GamerNode | Microsoft shows off Avatar Kinect

Microsoft revealed Avatar Kinect at CES this week, and in the process showed off a number of new upcoming improvements to the capabilities of the Kinect.

Avatar Kinect itself looks like an advanced chatroom. It allows players to place their Xbox Live Avatars into virtual chatrooms to talk with other Xbox Live Avatars. The interesting thing to notice though, are all the additional interactions Avatar Kinect will allow.

Individual fingers can be tracked along with facial expressions, but the most amazing technological advancement shown off with Avatar Kinect is the ability to use the Kinect while seated. Imagine, if you will, a world you can play video games while seated.

[mrv321]

Home.

Also there's something 1984 about this, I mean... it now knows how angry you are, or happy.

[GWAVE]

Am I the only one who thought Reggie Fils-Aime when Ballmer was cooing "see? It can even detect your eyebrows going up and down. And it can detect you laughing. Hahahah!"

Next up: Kinect Facial Expressions!

[DelbertGrady]

I take it you guys were impressed with what you saw? Or just trolling as usual?

[PirateThom]

There's nothing really impressive about it, it's basic motion capture... but video/voice chat rooms have existed since the dawn of time and, what it boils down to, is another useless feature since facial and physical gestures can be captured by a standard webcam like the Vision Cam without the need for cartoon avatars...

Really, I ask you, what's the point of this?

[zootang]

Delbert will be playing it (what ever it is) for years to come he loves casual gaming.

[Keith Olbermann]

Wow....terrible. Who is this targeting?

[Masterchef2007]

the casuals obviously cause no core gamer will get this

[Keith Olbermann]

@Masterchef2007
Casuals?? They have an iphone or touch to see who they are talking to. Why talk to people like this? Its sort of like Home without the games and wondering about.

[Arup02]

You can't track face movements with "Home"

[TroyAndAbed]

I think it's worth the sacrifice to have avatars that don't look like they were made for a GameBoy Color.

[ajlopo]

um...you have always been able to use Kinect while sitting....

however although I think the app doesn't look like anything I would ever use, I was excited to see the software being developed further to recognize the smaller features like fingers and expressions.

[Software_Lover]

............... right?

[Software_Lover]

Move and Kinect are here to stay it seems. Im just surprised Sony didn't take the opportunity to announce the psp2 or psp phone or something in that avenue. They might be waiting for a bigger show to do so. I know they have something under their sleeves.

[Biggest]

I guess Kinect is advanced enough to track finger movements when you're sitting in a chair, talking to friends as Wii-like cartoon avatars. This relates to gaming (which is where people would LOVE to see finger tracking) how?

[muzzy]

Xbox downgraded to Wii graphics with Kinect games.

[FragMnTagM]

That is straight up retarded comment. None of the Kinect games out right now have worse graphics than the Wii. I own both I should know.

[fooltheman]

I think he means the style of the avatars is wii-ish

[FragMnTagM]

No, he said DOWNGRADED to Wii graphics, which is completely not true. Even the avatars themselves have a higher poly count than most Wii games, lol.

[Arup02]

Just look at your comment history. You are clearly a Xbox hater. Go home troll

[Software_Lover]

.................... TO ALL GOLD MEMBERS?

Wha?

Way to go Microsoft. You're just digging a bigger hole for your public perception. But silver members cant use any of the extra features now anyway so I guess it has to be for gold members regardless.

[Masterchef2007]

thats the point of gold. To make people pay for something that should be free

[Undeadwolfy]

lol WIN

[Lionalliance]

Who really talks like that?!

[Christopher]

Actors.

[Seraphemz]

So instead of talking with my friends on video chat...im going to want to see virtual versions of them?
Really?

[Masterchef2007]

cant you do voice chat with Home? and with a ton of people on screen at once and being able to move your character around? Home seems a lot better than this plus according to a post above a lot cheaper as well since its free

[despair]

ok even if it works like advertised, that creeps me the hell out. I mean now they want to make talking to people even more impersonal. I for one would stick with actually seeing the person I'm talking to(gaming aside).

[TroyAndAbed]

NOBODY.
IS.
USING.
THIS.

[Masterchef2007]

It looks extremely basic i was expecting something a lot more complex from a device that costs 150€ to buy

[dalibor]

"Imagine, if you will, a world you can play video games while seated"

Hmm I thought you could do this like 25 years ago? Strange to say something like this.

[Ldubbz]

Its just a cool little feature for those with Kinect. For those of you with Kinect, you all know how indescribably cool it is to see your little Avatar mimic your moves in real time, and thats who this is for.

The simple fact that we now have motion capture built-in to our home consoles is just nuts! For those of you that cant see that, oh well.

[FragMnTagM]

Oh, they can. They just choose to not accept it. Kind of like all the religious zealots that know science is right, but just can't accept it.

[alb1899]

Well this is another feature for free, why complain?

[ironmonkey]

lol so useless!. is this really that exciting. has ms really gone this low and sad. just a waste of valuable money and time for avatar chat lol. probably gonna cost money to use to.

[mcstorm]

I agree with every one that is saying this is useless to use gamers but the one thing every one is forgetting is that the 360 has now been opened to the none gamers with Kinect. so to them this will seem another cool reason to use Kinect. Yes it is just another Chat room but its a chatroom thats a little bit different to the other chatrooms out there.

But if Kinect is going to be able to track you face then this is another thing game developers could use in games. How I eally dont know im not a game developer but it looked like it was tracking fingers too in this videos so if it dose the minger movememt part could be the bit the developers could use the most out of this part of Kniect.