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[lazorexplosion]

I find it odd how no one ever says anything about ps4 having almost all the same gimmicks, I don't know if it's because Kinect is more successful so more people shit on it or just no one thinks ps4 wouldn't want a piece of that success pie if something strikes the iron hot.

Because Sony and Nintendo both managed to implement their motion controllers such that you can use the motion controls and control a character in a 3D space at the same time. They are also both more accurate. Kinect gets shat on more because it is awful.

 

[CadetMahoney]

I find it odd how no one ever says anything about ps4 having almost all the same gimmicks.

Because Sony and Nintendo both managed to implement their motion controllers such that you can use the motion controls and control a character in a 3D space at the same time. They are also both more accurate.

Nintendo has been called a gimmick. . . by Sony themselves iirc.

Actually there was loss, but not that important for some. Rare used to make actual games before they turned it into a shell of its former self. Lionhead released a Kinect game too and from the people who bailed out it seems it didn't turn out well there either.

Anyway, the point is that in the new era of no more 3rd party exclusives Sony adopted, Microsoft did not.

Rare acquisition happened long before kinect so can't see how it's to blame. All of Sony's 1st party efforts bombed last year btw.

 

[Aasir Osu]

My apologies in advance if this is a banable request:

As this article wasn't wholly gaming related but focused on TechFest, would it be possible for someone to make a general TechFest 2013 thread in the Off-Topic forum? Whenever MS holds these events, there's usually a ton of videos released as well (I just randomly came across a new one while on The Verge's site), but what I've noticed in the past is that not every site reports on the event in a consistent manner, which means a lot of info is sometimes missed (there were a ton video releases last year that again, I randomly stumbled across, but didn't find coverage for).

It would be nice just to have some of the info in one easy place; of course, this might be the year where they don't talk about anything interesting to begin with.

 

[Flatline]

Rare acquisition happened long before kinect so can't see how it's to blame. All of Sony's 1st party efforts bombed last year btw.

I don't get it. How does Rare acquisition happening before Kinect invalidate that Kinect ruined Rare?

All of Sony's 1st party efforts bombed last year btw.

At least they tried and it was just one year, Sony has been delivering great games since 2007.

 

[Alx]

Personally I think Sony have shown more backing of research in this area with the work done by the renowned songsmith Richard Marx for the past ten years or so, both in image processing and more recently in AR. Eyetoy, PSEye and move are product experiments borne out of that research. Not always wildly successful, but you can see them improving over time.

I'll never understand why so many people regard Marks as some kind of wizard in computer vision... he's been doing some good work in the field, but I have yet to see anything groundbreaking from that research. Tracking AR markers or colored balls is mostly state of the art.
Microsoft Research is just at another level when we're talking scientific research. Just look at the amount of publications on the single topic of human-computer interaction.

 

[Roki6]

It's not just GAF, it's core gamers in general, and there's not a lot that is surprising about it. They behave like every other closed group faced with a threat of the outside world invading their cozy, exclusive space - they retreat into the underground, fortify around their niche interest and become increasingly averse to change.

true. I still remember meltdowns on Slashdot aprox 15 years ago when Linux started getting mainstream. Popular expression back then was "zealots" ;-)

 

[CadetMahoney]

At least they tried and it was just one year, Sony has been delivering great games since 2007.

I think they're going to be far more conservative from now on and not just keep releasing things and hope something sticks, they're a business after all.

I don't get it. How does Rare acquisition happening before Kinect invalidate that Kinect ruined Rare?

If Kinect is to blame for MS "ruining Rare" than the burden of proof is on the person making the (imo ridiculous) claim.

 

[sangreal]

Teaching Kinect to Read Your Hands
Kinect has brought full-body tracking to your living room, enabling you to control games and apps with your gestures. One promising direction in Kinect's evolution is hand-gesture recognition. By capturing a large, varied set of images of people's hands, the project uses machine learning to train Kinect to determine reliably whether your hand is open or closed. A handgrip detector, the gestural equivalent of the mouse click, then can be built. This detector will be included in a forthcoming release of the Kinect for Windows SDK and should open a new wave of natural-user-interaction applications. Learn more »

That sounds familiar...

A lot of the techfest projects sound kinect (2?) related: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/techfest2013/projects.aspx

 

[OldJadedGamer]

At least they tried and it was just one year, Sony has been delivering great games since 2007.

Those bombs either totally shut down the studios, or forced them into iOS development though. But hey... at least they tried.

 

[Aasir Osu]

That sounds familiar...

A lot of the techfest projects sound kinect (2?) related: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/techfest2013/projects.aspx

How about that, a TechFest site; nevermind then

 

[weekend_warrior]

Well this attitude is exactly the problem isn't it? How can you be tired of a thing that hasn't even been announced/tried yet? It is, funny enough, also exactly what a right wing fundamentalist might say to dismiss a point too.

Sure I was disappointed in what Kinect turned out to be but to hate on the technology itself seems weird. We want technologies like Minority Report or Star Trek interfaces don't we? But it comes from risk and innovation. If it fails it fails but to ask companies to not even try so that we can stick to our traditions isn't all that great either.

I don't think people hate the technology, or even that MS is trying different things, it's just the emphasis MS has been putting on Kinect, when it hasn't never shown it deserves that emphasis. If MS kept working on Kinect but kept it on the back burner until it was actually ready for prime time it wouldn't be as big a deal. Go back to to E3 2011 when almost the entire conference was about Kinect, and still none of what they've shown has proven to be any good. They're dramatically shifting away from what made them successful in the first, and it's pretty sad.

 

[Always-honest]

Pff. I can only hope they have some great stuff for it and that it works like a charme.

 

[Flatline]

dp

 

[Flatline]

I think they're going to be far more conservative from now on and not just keep releasing things and hope something sticks, they're a business after all.

That will suck if it happens but they've revealed two new franchises already so I'm not that worried.

If Kinect is to blame for MS "ruining Rare" than the burden of proof is on the person making the (imo ridiculous) claim.

You said that Rare was acquired before Kinect as a response to me saying that Kinect ruined Rare and when I ask how that makes sense you say that the burden of proof is on me. ???

I'll reply anyway, if you want proof just read the old threads when it was happening about lots of talent bailing out of Rare after Microsoft made them a Kinect dev and complaints from ex-Rare devs about Kinect crashing creativity.

Those bombs either totally shut down the studios, or forced them into iOS development though. But hey... at least they tried.

So how is that Sony's fault? Trying new styles of games is now a no-no or something? How would that be any different from any other publisher if their games bombed?

 

[Freshmaker]

MS core output has been the same for a long time. In another thread someone dropped the argument because all they could lament was the loss of no crackdown sequel "because of kinect".

If that's the perception, that's why Sony's not getting flack.

 

[Doffen]

Anyway, I'll reply anyway, if you want proof just read the old threads when it was happening about lots of talent bailing out of Rare after Microsoft made them a Kinect dev and complaints from ex-Rare devs about Kinect crashing creativity.

Lots of new talent has joined Rare, or are we only going to look at the old dogs who left?

 

[SPDIF]

Apologies if these videos have been posted before, but they're interesting nonetheless.


I think this definitely confirms Kinect 2.0 (not that we didn't know it was coming). Here's the video of Kinect hand tracking.

He first demonstrates the limitations of current Kinect hand tracking before moving on to a "demo application". Pretty impressive stuff.



There's also this interesting video from the BBC (near the bottom of the page), from TechFest 2013 demoing Microsoft's home of the future.

I suggest watching all of it, but if you want to, skip to around the 1:30 mark, where the Kinect stuff is demoed.

Is this what Kinect 2 will look like?

Like that previous rumour mentioned, the motor is no longer included which would make it easier to place on top of TVs.

Either way, it seems to produce much clearer, more detailed depth images.

It also seems to be able to track fingers (or at least be able to tell if you're pointing), which allows the guy to mold the clay.

 

[sangreal]

thats a kinect for windows

 

[SPDIF]

thats a kinect for windows

Doesn't the Kinect for Windows still have the motor?

 

[sangreal]

Doesn't the Kinect for Windows still have the motor?

I think so, but it could just be removed for the project. It's listed as a "handheld Kinect for Windows sensor" on the techfest page I linked and its supposed to be coming to the kinect for windows sdk soon

 

[AdventureRacing]

I just want to see a game released for this thing that is actually worthwhile. I don't care how impressive the hardware is, until there is a piece of software that can showcase that i simply have no interest in it.

Hopefully they are actually putting some effort into their core games as well. At the moment i'm not liking what i'm hearing from MS at all.

 

[LukasTaves]

Apologies if these videos have been posted before, but they're interesting nonetheless.


I think this definitely confirms Kinect 2.0 (not that we didn't know it was coming). Here's the video of Kinect hand tracking.

He first demonstrates the limitations of current Kinect hand tracking before moving on to a "demo application". Pretty impressive stuff.



There's also this interesting video from the BBC (near the bottom of the page), from TechFest 2013 demoing Microsoft's home of the future.

I suggest watching all of it, but if you want to, skip to around the 1:30 mark, where the Kinect stuff is demoed.

Is this what Kinect 2 will look like?


Like that previous rumour mentioned, the motor is no longer included which would make it easier to place on top of TVs.

Either way, it seems to produce much clearer, more detailed depth images.





It also seems to be able to track fingers (or at least be able to tell if you're pointing), which allows the guy to mold the clay.

Other than the missing base they seem like a regular kinect, probably just removed the base...

That depth image you posted is not the direct depth stream, they accumulate readings over time to reconstruct the scene. That's the reconstruction.

Kinect in it's current form, can already do finger tracking even on 360. Specially on Pc where developers can use a higher res stream. It's all a matter of how close to the camera you are (the higher the res the farther you can still have your fingers tracked). On 360 you don't see much cases of finger tracking due mostly to two reasons:

- There's no memory on 360 to be able to track the entire skeleton plus fingers, not without taking significant more resources from the games.
- On 360 the depth res is only a 320x240 stream, at the largest play distance your fingers are too small to be seen by the camera.

The few applications that do use some sort of finger tracking on 360 do it on a special mode where less joints are tracked at once, and requires you to stand closer to the sensor for working properly...

 

[sangreal]

speaking of the vgleaks kinect info... is it just me or has that page been deleted? was working earlier

 

[travisbickle]

Those bombs either totally shut down the studios, or forced them into iOS development though. But hey... at least they tried.

I'm not a huge follower of development teams, but who went from 1st party Sony development in 2012 to iOS development for the future?

 

[Respawn]

I don't get this either. I'll wait till both systems are out and the one that is best for me when I know everything about them is the one I'll buy. Not rocket science.

Oh I know which one you're going to buy. No need to act saintly here. This is war so let er rip.

 

[Maximilian Kolbe]

speaking of the vgleaks kinect info... is it just me or has that page been deleted? was working earlier

Doesn't matter,since vgleaks kinect2 info almost same as kotaku's,we can still go kotaku to check it out
http://kotaku.com/5982986/we-know-all-about-the-next-xbox-from-someone-who-says-theyve-got-one

That sounds familiar...

A lot of the techfest projects sound kinect (2?) related: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/techfest2013/projects.aspx

If Kinect for 720 can fast and close(should be using near mode?) like this then i'm fine with it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jWMaY0WO7c

 

[Version 3.0]

Damn, threads like this reinforce the notion that GAF is like the Republican party of gaming. Anything sort of change (gesture control, touchscreens, social gaming) is bad. Anything that serves a market other than the core gamer is bad. Gaming must be kept traditional and pure-- convergence with other media is bad. The golden age of gaming was the past and the future is bad. It's nuts.

But there are plenty of people on GAF who like motion control, touch screens, social gaming, etc. I love motion control - when it is done well. I like touch screen control - when it's appropriate. I don't care for the social stuff, but I've never condemned it. Many people here have similar views.

Unfortunately, the industry is rife with games that use poorly implemented motion control, touch screen control that would function better as a button (especially when buttons are available), and force them into games with no other option, even though providing said option would be simple and a win-win for everyone involved.

Sure, you have your "haters", but I feel there are more people, like myself, who are only turned off by these concepts because of how poorly they've been done as a whole.

Kinect, though, is worse than the rest, because it's a terrible product and a terrible, broken concept. Personally, I've been content to ignore it on the whole. But the idea of having it force-fed to us at a system level is, quite frankly, like suffering through all the worst parts of bad touch screen and motion control gimmicks all over again.

 

[SapientWolf]

Damn, threads like this reinforce the notion that GAF is like the Republican party of gaming. Anything sort of change (gesture control, touchscreens, social gaming) is bad. Anything that serves a market other than the core gamer is bad. Gaming must be kept traditional and pure-- convergence with other media is bad. The golden age of gaming was the past and the future is bad. It's nuts.

GAF isn't a single entity and this argument is just one big strawman.

 

[Hydrogen]

Damn, threads like this reinforce the notion that GAF is like the Republican party of gaming. Anything sort of change (gesture control, touchscreens, social gaming) is bad. Anything that serves a market other than the core gamer is bad. Gaming must be kept traditional and pure-- convergence with other media is bad. The golden age of gaming was the past and the future is bad. It's nuts.

But gaf loves oculus rift!

 

[Alx]

If Kinect for 720 can fast and close(should be using near mode?) like this then i'm fine with it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jWMaY0WO7c

That's not near mode though... What MS calls "near mode" on the Kinect SDK is the retrieval of depth data between 40cm and 60cm from the sensor, that is usually cut out of the measurement because it is less precise.
Thanks for the link by the way. It's interesting (although logical) to see that MS uses the same "decision forest" technology for all its pattern recognition operations on depth data.

 

[statham]

Microsoft open-sources Kinect code

Microsoft has open-sourced some of the code for Kinect for Windows, its motion-sensing gestural control device for the desktop.

A total of 22 code samples have been posted to CodePlex, aka “Not GitHub.” Baby steps, baby steps!

Samples are available in C++, VisualBasic, and C# and include such elements as face tracking, depth of field, and audio capture/speech controls. Interested developers will need to download VisualStudio, .NET, and the Kinect for Windows SDK before getting started.

As Microsoftie Ben Lower wrote on the company blog, the whole goal of open-sourcing some of its most interesting technology is for the company to get feedback and rapidly improve on a game-changing device and accompanying software.

All the code samples are released under an Apache 2.0 license and are free for you to take, reuse, or remix. “Also, we’re using a Git repository so it’s easy clone & fork if you want,” Lower said.

In its preparation for Kinect-controlled Windows apps, Microsoft also recently released guidelines for gestural controls — a sort of white paper for app makers who are doing gestures for the first time and need standards, guidance, and expectations for users’ needs and wants.
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/11/microsoft-open-sources-kinect-code/#IQEoflOMeFy5AaLh.99

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/11/m...aign=Feed:+hnycombinator+(HN+-+hnycombinator)