The Case for Kinect

The strengths. The weaknesses. The facts. Digital Foundry investigates.

As we move closer to Kinect’s November release date, games developers are talking in more detail – on and off the record – about the new motion control system: what it can do, what it can’t do, and what we should expect from the system going forward.

Microsoft itself is stepping up its marketing efforts. This week, two articles (one from T3 and another more impressive piece from Gizmodo) arrived, giving us our first peek inside the Kinect camera and giving us enough technical info to banish the somewhat unkind “EyeToy HD” talk that has dogged the internet since E3: Kinect is a state-of-the-art consumer-level piece of motion capture equipment with voice recognition and biometric ID capabilities and Microsoft wants you to know that.

In the meantime, since E3, Microsoft has shown the system working on TV shows, and rolled out playable demos in Macys stores across the USA, leading to a range of Kinect “fail” videos appearing online, along with attempts at other events to deliberately trip up the sensor with the use of baggy black, reflective clothing amongst other things.