Xbox 360 Kinect may have some potential bugs

Would Microsoft iron out the XBox Kinect’s bugs before launch?

Over the following few months, Microsoft will launch its motion control gaming device, the Xbox 360 Kinect. Around the same time, Sony will launch the Play Station Move and Nintendo will bring out the Wii MotionPlus.

Among the three, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect is the perhaps the most ambitious. So ambitious in fact, that it might flop while laying a foundation for the future of gaming. Unless Microsoft irons out the bugs that have been reported so far. Related: Kinectimals games for XBox Kinect

The Xbox 360 Kinect has a camera that constantly reads the gamers movements and makes the character on screen move in exactly the same way. With the Kinect, the gamer doesn’t need to use a remote control,

XBox 360 Kinect Sensor

Bugs reported so far with the Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect

People who’ve tried the Xbox 360 Kinect say there’s a lag between the gamer’s motion and its effect on the screen. This, as any gamer will know, is simply fatal. This might be due to cutting costs in processor power – but you can be sure on the company working feverishly to fix this bug, or at least bring it down to a more tolerable level. Related: Xbox Kinect launch in November

Moreover, it appears that the Xbox 360 Kinect camera is highly sensitive and gets distracted by any moving object in its angle of view. So other people, pets, or indeed anything capable of moving must be really still while the Kinect is running. This could have yet another drawback. Earlier, others had to wait for their turn while gaming, but with the Kinect, people can just get in the way each time they think they can do better than you! Related: Top gaming consoles in India: Kinect, Playstation and Wii

Then there’s the issue of recognizing people who are sitting as, well, people. The Kinect tends to get confused when you’re not standing while gaming. This wouldn’t go down well with the typical gamer, who sits fast. But the Nintendo Wii showed that if the game is interesting enough and fun, gamers are willing to get up and move it. You could only hope that the Kinect buyers are already predisposed to getting their game on, standing up!

And finally, shooting without a physical control is impossible at the moment. The technology doesn’t seem to be that refined as yet. For allowing people to shoot, Microsoft will probably have to ship a remote with the Xbox 360 Kinect, which to some extent will kill the unique proposition that the Kinect offers.

Xbox 360 Kinect’s competitors are doing it differently, and their product does sound less impressive, but might actually work better.

Sony Play Station Move and Nintendo Wii MotionPlus

Sony’s PS Move follows a more traditional design. The gamer holds a small remote with a transparent, colored globe attached to one end, and then moves. The globe is meant to help the Play Station Move recognize slight movements more efficiently.

Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus is also based on a similar traditional scheme and can recognize extremely fine movements.

The future of motion gaming

Microsoft says the lag in motion off and on screen can be fixed with some prediction techniques implemented in the software.

The Xbox 360 Kinect library is even now being updated so that the device can recognize sitting people.

Shooting could perhaps happen with further library updates, highly sensitive cameras, and software that recognizes hand attitudes and motions very well. And maybe the game could have options at the start to help it understand who the players are, and so that after that the camera does not read any other object’s motion.

Unless Microsoft has fixed these bugs by the time it launches, the Xbox 360 Kinect might work best for the dancing, adventure and fitness games that come with it.

However, the Kinect can also be used to control movies playing on it, so that films can be fast forwarded or rewound with hand gestures, and this method of controlling electronic devices will most undoubtedly lead to a whole slew of new inventions and more realistic gaming in the future.