app that shut Kinect down for a minute, maybe they can call it the, " GiveitToYourselfharder " in tribute to you.

[JetP0619]

it only does everything?

you mean the ps3 lol.

[Perjoss]

The fact that GivesitToUharder's comment has received so many agrees makes me lose just a little bit more faith in the N4G 'community'

[JRH7783]

People are always talking about Kinect. It's like Sony doesn't have a new and improved camera to rival whatever the Xbox 1 has.

It'll be funny if the PS4's camera can do all that Kinect 2 does. Except the spying on you.

[SecondSon]

I don't see that working.

They want to stop you from lending your video games or reselling them.

Since you can install and play the game from your HDD it would require the 24 hour check regardless of the disk being inside or not to ensure that someone else isn't using the disk online already while you are enjoying the whole single player offline on your friends borrowed disk.

I certainly don't see MS following this strategy after everything else.

[mcstorm]

@Gildarts I agree I am getting it on day one too. There is alot of - comments on this site about the Xbox one but there was alot about the Wiiu and 3ds before it on here.

I own a Wiiu and love the consoles. Yes its missing some big 1st party games at the moment but I have picked up some games like batman, Tekken tag 2, cod bo2 as I did not the them on the ps3 or 360 and they all work well on the Wiiu controller.

For me I am glad Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are going different way with there console as it now gives us a reason to own all 3 because they all offer something different.

IM also looking forward to seeing the new Kinect in game modes as it now looks more like project natal in the way it perks and it will be good to see how developers come to use it as things like head tracking in forza 4, voice in fifa 13 and halo cse, the hand tracking in steel battalion and fable showed the kind of things that could be done with the core games and with Kinect 2 being that much better the developers can do alot more with it.

@JRH7783 the pseye is not the same as Kinect as it is only a camera and it needs light to be able to work right so it will not work in low light conditions and it also has problems where you have things in its vision like a table or pictures or sofa ect. As for pseye with move this works well as or can track the light in the dark but it can't do alot of things Kinect can do but it was not designed to be.

[JRH7783]

@mcstorm: You don't know what the new PSeye can and can't do so your statement is false unless you have some inside intel we don't know about.

[kenmid13]

im buying one

[nosferatuzodd]

Like I need one more reason to dont buy this monstrosity.

My xbox friend is very hurt over this so i try to be sensitive about it and lend him my ps3 to play killzone 2 and GOW be nice to the xbox fans guys i know i would be pist if sony pull this crap off or nintendo

[Supermax]

Stop kidding yourself

[koolaid251]

I will buy one in Bill I trust!!!

[strangelove]

I trust Bill & Ted. They've never lead me astray.

[Snookies12]

Let's hope Bill didn't have anything to do with this system... It's like the Vista of consoles at this point. Sure, they still have a chance to turn things around at E3, but that would mean backtracking on a lot of what they've already said.

[PlayStation_4]

Scary? Yes.
Awesome? ahhahaha no.

[kenmid13]

The funny thing is that Sony is bundle the Playstation Eye with every system but everyone seems to forget about that. I'm sure that the kinect and Eye will do the same thing.

[NewEra7]

But the Eye isn't mandatory for the system to work. You unplug/tamper the Kinect your "watercooler" becomes a brick.

[kenmid13]

And how do you know this?

[SexyGamerDude]

Holy invasion of privacy Batman!!

[PiTCHBLaCK]

Wow, after reading this Article...if any of this is true..if The Kinect is always listening...This needs to be Banned.

MS should make it so you can Turn Kinect off at least. I mean you could always unplug the XBOX, but wow...Good luck whoever buys One.

[Wikkid666]

Why do people on this site only believe what they want to? MS clearly stated that Kinect will have be plugged in, but you can disable all it's features in the settings.

"You definitely will have the software capability to turn off all the capabilities of Kinect. We want to put the gamer in control. And privacy. The box data information that collects is your data; it stays with you. You are in control of what you want to be collected. Game developers will obviously enable certain features and you'll be alerted when certain things are happening. Putting the gamer in control is really important."

-Phil Spencer

http://www.gamespot.com/fea...

[berndogskate]

Bigbrother lmao stupid xbox 1

[SpiralTear]

The Kinect shouldn't be required. It should be optional and you should be able to use your console without it. I'm really sick of Kinect and I'm not the only one, I'm sure.

Consumers shouldn't have to spend more money on a peripheral that will be under-utilized and/or ignored by many developers. If Microsoft just ignored this Kinect garbage, the Xbox One could probably be released at a generally competitive price point, but no. This expensive and potentially damaging tech will hike the price up by at least $100. What a joke, Microsoft.

[SOULJER]

They can kinect these NUTS to their face.

[elhebbo16]

I hope sony doesnt do something like that with the pseye (the whole surveillance thing). I know they have stated its optional and you can unplug it but i really like the technology.

[optimus]

Hmm, this article is about as clear as Microsoft's "will it-or won't it" explanations...

Are his point of views based on what was shown or what he currently knows about the 360 kinect?... Because if that's the case i will debunk a few of his points right now...

1st of all, you CAN cover the kinect lens with a piece of paper and it will give you NO ERRORS like he claims. As soon as you take it off and start a kinect game only then will it search for you and calibrate itself to your position...this is my current setup with my kinect...why would they go backwards with an even more advanced kinect?

2nd... His surprise that the kinect logged into your profile automatically when the xbox was turned on as demonstrated on stage...scary?? Hardly; my 360 does that NOW as soon as i turn it on, which means that whoever turns on my 360 will be logged into my profile, but since nobody uses my 360 i have set it up that way through the SETTINGS to save time logging in each time, which is probably what happened during the demo.

3rd...his "genius scheme" of taking a picture of himself to "trick" the kinect wouldn't work because it would detect no heartbeat?... As if that would be the problem... The current kinect scans the height and proximity of the subject, i gather then that the picture he was referring to would be a life size picture of himself setup in the middle of his room...which would be impractical and not at all convenient just to "trick" the kinect.

I'm not defending the new kinect because not all details have been released just yet but articles like this only add to the fire which makes things worse than they really are.

Either the writer never owned a kinect or this article was written by a smoking lab monkey.

[Shadonic]

Im excited to see what can be done hh ow how developers will react to the kinect 2 now that its almost up to what people wanted with 1:1 ( the lag is still there) the real issue is if they can sculpt games around the device that worked like developers did with games like child of eden or gun-stringer. I'm not getting it I was greatly disappointing with how MS handled things with the device and even when there was some hope in MOD's for skyrim I didnt have the Gaming PC or the device to make Kinect work with my PC.

[mochachino]

I don't know a gamer out there that would prefer voice/motion controls over better graphics/performance.

The hardware cost of Kinect in ever box is hardware power plain and simple. It's a bad trade off.