13:21 Hearing Peter Molyneux talk about how "They promised us this, but we got none of that and it was just a cheap, striped down version in the end" is almost poetic. I wonder if the irony ever occurred to him.
So true story; I did Quality Assurance for Microsoft titles at one point (Nothing you would've wanted to have played, sorry) and we had to do what was called "Regression Testing" on 360 and XBox One titles. Even though the Kinect had been discontinued at this point, you still had to make sure all the features still worked, so a significant portion of our work days was playing with the Kinect. And let me tell you; NOBODY hates the Kinect like play-testers do.
My only experience with the Kinect has been in amusement parks and children's play rooms back when I was like 12 years old. I maintain my view that the Kinect is perfect for those places as it wouldn't have to deal with controller abuse from kids that have no clue how to treat electronics.
I got a Kinect a few weeks back, haven't used it yet, but I like how it looks in my display with my 360 and other accessories. All in all I'd say it was $1 well spent.
there was some decent games that took advantage of it like dark dreams don't die which is definitely not for everyone but still good kinect games were few and far between so having it as a tv console decoration is probably about all the use it'll get
@@chosebine2169 yeah at least Kinect more or less did what it set out to do and I came away happy with my purchase without feeling ripped off, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for anything lying Pete has ever done.
"Kinect adventures sold more than Halo 3" Huh? *One google search later* . . . Kinect adventures sold 24 million compared to Halo 3's 11.87 million. . .
@@ghettofridge What's worse is all those crappy Kinects and games are mostly collecting dust or sitting in the bottom of a landfill right now. I'm so glad the industry got all that casual BS out of their system and got back to core games.
I've already managed to end up with 4 copies of Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports due to picking up used Xbox 360 game bundles from people... can't imagine I'll ever be able to get rid of them anywhere but the trash.
The greatest issue with Kinect was space. We do not all live a church hall or have giant living rooms with the couch 10ft from the TV. It was so annoying and frustrating. Then lets not forget we all have to live on the ground/first floor. The device was not perfect but had its fun moments and tech interesting but without being top spec expensive it was always going to frustrate and disappoint.
That space issue also played a part in its lack of success in Japan: Homes and apartments in Japan are, famously, smaller than they are in western countries for a variety of both cultural and practical reasons. As such, most houses in Japan were too small to handle the MASSIVE space you needed to get anything out of the Kinect.
" The greatest issue with Kinect was space. We do not all live a church hall or have giant living rooms with the couch 10ft from the TV. It was so annoying and frustrating." This problem also persist with VR.
That's the thing with all these "future of gaming" gimmicks, like kinect or game streaming, companies are pushing. It's all detached from the reality of the potential buyer. "What? You don't have a 1000 sqft house? You don't have terabit capless internet? Don't you guys have phones? You have muscle atrophy though? Well, LOL." Most people don't live in Silicon Valley or in a lab. Real world has limitations, something companies forget exists.
@@abadenoughdude300 My current home is 100 m^2. Which makes it about 1000 square feet. Fairly modest for the country I'm in. Sounds great and all, But even I can't easily set up stuff that needs large open space. See, 100 m^2 happens to be; 3 bedrooms, bathroom, laundry, and open plan kitchen/living room. I do not live alone and thus the living room is rarely something I can mess with. (plus actual free space in the living room is STILL borderline for devices like these). Now I do have one of the rooms to myself as an 'office', but factor in everything that contains and well... The floor space for kinect or vr style gaming is not really there. A 1000 square foot family home it turns out, STILL isn't reliably large enough to make devices like this easily usable... So yeah. Great. Could someone figure out how to do VR interaction without full-body tracking already? That'd be great thanks. If I can use VR properly lying on a bed or sitting in a chair it'll be usable for most. But currently it's just plain awkward to set up in a usable way...
@@KuraIthys My home is nearly half the size of yours. To do kinect/vr I'd have to dedicate an entire room, with no furniture. Not doable unless you live by yourself (but if you do, you probably live in an even smaller place). Now think of places like Japan that have waaaay smaller appartments. Bottomline, all this motion tech sounds cool and all as a gimmick but for the average person it's not very practical.
The dancing game brought together things you just wouldn't expect to see. Like Stormtroopers dancing to Daft Punk music. Believe it or not, not the only time Star Wars and Daft Punk would cross paths in an official capacity. (Look up Adidas cantina commercial.)
Excellent video!! I remember I bought Kinnect on whim because it was on a Black Friday sale. We got Fruit Ninja and Just Dance with it. We played those games quite a bit at first. My wife loved Just Dance. But it quickly started collecting dust. It's fun and works really well, but just wasnt enough to want to come back to. Amazing info in this one! I love these retrospective pieces on various hardware and accessories! Merry Christmas Derek and Grace!
Both are really just fancy ways of saying they use predictive techniques to guess what your trying to do which is somewhat ironic since I'm pretty sure the 360 lacked out of order processing capabilities which predict possible actions the processor may be tasked with and prepare for them in advanced (to my understanding, MVG talked about it in a recent video).
Gregory Norris apparently the xbox had out of order execution but the ps3 didnt, but either way predicting someones movements at all times is a horrible idea
@@queenbiscuit311 Just checked a few sources and no, it did not. Both PS3 and Xbox 360 opted for in-order execution in order to keep the cost down while still having high threaded performance (single thread performance suffered). The reason early PS3 games were often worse than 360 games is because of the complexity of writing code for it's GPU, most early devs essentially designed their games for the 360 then copied it over to the PS3 ignoring the special cores. As a result the PS3 didn't perform as well despite actually having more power potential, apparently this was largely due to the difficulty of writing code for those cores. Later PS3 exclusives that took advantage of those cores performed better than the 360 but many 360 fans like to spout BS about the PS3 being inferior (it was harder to code for but more powerful overall). MVG was involved in the XBox homebrew scene and talked in depth about the differences.
To be fair, that was a much more simplistic 2D camera. What the Kinect did probably wasn't attempted before, using Infrared to create 3D points and accurately capture a skeleton.
The Playstation 3 was the pioneer who conceived it. The Wii was the successor which integrated it fully. The XBOX was the advanced imitator. Even being advanced, many saw the Kinect as an imitation of the Wii, in spite of its superiority.
@@NeoTechni but nintendo also experimented with wii like controls on the gamecube at some point. Maybe it was before the eye toy, maybe it was after. But most all work is derivative of something else. Nintendo had the gameboy camera before the eye toy for example.
@@EasyCure0 gameboy camera wasn't used a (motion) controller, just a camera. Eyetoy was used as a motion controller, and they admitted it inspired the wiimote.
As an engineer, I can tell you the Kinect was a wonderful tool for technical types. I cant begin to list all the projects that I saw in college alone that used the Kinect in some way. Never saw it used for games but plenty of other things.
At a kids' science museum we went to in Kansas City (MO), one of the exhibits was a big sandbox with a topographical map display projected on it. As you built up or dug into the sand, the colors would lighten or deepen depending on how you contoured it. Naturally, I looked up above the box to see what was driving it all, and saw a Kinect staring back down at me. Well, at the sandbox, but you get the idea. And that's my Out-Of-Band Kinect story.
They have a Kinect-powered thing in the Imagination pavilion at Epcot too, or at least they used to. I think it involved pretending to throw notes onto a giant piece of sheet music on a screen.
If nothing else, the Kinect was a great way to reduce the cost of research and development of all that tracking software and technology that would lead into devices like Hololens and other products.
I use an Xbox 360 Kinect and open-source software (KinectToVR) to track my legs in VR. it's dirt cheap and does an outstanding job for how old the tech is. IMO Kinect was a great piece of hardware, but limited under the constraints of the Xbox 360. Like, I just spent 3 hours dancing in VRChat in random public worlds and had a blast.
@bigevilworldwide1 you do know, Microsoft fucking dropped the ball on WMR's VR section entirely, just because Hololens 2 and the military was so profitable. so, NO, they didnt scrap hololens at all. _slams door shut and leaves_
I was part of the hardware testing team Microsoft contracted (through Volt workforce solutions) and the Kinect got me lots of overtime. Its early builds were a total mess and every time a new one would be released we'd have to see if they fixed whatever bugs caused it to crash or red ring on certain titles. Hilarious!
TheHeroOfTomorrow - and no wonder....the guy is lier and sack of crap. I have to laugh when he says “I’ll be honest with you” ....at that point you KNKW he’s about to tell a real big LIE!
Thank you for reminding everyone how audacious Peter Molyneux is. That Milo demo was mind-bending for me at the time. The exact commentary you included - the "she just naturally reached out and caught it" kind of stuff - is what still makes me excited about VR and AR, having people react in a naturalistic way to immersive art. Also I played Kinectimals with my kids on a *Windows Phone* back in the day. So good.
The best part of the Kinect was watching Netflix and saying "xbox pause" to get up and pee or whatever, then "xbox play" once you were back on the couch. It felt very futuristic at the time 🤷♂️😊
The hand gestures were... meh, but I did find it handy when I didn't feel like recharging a controller as well to navigate the menus. Voice commands stole the show, though.
Fantastic video. I had no idea the Kinect was such a success. I didn't watch any of the promo material back in the day and just shrugged it off whenever I saw it in retail stores. Microsoft tried to follow in Nintendo's footsteps the moment the Wii caught fire, implementing their own avatar ("Mii") system and the Kinect just seemed like an extension of that to me, so I completely blew it off. It wasn't until I got a Day One edition of the Xbox One that forced me to use Kinect that I finally tried it. It was honestly a terrible experience in its upgraded form. The gestures barely worked and everything was noticeably sluggish. It at least worked well as a webcam however when streaming via the Xbox One Twitch app, but that's about the most I can say about it in a positive manner. Some people found the voice commands useful ("Xbox, turn on"), but I've never been a "leave my console on all the time" type--I'd prefer to turn it on and off as well as get into my games and apps the old fashioned way. The removal of the Kinect port on more recent Xbox One units goes to show that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, unfortunately. I would be interested to see the tech continue and improve over time, but I suppose VR via other platforms has taken its place.
I think this is one of your best videos of the year. A really great history with some sharp critical insight, all while keeping up the infinite enthusiasm. It deserves wayyy more views.
Hands down (pun intended) the BEST use of the 360 Kinect was for the voice commanded GPS in Forza Horizon. The nights coming home from work, putting on my Turtle Beach headset, telling the GPS "Show me next event" then having a direct line pop up in front of me then blast over there in my Ford GT listening to dubstep... MAGICAL
The Kinect had one game that was truly worth it... Fruit Ninja. And you know what? That worked out so well... it worked even in VR. In a way, I kind of view the Kinect as the grandfather to body tracking that we commonly see used in VR today. In fact, my first body tracking setup was a Kinect and custom drivers.
Remember when Super Best Friends played games on Kinect and when Woolie went up to the camera it didnt recognize him because Kinect doesnt recognize black people
I actually worked as a tester for Kinect and I vividly remember the first black tester was hired and everybody realised that the machine couldn't see her AT ALL. The finished version is improved but not by much. Initially, the Kinect also couldn't recognise children, which became a problem when one of the senior Microsoft managers came to visit - with his 5 year old son. We basically had to fib it so neither of them noticed, and somehow got away with it. Basically, it was evident that they had used a very narrow selection of people to calibrate it during early development.
face tracking web cams had the same problem. The saddest part is it's a genuine consequence of how the technology works. It detects facial features. Eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth. Part of the problem is not using sufficiently diverse testers when designing the routines. But at the end of the day the system depends on image contrast points. And lighter skin tones create more contrast than darker ones. Fucking technology right? XD
I work at a Science Centre and we use kinect in several exhibits. Including a a massive interactive room that tracts your movements and reacts to it. We use it to promote fitness and the importance of staying active.
Bought a slim 360 with a 500 gig drive, Kinect and about 12 games for €50 some 2 years ago. Was pretty fun exploring the Xbox ecosystem for the first time, and the Kinect was very cool connected to my computer and messing with 3D scans. So yeah, as discounted consoles and hackable accessories go, this was really worth it.
But, I think the Kinect was even more of a flash in the pan than the Wii was. What it really seemed like was Microsoft's marketing blitz (they paid Ellen and Oprah to feature it on their shows) really got people hyped for a product that was even worse than the launch Wii.
Fat Tiger most certainly. People like to handwave the Wii's success as a fad, but that thing was moving units pretty deep into 2009. It felt like no one was talking about the Kinect after a year at most.
The tech behind Kinect isn't lost or forgotten, just sitting dormant, the same way Wiimotes haven't been forgotten, just not by gamers, per se. In a few hardware generations, tech like Kinect 2.0 will be integrated into TV sets themselves, making menu nagivation and entering text from search bars MUCH better than current hardware allows. While I don't think its a complete replacement for the remote itself, it would make command inputs for stuff like Netflix, Hulu, etc., MUCH better than what's currently on offer. And, don't forget that there's huge untapped potential in the PC market. We all remember watching MINORITY REPORT, right? That future isn't so far off, nowadays.....
Kinect was also the first step toward VR, as Oculus's inside out SLAM tracking, uses very similar math to skeleton tracking. (Bayesian Math) In Move's case, it actually became a fully featured VR controller late in its life-time, in the ultimate example of punching above its weight :)
I can't really talk about other markets, but kinect and just dance were made for each other and were great party devices. A friend I have still used her kinect and just dance in parties a couple years ago. And we all enjoyed it. I think the main reason just dance still appears on e3's is because the motion tracking and motion controls never really died, they just found the niche they were always destined to occupy.
Is part two still coming? I was excited for that, but it’s been a while, and Derek and Grace have squeezed out a lot of videos in that time, so maybe they decided to move on?
We got Child of Eden for the Kinect! Even though it works with a controller too, and thats how I played it, I'm glad it came out at all. Also "Hello things that are not games" is going to be my new greeting. Thank you.
Probably one of the biggest problems with the Kinect, was actually what it wanted to eliminate. Buttons and controllers are objects that you can feel, with resistance and weight to them. This is why a lot of motion controls and touch controls are still difficult for gamers to enjoy. With a button, you can feel exactly what you need to do to perform an action. With motion controls, especially without VR or holdable controllers, it's a lot more like you're just reaching into a void where nothing can be felt, rather then pressing something you can feel to still interact with that void. Rumble and haptic feedback can help, but once again, the Kinect can't rumble air. (Though that'd be super epic and definitely not dangerous)
This whole video is extremely nostalgic for me! I never had a kinect, nor did I want one. But 2010 was when I was deep into 360 era gaming. Before I got my PC, and before I got my 3DS. This system means a lot to me.
really good vid man, v high quality and interesting. real bummer that you guys had some youtube hardship this year, but always stoked to see new stuff from you. looking forward to 2020!
I remember using the Kinect at a demo setup at the visitors center at MS HQ in Redmond in 2012. Even setup in a space specifically designed for the demo it still sucked. The input lag was awful and it just didn't feel right, almost like you were fighting it half the time. Later on I was part of a small team working at a Fortune 100 company who wanted to use the depth features of the camera in the Kinect to be able to do virtual meetings where live video & audio of the presenter was overlaid into the presentation they giving without having to use a green screen or dedicated studio space. That way all you needed was a decent sized conference room, a laptop & the Kinect, which were the goals assigned to team. But the lack of extra processing on the Kinect meant you had to have what was then a high end laptop & ridiculously bright room with even lighting in order to make it work relatively well. In the end the project was scrapped and decided doing internal presentations that way was ultimately impractical.
In 2013 Apple bought PrimeSense, the company who designed the technology behind the original Kinect. The same technology was used in FaceID for the iPhone X.
The Kinect is pretty awesome for desktop VR. I've used both the 360 and Xbox1 Kinect for games like VRChat and Neos. It's much more useful for desktop applications in modern day than Xbox titles previously. Many users have one or the other for VR social games. The 360 can track legs as the 1 Kinect can track legs and hips and is far easier to set up. Some users even use PSVR headsets with the Kinect and Nintendo joycons from the Switch to have a complete VR experience for an affordable price. I wish Microsoft could realize the potential of the Kinect for the PC gaming and release a new version with that in mind. Traditional VIve trackers are very expensive for gamers and cumbersome to wear, as the Kinect is as simple as launching an application to use with Steam VR and standing in front of it.
It worked well enough to put into two arcade games, at least. Konami used it for Dance Evolution Arcade and a game called Mirai Dagakki Future Tom Tom, one being a sequel/port of Dance Masters/Dance Evolution, and the other being... a weird one.
I feel like Sony just made the Move to please investors who wanted them to pursue the Wii market. They never seem too keen on motion controls while Microsoft went all-in on it (to their detriment.) For the 2nd half of the generation, the Kinect seemed to dominate the 360 whilst the Move was just an afterthought. And, just like the Wii did to the Wii U, the Kinect ended up sabotaging the Xbone.
@@AL2009man Which was a pretty smart move on Sony's part. They kept the R&D costs down by using what they already had. I've never used a PSVR, but I assume the Move controllers work well enough for it.
It only dominated the casual 360 market. My friends and I were fully into CoD at the time, so kinect never appealed to us moreso than shouting, "xbox record that!"
bigevilworldwide1 you do know there were Wii style controller prototypes for the GameCube and that the general concept was being shown to all the console manufacturers by a third party who was rejected by the others except Nintendo. Also WarioWare Twisted and Yoshi Topsy Turvy has gyro controls on GBA, not to mention the primitive implementation in the Power Glove. The development was never exclusive to one manufacturer or system.
also I can not complain. I worked for a software house and we coded fun demos and other stuff with the kinect. I borrowed it from work for one weekend and I spent the weekend beating Rise of Nightmares and playing Kinect Sports. I had a lot of fun.
13:21 Hearing Peter Molyneux talk about how "They promised us this, but we got none of that and it was just a cheap, striped down version in the end" is almost poetic. I wonder if the irony ever occurred to him.
….as I say, but, hello you. *wait wrong channel*
So true story; I did Quality Assurance for Microsoft titles at one point (Nothing you would've wanted to have played, sorry) and we had to do what was called "Regression Testing" on 360 and XBox One titles.
Even though the Kinect had been discontinued at this point, you still had to make sure all the features still worked, so a significant portion of our work days was playing with the Kinect. And let me tell you; NOBODY hates the Kinect like play-testers do.
Well, maybe retail store workers who were mandated to play kinect titles in public would be in a close second...
Only OGs will remember the title “Microsoft’s most successful failure”
Whenever I go to a thrift store to look for cheap games, there are almost always two consistencies. The Wii Balance Board, and the Kinect.
Dark Mountain Productions it’s not a thrift shop without a stack of wii fit boards and kinects
Kinect games are at every thrift store I visit. They collect dust on the shelf.
And at least 2 Copes of Wii Sports
Thomas Face If a thriftshop doesn’t have wii sports it’s either an oversight of and proof of the matrix or a money laundering front imo
I think I would rather have a controller then stand up and move all around my living room
"Hey I'm Derek, it's me Derek!"
Such honesty. Such happiness. Such joy. Never change, bro.
My only experience with the Kinect has been in amusement parks and children's play rooms back when I was like 12 years old. I maintain my view that the Kinect is perfect for those places as it wouldn't have to deal with controller abuse from kids that have no clue how to treat electronics.
Sanityeyes it’s also great for motion capture
I got a Kinect a few weeks back, haven't used it yet, but I like how it looks in my display with my 360 and other accessories. All in all I'd say it was $1 well spent.
From glorified microphone to glorified ornament.
You just gave me an idea, I need some string though.
@@charleschamp9826 Underrated comment.
MY TESTICLE DESCENDED
there was some decent games that took advantage of it like dark dreams don't die which is definitely not for everyone but still good kinect games were few and far between so having it as a tv console decoration is probably about all the use it'll get
The irony of Peter Molyneux, of all people, saying that Microsoft over-promised on what the Kinect could do, is hilarious as all hell.
DUDE HAS SOME BALLS TO SAY THAT. PRETENTIOUS FUCKER
"the irony" you mean hypocrisy
Wrong
I don't care about your ironing. LoLz..😂
@@chosebine2169 yeah at least Kinect more or less did what it set out to do and I came away happy with my purchase without feeling ripped off, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for anything lying Pete has ever done.
"Kinect adventures sold more than Halo 3"
Huh?
*One google search later*
. . . Kinect adventures sold 24 million compared to Halo 3's 11.87 million. . .
*OOF*
@@Dragzilla66 That makes it even worse because it means the bundle sold more than Halo also.
This is incredibly depressing.
@@ghettofridge
What's worse is all those crappy Kinects and games are mostly collecting dust or sitting in the bottom of a landfill right now. I'm so glad the industry got all that casual BS out of their system and got back to core games.
I've already managed to end up with 4 copies of Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports due to picking up used Xbox 360 game bundles from people... can't imagine I'll ever be able to get rid of them anywhere but the trash.
The greatest issue with Kinect was space. We do not all live a church hall or have giant living rooms with the couch 10ft from the TV. It was so annoying and frustrating. Then lets not forget we all have to live on the ground/first floor. The device was not perfect but had its fun moments and tech interesting but without being top spec expensive it was always going to frustrate and disappoint.
That space issue also played a part in its lack of success in Japan: Homes and apartments in Japan are, famously, smaller than they are in western countries for a variety of both cultural and practical reasons. As such, most houses in Japan were too small to handle the MASSIVE space you needed to get anything out of the Kinect.
"
The greatest issue with Kinect was space. We do not all live a church hall or have giant living rooms with the couch 10ft from the TV. It was so annoying and frustrating."
This problem also persist with VR.
That's the thing with all these "future of gaming" gimmicks, like kinect or game streaming, companies are pushing. It's all detached from the reality of the potential buyer. "What? You don't have a 1000 sqft house? You don't have terabit capless internet? Don't you guys have phones? You have muscle atrophy though? Well, LOL." Most people don't live in Silicon Valley or in a lab. Real world has limitations, something companies forget exists.
@@abadenoughdude300 My current home is 100 m^2. Which makes it about 1000 square feet. Fairly modest for the country I'm in.
Sounds great and all, But even I can't easily set up stuff that needs large open space.
See, 100 m^2 happens to be; 3 bedrooms, bathroom, laundry, and open plan kitchen/living room.
I do not live alone and thus the living room is rarely something I can mess with. (plus actual free space in the living room is STILL borderline for devices like these).
Now I do have one of the rooms to myself as an 'office', but factor in everything that contains and well...
The floor space for kinect or vr style gaming is not really there.
A 1000 square foot family home it turns out, STILL isn't reliably large enough to make devices like this easily usable...
So yeah. Great.
Could someone figure out how to do VR interaction without full-body tracking already? That'd be great thanks.
If I can use VR properly lying on a bed or sitting in a chair it'll be usable for most.
But currently it's just plain awkward to set up in a usable way...
@@KuraIthys My home is nearly half the size of yours. To do kinect/vr I'd have to dedicate an entire room, with no furniture. Not doable unless you live by yourself (but if you do, you probably live in an even smaller place). Now think of places like Japan that have waaaay smaller appartments.
Bottomline, all this motion tech sounds cool and all as a gimmick but for the average person it's not very practical.
The fact that I use Kinect for full body tracking in VR is a testament to how innovative the technology was and still is.
Kinect before release - "It's like Minority Report!"
Kinect after release - "It's like the Power Glove.."
"It's so bad"
Best thing about Kinect was when Nine Inch Nails used it to generate backing visuals during one of their tours
Say what?! What tour was this? I gotta find some footage...
"Steel Battalion...keep that in your back pocket."
NO! I don't wanna! Give me back that behemoth of a controller!
I've still got mine.
fantastic retrospective. thank you for this !
I love youre videos
@@nathangilbert7850 *your
Mistakes were made?
@@lennyface2586 and I'm k
At least we got the most incredible piece of software ever sold: the star wars dancing game
Riiiight
I'm Han Solo, I'm Han Solo
The dancing game brought together things you just wouldn't expect to see. Like Stormtroopers dancing to Daft Punk music. Believe it or not, not the only time Star Wars and Daft Punk would cross paths in an official capacity. (Look up Adidas cantina commercial.)
I loved the monster part of that game
Excellent video!! I remember I bought Kinnect on whim because it was on a Black Friday sale. We got Fruit Ninja and Just Dance with it. We played those games quite a bit at first. My wife loved Just Dance. But it quickly started collecting dust. It's fun and works really well, but just wasnt enough to want to come back to.
Amazing info in this one! I love these retrospective pieces on various hardware and accessories!
Merry Christmas Derek and Grace!
Skateboard scanning before nfts
"Transcend precision" is the 2010 2011 version of "NEGATIVE LATENCY"
Both are really just fancy ways of saying they use predictive techniques to guess what your trying to do which is somewhat ironic since I'm pretty sure the 360 lacked out of order processing capabilities which predict possible actions the processor may be tasked with and prepare for them in advanced (to my understanding, MVG talked about it in a recent video).
Gregory Norris apparently the xbox had out of order execution but the ps3 didnt, but either way predicting someones movements at all times is a horrible idea
@@queenbiscuit311 Just checked a few sources and no, it did not. Both PS3 and Xbox 360 opted for in-order execution in order to keep the cost down while still having high threaded performance (single thread performance suffered). The reason early PS3 games were often worse than 360 games is because of the complexity of writing code for it's GPU, most early devs essentially designed their games for the 360 then copied it over to the PS3 ignoring the special cores. As a result the PS3 didn't perform as well despite actually having more power potential, apparently this was largely due to the difficulty of writing code for those cores. Later PS3 exclusives that took advantage of those cores performed better than the 360 but many 360 fans like to spout BS about the PS3 being inferior (it was harder to code for but more powerful overall). MVG was involved in the XBox homebrew scene and talked in depth about the differences.
I miss the kinect on my Xbox One, if only because there's no real reason to aggressively scream "EX BAWX" at my hardware anymore
"Never done before"
Except for Eyetoy, the inspiration for the Wii.
To be fair, that was a much more simplistic 2D camera. What the Kinect did probably wasn't attempted before, using Infrared to create 3D points and accurately capture a skeleton.
The Playstation 3 was the pioneer who conceived it. The Wii was the successor which integrated it fully. The XBOX was the advanced imitator. Even being advanced, many saw the Kinect as an imitation of the Wii, in spite of its superiority.
@@bluephreakr eyetoy came out before Wii. Ps3 and Wii came out within a week of each other. So no
@@NeoTechni but nintendo also experimented with wii like controls on the gamecube at some point. Maybe it was before the eye toy, maybe it was after. But most all work is derivative of something else. Nintendo had the gameboy camera before the eye toy for example.
@@EasyCure0 gameboy camera wasn't used a (motion) controller, just a camera. Eyetoy was used as a motion controller, and they admitted it inspired the wiimote.
Kinect's writing was already on the wall. Spielberg thought Bug! for the Saturn would be a game changer.
Spielberg doesn't have a good track record with video games. Apparently he signed off on Atari's ET.
@AT Productions Yeah, and look where that series is now 😎
@@Startbreak12 You can't really use what a series became as a criticism for what it was...
Remember the Spielberg-approved Saturn analog controller? That was actually good
As an engineer, I can tell you the Kinect was a wonderful tool for technical types. I cant begin to list all the projects that I saw in college alone that used the Kinect in some way. Never saw it used for games but plenty of other things.
At a kids' science museum we went to in Kansas City (MO), one of the exhibits was a big sandbox with a topographical map display projected on it. As you built up or dug into the sand, the colors would lighten or deepen depending on how you contoured it. Naturally, I looked up above the box to see what was driving it all, and saw a Kinect staring back down at me. Well, at the sandbox, but you get the idea.
And that's my Out-Of-Band Kinect story.
They have a Kinect-powered thing in the Imagination pavilion at Epcot too, or at least they used to. I think it involved pretending to throw notes onto a giant piece of sheet music on a screen.
If nothing else, the Kinect was a great way to reduce the cost of research and development of all that tracking software and technology that would lead into devices like Hololens and other products.
This guy is a scammer!
oh yeah moving skynet forwards a couple years is a totes rad idea
I use an Xbox 360 Kinect and open-source software (KinectToVR) to track my legs in VR. it's dirt cheap and does an outstanding job for how old the tech is. IMO Kinect was a great piece of hardware, but limited under the constraints of the Xbox 360.
Like, I just spent 3 hours dancing in VRChat in random public worlds and had a blast.
@bigevilworldwide1 Do you have a source?
Because the "second" version, was announced and sold throughout 2019.
@bigevilworldwide1 you do know, Microsoft fucking dropped the ball on WMR's VR section entirely, just because Hololens 2 and the military was so profitable. so, NO, they didnt scrap hololens at all. _slams door shut and leaves_
some of the justifications for the kinect sound eriely similar to stadia talking points
First the gaming historian does his best video yet Super Mario 3 and now SSFF strikes with a Kinect Video.... This is the best week on UA-cam!!
And John Tron has a new video this week too.
Man, what a crazy story! Told as only Derek and Grace can!
This is like almost full documentary quality. Fantastic job.
I was part of the hardware testing team Microsoft contracted (through Volt workforce solutions) and the Kinect got me lots of overtime. Its early builds were a total mess and every time a new one would be released we'd have to see if they fixed whatever bugs caused it to crash or red ring on certain titles.
Hilarious!
Even outside of Guru Larry's videos, Peter Molyneux is still a punchline.
TheHeroOfTomorrow - and no wonder....the guy is lier and sack of crap. I have to laugh when he says “I’ll be honest with you” ....at that point you KNKW he’s about to tell a real big LIE!
He still managed to make pretty good games so I don't mind.
Yeah Peter molyneux everybody favorite Whipping Boy
Ah Don Mattrick, the best salesman who sold me a PS4. He was so aggressive that I had to buy it. Sony should’ve given this guy a raise.
Thank you for reminding everyone how audacious Peter Molyneux is. That Milo demo was mind-bending for me at the time. The exact commentary you included - the "she just naturally reached out and caught it" kind of stuff - is what still makes me excited about VR and AR, having people react in a naturalistic way to immersive art.
Also I played Kinectimals with my kids on a *Windows Phone* back in the day. So good.
That xbox dood was commenting like it was 2020s VR but it was just junky 2000s flat screen gaming.
Laughable.
The best part of the Kinect was watching Netflix and saying "xbox pause" to get up and pee or whatever, then "xbox play" once you were back on the couch.
It felt very futuristic at the time 🤷♂️😊
The hand gestures were... meh, but I did find it handy when I didn't feel like recharging a controller as well to navigate the menus. Voice commands stole the show, though.
3:36 Makes sense, we all remember those awesome films Spielberg insisted be displayed on invisible screens.
SSFF changed the thumbnail 3 times. Their commitment to quality is dope
"Claire has covered her face when Milo passed gas. Notice the natural movement. That wasnt scripted."
Fantastic video. I had no idea the Kinect was such a success. I didn't watch any of the promo material back in the day and just shrugged it off whenever I saw it in retail stores. Microsoft tried to follow in Nintendo's footsteps the moment the Wii caught fire, implementing their own avatar ("Mii") system and the Kinect just seemed like an extension of that to me, so I completely blew it off. It wasn't until I got a Day One edition of the Xbox One that forced me to use Kinect that I finally tried it. It was honestly a terrible experience in its upgraded form. The gestures barely worked and everything was noticeably sluggish. It at least worked well as a webcam however when streaming via the Xbox One Twitch app, but that's about the most I can say about it in a positive manner. Some people found the voice commands useful ("Xbox, turn on"), but I've never been a "leave my console on all the time" type--I'd prefer to turn it on and off as well as get into my games and apps the old fashioned way. The removal of the Kinect port on more recent Xbox One units goes to show that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, unfortunately. I would be interested to see the tech continue and improve over time, but I suppose VR via other platforms has taken its place.
I think this is one of your best videos of the year. A really great history with some sharp critical insight, all while keeping up the infinite enthusiasm. It deserves wayyy more views.
Hands down (pun intended) the BEST use of the 360 Kinect was for the voice commanded GPS in Forza Horizon. The nights coming home from work, putting on my Turtle Beach headset, telling the GPS "Show me next event" then having a direct line pop up in front of me then blast over there in my Ford GT listening to dubstep... MAGICAL
Cool!
The Kinect had one game that was truly worth it... Fruit Ninja. And you know what? That worked out so well... it worked even in VR. In a way, I kind of view the Kinect as the grandfather to body tracking that we commonly see used in VR today. In fact, my first body tracking setup was a Kinect and custom drivers.
It's honestly funny hearing Molyneux saying someone else product fell short of expectations
"2020 still looks like a year full of possibility."
This Is one of your all-time best videos. Real, journalistic value and depth. Congratulations on a job well done. Can’t wait to see part two!
"Hello girlfriend."
Huh. I could've sworn y'all were hitched.
Quick note. "natal" is also the word for "Christmas" in Brazilian portuguese
And also the name of the city in which its creator was born
@@allissondiego1989 Natal is a city, not a state.
@@fdbastiani my mistake
In italian it's NATALE. In my language it's božič... totally different but hey, useless trivia, take it and go.
Yes it was crucified a few yes later too.
This channel is legit the only one I ever heard ''gangbusters'' being said on and I love it.
Remember when Super Best Friends played games on Kinect and when Woolie went up to the camera it didnt recognize him because Kinect doesnt recognize black people
Woolie isn't black, he's woolie.
I actually worked as a tester for Kinect and I vividly remember the first black tester was hired and everybody realised that the machine couldn't see her AT ALL. The finished version is improved but not by much. Initially, the Kinect also couldn't recognise children, which became a problem when one of the senior Microsoft managers came to visit - with his 5 year old son. We basically had to fib it so neither of them noticed, and somehow got away with it. Basically, it was evident that they had used a very narrow selection of people to calibrate it during early development.
@singularon1 because he's woolie, he makes himself invisible so that he can steal more pies.
face tracking web cams had the same problem.
The saddest part is it's a genuine consequence of how the technology works.
It detects facial features. Eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth.
Part of the problem is not using sufficiently diverse testers when designing the routines.
But at the end of the day the system depends on image contrast points.
And lighter skin tones create more contrast than darker ones.
Fucking technology right? XD
KuraIthys its a very Silicon Valley problem
I work at a Science Centre and we use kinect in several exhibits. Including a a massive interactive room that tracts your movements and reacts to it. We use it to promote fitness and the importance of staying active.
Bought a slim 360 with a 500 gig drive, Kinect and about 12 games for €50 some 2 years ago. Was pretty fun exploring the Xbox ecosystem for the first time, and the Kinect was very cool connected to my computer and messing with 3D scans. So yeah, as discounted consoles and hackable accessories go, this was really worth it.
Excellent video, can’t wait for “next time.” I hope you still come back and make that Part 2 someday.
I forgot how popular this damn thing was at launch. I actually had to talk my mom out of buying a 360 just to get Kinect lol
But, I think the Kinect was even more of a flash in the pan than the Wii was. What it really seemed like was Microsoft's marketing blitz (they paid Ellen and Oprah to feature it on their shows) really got people hyped for a product that was even worse than the launch Wii.
Fat Tiger most certainly. People like to handwave the Wii's success as a fad, but that thing was moving units pretty deep into 2009. It felt like no one was talking about the Kinect after a year at most.
You know, I still remember the Kinect as an integral part of the Xbox brand, despite having never used it.
The power of marketing is truly terrifying.
The tech behind Kinect isn't lost or forgotten, just sitting dormant, the same way Wiimotes haven't been forgotten, just not by gamers, per se. In a few hardware generations, tech like Kinect 2.0 will be integrated into TV sets themselves, making menu nagivation and entering text from search bars MUCH better than current hardware allows. While I don't think its a complete replacement for the remote itself, it would make command inputs for stuff like Netflix, Hulu, etc., MUCH better than what's currently on offer. And, don't forget that there's huge untapped potential in the PC market. We all remember watching MINORITY REPORT, right? That future isn't so far off, nowadays.....
Ryan Davis was a swell guy. Pleasant surprise to see that clip here.
Kinect was also the first step toward VR, as Oculus's inside out SLAM tracking, uses very similar math to skeleton tracking. (Bayesian Math) In Move's case, it actually became a fully featured VR controller late in its life-time, in the ultimate example of punching above its weight :)
I can't really talk about other markets, but kinect and just dance were made for each other and were great party devices.
A friend I have still used her kinect and just dance in parties a couple years ago. And we all enjoyed it.
I think the main reason just dance still appears on e3's is because the motion tracking and motion controls never really died, they just found the niche they were always destined to occupy.
Is part two still coming? I was excited for that, but it’s been a while, and Derek and Grace have squeezed out a lot of videos in that time, so maybe they decided to move on?
Didn't even skip the 20+minutes of ads. I still enjoy my kinect lol!
Whoa! I'm Brazilian and I had no idea the name Project Natal was because of "our" Natal.
We got Child of Eden for the Kinect! Even though it works with a controller too, and thats how I played it, I'm glad it came out at all.
Also "Hello things that are not games" is going to be my new greeting. Thank you.
I had a Kinect and really liked it. I had PlayStation move as well and liked it too. I don't have a Kinect anymore, and still have move controllers.
7:38 *_"HELLO YOU! I'm guru Larry and I welcome you, to Fact Hunt!"_*
This miniseries about Xbox peripherals has been real good. Looking forward to the final part. Enjoy your break in January!
I remember reading that somewhere around 70% of people regret buying a Kinect. Which is why it’s crazy they tried to bundle it in with the Xbox one.
My thoughts are that the Kinect and the Wii told devs that people want to move while gaming which was a snowball to VR which is pretty cool
I'm glad that the Kinect has found another life thriving in the live digital arts and theater worlds.
Whenever someone says Microsoft has never had a foot in Japan, I always think of the MSX systems...
That clip of Ryan Davis made me so nostalgic and sad. why do you gotta do that to me, Derek?
Probably one of the biggest problems with the Kinect, was actually what it wanted to eliminate. Buttons and controllers are objects that you can feel, with resistance and weight to them. This is why a lot of motion controls and touch controls are still difficult for gamers to enjoy. With a button, you can feel exactly what you need to do to perform an action. With motion controls, especially without VR or holdable controllers, it's a lot more like you're just reaching into a void where nothing can be felt, rather then pressing something you can feel to still interact with that void. Rumble and haptic feedback can help, but once again, the Kinect can't rumble air. (Though that'd be super epic and definitely not dangerous)
This whole video is extremely nostalgic for me!
I never had a kinect, nor did I want one. But 2010 was when I was deep into 360 era gaming. Before I got my PC, and before I got my 3DS. This system means a lot to me.
Dude, this was great. Excellent content. Hope SSFF is going to keep going! I love what you do.
really good vid man, v high quality and interesting. real bummer that you guys had some youtube hardship this year, but always stoked to see new stuff from you. looking forward to 2020!
Nice seeing the Ryan Davis clip in here. Man I miss him
Great video, I'm really glad I stumbled across this channel this year. I can't wait to see the next part
I played so much kinectimals and later Gunstringer. Those were really fun and well made experiences.
This is the kind of quality content I subscribe for. Hey it's Derek it's you, Derek!
"bye Skittles I love you" *runs as fast as possible away from Don Matrick and the Kinect*
What a great video bro. Such an interesting approach to a gaming piece of history almost never talked about.
Remember when this was going to be a two part series? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I was so excited to see that clip of Ryan Davis, RIP big man.
I'll never forget the "See your avatar's foot" tech demo. That was stupid for all the right reasons
You know that Derek is a man of culture as soon as you hear a track from "Tombi/a!" OST.
I remember using the Kinect at a demo setup at the visitors center at MS HQ in Redmond in 2012. Even setup in a space specifically designed for the demo it still sucked. The input lag was awful and it just didn't feel right, almost like you were fighting it half the time.
Later on I was part of a small team working at a Fortune 100 company who wanted to use the depth features of the camera in the Kinect to be able to do virtual meetings where live video & audio of the presenter was overlaid into the presentation they giving without having to use a green screen or dedicated studio space. That way all you needed was a decent sized conference room, a laptop & the Kinect, which were the goals assigned to team.
But the lack of extra processing on the Kinect meant you had to have what was then a high end laptop & ridiculously bright room with even lighting in order to make it work relatively well. In the end the project was scrapped and decided doing internal presentations that way was ultimately impractical.
I still say that if Microsoft ever got into VR, they’ll probably use the technology from the Kinect for motion tracking.
great stuff! do you still plan on continuing with part 2 of this vid? love your content
1:23 - That's some quality filming attire. xD
I remember actually having fun with the device... But it never evolved... And everyone in ny household lost interest.
Great video!
Thank you for continuing to use Tomba music and giving me that sweet sweet nostalgia.
In 2013 Apple bought PrimeSense, the company who designed the technology behind the original Kinect. The same technology was used in FaceID for the iPhone X.
The Kinect motion controls work for one type of game only: Dancing.
TBH I bought mine for Just Dance and Dance Central, and it sure gets its mileage.
The Kinect is pretty awesome for desktop VR. I've used both the 360 and Xbox1 Kinect for games like VRChat and Neos. It's much more useful for desktop applications in modern day than Xbox titles previously. Many users have one or the other for VR social games. The 360 can track legs as the 1 Kinect can track legs and hips and is far easier to set up. Some users even use PSVR headsets with the Kinect and Nintendo joycons from the Switch to have a complete VR experience for an affordable price. I wish Microsoft could realize the potential of the Kinect for the PC gaming and release a new version with that in mind. Traditional VIve trackers are very expensive for gamers and cumbersome to wear, as the Kinect is as simple as launching an application to use with Steam VR and standing in front of it.
Interesting, that's pretty cool
"2020 is still looking like a year of possibilities"
Oh man... I've got news from the future
Nonsense comment
@@TheSultan1470 exactly
Only OGs recognize the background music
It worked well enough to put into two arcade games, at least. Konami used it for Dance Evolution Arcade and a game called Mirai Dagakki Future Tom Tom, one being a sequel/port of Dance Masters/Dance Evolution, and the other being... a weird one.
Sadly Dance Evolution/Masters lost out to Dance Central by Kinect players.
The man who ruined EA went and ruined Xbox. He wasn’t a gamer he was a business man who was good at coding.
I feel like Sony just made the Move to please investors who wanted them to pursue the Wii market. They never seem too keen on motion controls while Microsoft went all-in on it (to their detriment.) For the 2nd half of the generation, the Kinect seemed to dominate the 360 whilst the Move was just an afterthought. And, just like the Wii did to the Wii U, the Kinect ended up sabotaging the Xbone.
Nowadays, PS Move is relegated as a VR Controller.
@@AL2009man Which was a pretty smart move on Sony's part. They kept the R&D costs down by using what they already had. I've never used a PSVR, but I assume the Move controllers work well enough for it.
It only dominated the casual 360 market. My friends and I were fully into CoD at the time, so kinect never appealed to us moreso than shouting, "xbox record that!"
bigevilworldwide1 you do know there were Wii style controller prototypes for the GameCube and that the general concept was being shown to all the console manufacturers by a third party who was rejected by the others except Nintendo.
Also WarioWare Twisted and Yoshi Topsy Turvy has gyro controls on GBA, not to mention the primitive implementation in the Power Glove.
The development was never exclusive to one manufacturer or system.
Actually, Microsoft was why the xbone failed.
"Transcend precision." Nintendo should use that line to explain why joycon drift is a feature, not a bug. Your joycons are transcending precision.
also I can not complain. I worked for a software house and we coded fun demos and other stuff with the kinect. I borrowed it from work for one weekend and I spent the weekend beating Rise of Nightmares and playing Kinect Sports. I had a lot of fun.
You got the Mega 64 "WHUUUDAYA DOOOO WITH A KINECT" song stuck in my head, hahahahahaaaa
love it!
Everytime I remember the Kinect I think about that Miyamoto and Bill Trinen pic. Everyone knows which one.