Product Description

Includes Kinect Sensor and Kinect Adventures! Game

Jump In With Microsoft Kinect

Introducing Kinect, formerly "Project Natal", a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required.

Kinect will turn YOU into the controller for games and entertainment, and it will work with every Xbox 360. Unlike 2-D cameras and controllers, Kinect tracks your full body movement in 3-D, while responding to commands, directions, even a difference of emotion in your voice.

Kinect brings games and entertainment to life in extraordinary new ways - no controller required. Easy to use and instantly fun, Kinect gets everyone off the couch moving, laughing and cheering. See a ball? Kick it. Control an HD movie with a wave of the hand. Want to join a friend in the fun? Simply jump in. With Kinect technology evaporates, letting the natural magic in all of us shine. And the best part is Kinect works with every Xbox 360

With the Kinect sensor, you can experience gaming like never before. Easy to use and fun for everyone, the Kinect sensor utilises revolutionary full-body tracking to put you in the center of the fun. This amazing new technology allows the sensor to recognise your body and mirror your movements in the game, making you the controller. The sensor is compatible with every Xbox 360* and comes with a Kinect game. With Kinect Xbox 360 now has the best controller ever made - YOU.

Features

• Colour VGA Motion Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS
• Depth Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS
• Array of 4 microphones supporting single speaker voice recognition
• Fully compatible with all Xbox 360 models*
• Revolutionary technology that includes body recognition

How does it work?

• Kinect sensor. Kinect is the worlds first system to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multiarray microphone and

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92 in PC & Video Games
• Brand: Microsoft
• Released on: 2010-11-10
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Format: Unknown format
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .44 pounds

Manufacturer's Description


Jump In With Microsoft Kinect

Introducing Kinect, a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required.

Kinect will turn YOU into the controller for games and entertainment, and it will work with every Xbox 360. Unlike 2-D cameras and controllers, Kinect tracks your full body movement in 3-D, while responding to commands, directions, even a difference of emotion in your voice.

Kinect brings games and entertainment to life in extraordinary new ways - no controller required. Easy to use and instantly fun, Kinect gets everyone off the couch moving, laughing and cheering. See a ball? Kick it. Control an HD movie with a wave of the hand. Want to join a friend in the fun? Simply jump in. With Kinect technology evaporates, letting the natural magic in all of us shine. And the best part is Kinect works with every Xbox 360*.
Kinect for Xbox 360 View larger.	Kinect With the Kinect sensor, you can experience gaming like never before. Easy to use and fun for everyone, the Kinect sensor utilises revolutionary full-body tracking to put you in the center of the fun. This amazing new technology allows the sensor to recognise your body and mirror your movements in the game, making you the controller. The sensor is compatible with every Xbox 360* and comes with a Kinect game. With Kinect Xbox 360 now has the best controller ever made - YOU.	You are the controller. View larger.
Features Colour VGA Motion Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS Depth Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS Array of 4 microphones supporting single speaker voice recognition Fully compatible with all Xbox 360 models* Revolutionary technology that includes body recognition

How does it work?

• “Kinect” sensor. “Kinect” is the world’s first system to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multiarray microphone and custom processor running proprietary software that brings “Kinect” experiences to every Xbox 360 console. The “Kinect” sensor tracks full-body movement and individual voices, creating controller-free fun and social entertainment available only on Xbox 360.
• RGB camera. “Kinect” has a video camera that delivers the three basic color components. As part of the “Kinect” sensor, the RGB camera helps enable facial recognition and more.
• Depth sensor. An infrared projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor allows “Kinect” to see the room in 3-D (as opposed to inferring the room from a 2-D image) under any lighting conditions.
• Multiarray microphone. “Kinect” has a microphone that will be able to locate voices by sound and extract ambient noise. The multiarray microphone will enable headset-free Xbox LIVE party chat and more.
• Custom processor (running Microsoft proprietary software layer). A proprietary software layer makes the magic of “Kinect” possible. This layer differentiates “Kinect” from any other technology on the market through its ability to enable human body recognition and extract other visual noise.
  
  
  Additional Screenshots:
  

  Jump in with Kinect. View larger.

  You are the controller. View larger.

  The box. View larger.

  Sleek, smooth design. View larger.

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  You are the controller.
  Kinect provides a whole new way to play. It uses a sensor to track your body movement and recognise your face, even listen to your voice.

  Full-body tracking allows the Kinect sensor to capture your movement, from head to toe, to give players a full-body gaming experience.

  
  Personalised play.
  

  Kinect is smart enough to remember voices and faces and provides an in-game experience in which the player’s face and voice are recognised. Greet and speak to characters in the game, or simply step into view of the sensor to log into Xbox LIVE and connect with friends.

  Full-body play. Kinect provides a new way to play where you use all parts of your body — head, hands, feet and torso. When you're the controller, you don't just control the superhero, you are the superhero. Full-body tracking allows the Kinect sensor to capture your movement, from head to toe, to give players a full-body gaming experience.
  
  Off-the-couch play. Kinect provides gameplay that gets you off the couch, on your feet and in the fun. Each Kinect experience is designed to get players moving, laughing, cheering and playing together. Kinect makes social gaming off-the-couch fun.
  
  
  Sensor
  

  Colour and depth-sensing lenses
  Voice microphone array
  Tilt motor for sensor adjustment
  Fully compatible with existing Xbox 360 consoles

  Field of View
  Horizontal field of view: 57 degrees
  Vertical field of view: 43 degrees
  Physical tilt range: ± 27 degrees
  Depth sensor range: 1.2m - 3.5m

  Data Streams
  320x240 16-bit depth @ 30 frames/sec
  640x480 32-bit colour@ 30 frames/sec
  16-bit audio @ 16 kHz

  Skeletal Tracking System
  Tracks up to 6 people, including 2 active players
  Tracks 20 joints per active player
  Ability to map active players to LIVE Avatars

  Audio System
  LIVE party chat and in-game voice chat (requires Xbox LIVE Gold Membership)
  Echo cancellation system enhances voice input
  Speech recognition in multiple

  
  
  
  

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

227 of 235 people found the following review helpful.
I agree with the 'UK living room size' review ... but!
By Chris Read
ok well this arrived today

Plenty of cable and installation is painless .... although your xbox will require 2 or 3 downloads before its all working

I stuck mine to the top of my tv with blu tak ... worked a treat!

The problems start tho when you realise just how much room you need

The sensor wants you to be stood AT LEAST 6 feet (2m) away from the sensor ... and something i had not read anywhere ... if you want it to be able to recognise 2 people at the smae time you need to be stood at least 8 feet (3m) away. I never saw this mentioned in any of the promotional videos or articles and think that it is a bit of a deal breaker

Not only that, but you need room to step backwards comfortably too. Thinking of family and friends living rooms, i would say only about of quarter of the people I know would have the room for Kinect. Not only that but alot of people sit their couch 6 - 10 feet from their tv, so you would probably have to move that too ...

The Kinect needs to be positioned in line with the centre of your TV, so you cant position it off to one side either.

OK so now the good news .... i did manage to get it all setup despite the back of my legs being against the sofa .... and i have to say that the technology seems pretty impressive to me. I have a fairly dark living room and didnt have to do anything with lights, curtains etc to get it to work ... it all worked straight out of the box and the motion sensing is indeed pretty impressive ... when you see it picking out each of your joints for the first time you will be impressed

I have never bought a dancing game before but i would love to try dance central, as from what i can tell, Kinect seems perfect for it and it would be alot of fun.

So impressed with the speech recognition ... it can still recognise what you say when the xbox is playing a loud film!

The most fun i had was using speech recognition to flick between film trailers on xbox Zune ..... just by saying 'Suggest a Movie', it started streaming (full screen) a recommended movie trailer ... saying 'next' immediately starts the next trailer, there are 100+ to watch and its so quick, smooth and slick (on 10mb broadband) that u can flick through loads of trailers in seconds ... great stuff

Its not immediately apparent what words the xbox can understand and it doesnt discuss it anywhere in the paperwork .... there is a video in the 'Welcome' bar which covers using the Kinect and it also covers this.... basically when Kinect is active ... most of the text you can see on the screen is understood when spoken by Kinect ..... only currently works for English ...

The bundled Kinect Adventures works well in helping you to discover the Kinect gaming experience ... the outside box says other game demos are included on the disc , but due to room limitations i quickly left the game and hadnt noticed any mention of other playable demos ... but i hope they are there

So ... if youve got the room ... get one .... if you can make room by moving things around .... get one ... if you dont have a big enough room, make sure you have a friend who gets one ... because although it might end up getting dusty like most hardcore gamers Wii's now are, it is certainly a big leap forward and an experience you wont forget in a hurry

76 of 79 people found the following review helpful.
Review based on hardware, rather than games available
By XBL:Hatch87
As My title says, this is a review on the Kinect itself, rather than what games I have for it.

The camera looks pretty smart and comes with plenty of cable for power and usb connection. You also get provided a USB extender so you can still plug in your wireless adapter if you have one.

The Camera has a motor which adjusts itself to get the best angle to see you. You can manually over ride this for finer tuning if you like.

My 4 year old daughter tried one of the games on Kinect Adventures which involved flapping your arms to fly around a space station, which she loved and needed very little guidance.

I tried river rapids and was pleasantly surprised at how well it interacts with the 3D space. You can move forward and back within the boat, as well as left and right. Then when you had to jump, the amount you jumped actually effected the in game hight which I wasn't expecting. After using the Wii balance board, it was hard to remember I actually needed to move, rather than just lean.

The Voice recognition worked every time (so far), say 'Xbox' and it prompts you with what you can say at the bottom of the screen, or say what box you want. Never has opening and closing a disc tray been so much fun lol.

You also get a small box in the bottom right which is what the camera sees, so you can tell if its seeing you clearly or not.

If you go to far back/forward, it tells you to move accordingly, you soon get use to the play area.
I use a projector so have the lights off and the camera was still tracking me fine. The only issue with the light source coming from behind was the facial recognition for auto sign in, kind of expected though.

I was also impressed with how quickly two players can join in, I was helping my daughter to select an option with her hand, and suddenly I popped up and was playing with her, then move back out of shot and its back to 1 player.

Conclusion
The tech is very good, and can be improved with updates, I dropped a star as the play area is very limited, and recommend you all get out a tape measure and make sure you have enough space. This isn't suitable for every lounge, and certainly not for your average childs bed room, but if you got the play space it is a lot of fun and can only get better with more in depth games in the future.

135 of 141 people found the following review helpful.
Great Tech but you need to be more than 6 foot away from TV
By K. Grant
As other reviewers have stated: I'm not convinced how many UK houses fit the ideal distance for Kinect. I have the second biggest bedroom (in a detached house)as a "games room/lounge". It's about 8ft long but has a sofa in it at one end and the telly at the other end. So, in reality, I'm about, or just under, 6 ft away from the sensor.

I set up the Kinect (piece of cake - plug in power [it needs its own power point BTW so bear that in mind] and plug into USB at back - wireless adaptor users will need to plug that into the front with supplied cable but I use ethernet so can't comment much on that) and ran through the inital setup wizard (you'll need to be online for a few small updates to the software). At first it seemed to have no problems whatsoever, and I had some fun with the bundled game and quickly began to see how this might well seriously take off.

First impressions: wow! Impressive tech indeed! Yes, it works! Wave your hand in the dashboard (where you see a little hand in bottom right and/or a little mic to indicate hand gestures/voice recognition respectively is available) to get Kinect's attention and you get a 'Wii like' hand pointer which you move around the screen to select things: keep your hand in same position when over the icon required until the circle completes, and it will be selected. Easy! And you kinda feel like you're in 'Minority Report' which is kind of cool. It seems to correctly pick up all your movements and this does indeed go WAY further than the Wii (which I totally agree with another reviewer here, as mine is indeed gathering dust and has been for some time; in fact I'll sell it now I think as the XBOX now truly does it all, and much, much better!).

However, once you realise that your "starting" point of the "play area" - when standing - is with your legs against the sofa and then games (or the calibration setup) asks you to "step back" you realise you have a problem!

I should have known! I really should. When I saw the adverts and vids online little alarm bells did start to ring when I noticed what large spacious studio minimialist studio type houses these people seemed to have! 50" telly mounted on the wall and they're standing about 15ft away! Hmmm. "Nice to have the space," I thought at the time... Oh dear, those alarm bells should have been ringing MUCH louder! I was perhaps temporarily deafened by the sight of new shiny tech.

The 'manual' states 6ft away from the sensor (for 1 player) and 8ft for two players. However, I would argue that this is absolutely bare minimum for even 1 player!

The reason being that I have just run the calibration tool in the Kinect menu (which seems to be more in depth than the initial setup 'wizard') and the problems become more apparent. It can't recognise my head until I move my sofa until it hits the radiator (bit of a problem as it's a recliner model which now won't recline! And it also doesn't like being moved much either due to the mech of the reclining bits! So not something I want to move every day.) and then really push my legs against the sofa. Now, at this point, I would say I am almost certainly about 6ft away! However, you get a stiff card with a face on it that you have to hold up and Kinect tells you to line up the eyes on your card into the glasses on the screen (weird I know but when you run through it you see how it can help it calibrate) to get great calibration. Trouble is - it keeps asking you to move back, and move back. At this point of course I am clambering back onto the sofa to satisfy its instructions.

Even if I moved my XBOX downstairs to the lounge I would no better off as (like a lot of people I'd imagine) we have the telly and sofa "width-wise" rather than length-wise as it makes more of the space available.

Long story short (too late!) I would agree with another reviewer here that not many UK houses would struggle to fit the bare minimum distance requirements here! Seriously, you're talking about quite a large room with no obstructions in front of you and at least a couple of foot behind you as well. If you're buying this for your kid who has their XBOX in their bedroom; I would seriously measure up before hand as I can't imagine many people have a bedroom big enough.

MS will of course argue that they want Kinect to be a family game and thus it's designed for lounge use. Trouble is I would argue that the US average lounge must obviously be larger than our 'poor little UK' houses! :(

However, you've got the space: what's it like?

Well, first impressions: very, very, very good. People over 35 will probably think it's worth 120 notes alone to be able to talk to your XBOX just like they used to talk to the computer in Star Trek! I'm one of those people and saying (in a perfectly normal voice! No need for over enunciation here!) "XBOX pause" or "XBOX REWIND.... FASTER...FASTER...PLAY!" will never, ever get old for me! :)That it works over background noise plus the noise of the film itself is very impressive indeed (no 'training' required for voice recognition by the way!).

The sensors/camera(s) are equally impressive. As someone who plays too many games sitting down, I can see myself losing some serious weight playing these games! You do indeed have to jump, wave, kick and move around the room with gusto (depending on the game of course). And it seems to detect your movements perfectly. Again, if you're old skool and have experienced things like "light pens" on ZX Spectrums et cetera in the past. then, like me, you probably always expect these things to be flakey, gimmicky and a bit naff at best. I'm pleased to say that I was wrong! The tech (so far) seems to work almost perfectly. Nice to see something truly innovative come out of MS R&D department!

The voice recognition only works on a few items (you can't move through items in the whole dashboard for example. In fact it only really works in "Kinect Hub" and Zune). It works best in Zune (playing back movies or music). One thing I haven't seen mentioned in the tips/manual is that you can chain commands together at same time. e.g. I was saying "XBOX" and then waiting for menu to come up with available commands and then saying "pause"; in fact you quickly realise that you can say "XBOX PAUSE" straight away and it instantly (!) pauses etc. Very impressive.

Anyway: would I recommend it? If you like the idea of Wii type games (and perhaps more involved ones in the future?) which use your whole body and/or want to control your media playback with voice recognition then absolutely yes: it's worth every penny. B

But... don't forget...

MEASURE YOUR ROOM before buying!

:)

Now if only I had the money for an extension...

See all 236 customer reviews...