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A lot of questions about Kinect on Xbox One?

So with these recent deep discounts on Xbox units online the Kinect bundle can be got for close to $200. Considering the Kinect alone is $100 and Microsoft will never bundle (and probably won't produce more) I find myself in the insane position of possibly buying an Xbox One right now.

Not insane because the console is bad or anything. But for the last few days I had been looking at getting a 360 and had been collecting software for it for the past few months. I hadn't planned to get a Xbox One for years and was planning on getting a NX and a PS4 before.

The reason I'm interested in Kinect is because I always like new gameplay experiences and peripherals. The thing is the Kinect was so quickly taken out that there are barely any exclusive games for it.

In fact these seem to be the only retail titles:

Fantasia: Music Evolved
Fighter Within
Just Dance 2014-2017
Kinect Sports Rivals
Shape Up
Zumba Fitness World Party

And of Course Dance Central Spotlight is a digital download.

The only games I would be interested out of that are Fantasia, Kinect Sports and Dance Central.

My question is do this offer anything over the 360 iterations of these games as I already own those? What are the differences?

Are they any downloadable Kinect titles that are cool?

Are there any games that use the Kinect in an actually interesting way?

How is Xbox Fitness?

Finally what are the general system uses for Kinect? Could I browse the Internet completely hands-free? Watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Hulu with voice commands? Search purely by voice?

Since I don't really need it right now I may give it to my Sister and her Husband for a few years if the voice control is good. Are there some good casual apps? Any benefit to watching TV? I know Microsoft use to have some NFL features, do they still have that?

I really want to have a Kinect for Xbox One but for three games (one of which is available on 360, one that only has some of the sports of the previous two and one that has a small initial song selection compared to three retail games already released) it's even hard for a guy like me who loves light guns, eye toys, plastic instruments and balance boards to justify getting a One now and not using it instead of getting a Scorpio many years later.

I really appreciate any answers.


Edit: Really interested in the voice commands now that I've been reading more. Can you search Netflix and Hulu just by voice? How is browsing the internet? How is watching TV and Snapping?
 

Zenner

Member
Kung Fu for Kinect just came out - looks whacky enough that I'll be giving it a try this weekend.

Blue Estate can be played with Kinect. That's much more fun than using the regular controller, imo.

D4 is also Kinect-enabled. Haven't played that yet, though.

Voice Commander puts the focus on... uh... voice commands. Pretty fun. A mix of Asteroids and Tower Defense. I think that came pre-installed on my Xbox.

Fruit Ninja 2 and Boom-Ball are both forgettable.

For the games you listed:

Fantasia: Music Evolved - Fun first time through, but no replay value, and the never-on-sale DLC can't help with that.
Fighter Within - dunno
Just Dance 2014-2017 - Far more fun that I expected. Hundreds of hours into these. World Dance Floor was removed from 2016; hope they add it back for 2017. Having live dance-offs against friends and strangers was awesome.
Kinect Sports Rivals - only played the free Jet Ski demo. Seemed okay.
Shape Up - Online features were broken a long time. I think it's fixed now. Pretty good workout, though.
Zumba Fitness World Party - Similar to Just Dance, but mellow.
Dance Central Spotlight - Great value, but the dance animations are uninspired. Gets stale.

Anyone can use Xbox Fitness now; the Kinect is optional, but if you want the feedback that it generates then sure, use it. It's jam-packed with great free workouts, and tonnes of intense DLC ones. It's really good.

I use a lot of voice commands; mainly for opening games and apps, pause / resuming dvd playback, and hitting up the family on Skype.

For things like searching on the internet, or using the browser, it's much easier to use the SmartGlass keyboard on a phone or tablet, instead of voice-searching. (same for messaging)

I seem to recall that hand-navigation was removed a while back, to make more resources available for devs. I think.

Hope that was useful. :)
 
Kung Fu for Kinect just came out - looks whacky enough that I'll be giving it a try this weekend.

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

I use a lot of voice commands; mainly for opening games and apps, pause / resuming dvd playback, and hitting up the family on Skype.

For things like searching on the internet, or using the browser, it's much easier to use the SmartGlass keyboard on a phone or tablet, instead of voice-searching. (same for messaging)

I seem to recall that hand-navigation was removed a while back, to make more resources available for devs. I think.

Hope that was useful. :)

Thanks. Is it still possible to fully navigate the Xbox One with voice only though?
 

Syriel

Member
Fantasia: Music Evolved - Fun first time through, but no replay value, and the never-on-sale DLC can't help with that.

Kinect is worth it just for Fantasia.

I ended up buying all the DLC (except for Bieber) at full price due to that no sale crap (yeah, they got me). Will disagree on replay value. Game is a FANTASTIC workout.

Kinect for voice commands (Xbox On and Xbox Pause are worth it alone), but the addition of Fantasia is also a good reason to get it.
 

Mohasus

Member
Does the new kinect makes it better to play Just Dance?

I can play it on 360 and Wii already, would I feel any difference?
 
Kinect is worth it just for Fantasia.

I ended up buying all the DLC (except for Bieber) at full price due to that no sale crap (yeah, they got me). Will disagree on replay value. Game is a FANTASTIC workout.

Kinect for voice commands (Xbox On and Xbox Pause are worth it alone), but the addition of Fantasia is also a good reason to get it.

From what I read the only difference between b the 360 and One versions are sharing options on the One.

I already bought a copy of Fantasia for 360 for $2.40 new from Best Buy last November.
 

Sydle

Member
I enjoyed the moves in Dance Central 1-3 a lot more than Spotlight. Not sure if Harmonix just didn't try as hard or I had grown a little tired of the series. Spotlight is still fun.

Kinect Sports Rivals is good, especially the jet ski racing, but I liked the sports selections in the first two more. Table tennis and volley ball from the original are still my favorite.
 
I've become really interested in the voice commands for navigation. I'm probably going to get the One and give it to my sister for a few years.

I enjoyed the moves in Dance Central 1-3 a lot more than Spotlight. Not sure if Harmonix just didn't try as hard or I had grown a little tired of the series. Spotlight is still fun.

Kinect Sports Rivals is good, especially the jet ski racing, but I liked the sports selections in the first two more. Table tennis and volley ball from the original are still my favorite.

It's kind of crazy how much software was produced for the original Kinetic in two years after launch while the new Kinect was bundled originally and barely has anything.
 

Noobcraft

Member
Fantasia was pretty good. Voice commands are going to be available without Kinect in the next major update, and Xbox fitness with a Kinect is pretty neat. The big upgrade over the 360 Kinect is the input lag time (which is still present but much better than the 360) and the much better accuracy.
 
Fantasia was pretty good. Voice commands are going to be available without Kinect in the next major update, and Xbox fitness with a Kinect is pretty neat. The big upgrade over the 360 Kinect is the input lag time (which is still present but much better than the 360) and the much better accuracy.

And right after you say this Xbox Fitness is shutting down.

It's a real shame with the improved Kinect tech that there wasn't at least some more games made with it.

I'm now afraid if they remove the functionality all together.
 

nicanica

Member
Plants Vs. Zombies uses the kinect

You're a flying winnebego that can call orbital strikes and support drops around the map.
 

jdmonmou

Member
The Kinect voice commands never really worked for me. I always have to shout and repeat myself before the command registers. It's just easier to use a controller or the smart glass app to navigate.
 
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