This spring, I was invited to Microsoft’s London office for a “tour of Xbox live and Kinect”, the Microsoft Xbox’s online environment and record-setting controllerless peripheral respectively. I personally didn’t know what to expect from a tour of a virtual space but I must say I was surprised to see what Xbox live had to offer in conjunction with Kinect.
I was first introduced to Tanya who represented the Xbox Live system here in the UK and Andy who was a product demonstrator (what an awesome gig). They asked me a series of questions to gauge my familiarity with Xbox live and digital entertainment. “So do you know what Xbox is?” I answered proudly with a hint of embarrassment “Yup. I’m a gold subscriber”, which brought about brief stunned expressions with slight smirks. I needed to establish quickly that I was super familiar with many things Xbox as I was wondering what new info I could get from this encounter. What is there to offer and why am I invited here if there’s nothing new?
Andy then briefly asked “So are you aware of the Kinect?” And again to scroll ahead to fresh material I responded with the collective force of the internet behind me describing the Kinect platform’s recent record breaking sales as well as how the development of the Kinect came about from an issue of WIRED from the previous year. I suppose a simple “yes” could have done...
Down to business then, I was given a super quick demonstration of the hand controls and voice controls of the Kinect very similar to the 2010 E3 Kinect demo. I decided to bring up a few tough issues which I knew were prevalent with the Kinect. For instance when asked to try the voice controls myself, I asked whether the Kinect would recognise my voice in particular or everyone’s indiscriminately. This is a particular issue that could arise from squabbling users who want to do different things with the Kinect. For instance instead of fighting over a remote, siblings would be shouting at the Xbox to play different things. Was there a solution to this? Unfortunately no and it is one of those things which will be smoothened over in what will obviously be a future iteration of Kinect. A few other challenging questions were dropped for instance “why Microsoft Points?” and “will the Kinect recognise twins from each other?” Unfortunately both were tenuously answered.
After having my fun of grilling the demonstrators (who I must say were super nice and super cool people, I was just being cruel). The beauty of the Kinect really shone through. The video communication environment, the party system and the overall social application of Kinect is at a different level to anything else on the market right now. I was demoed to video calling and while video calling has been around for ages, it’s never been quite as streamlined as it is with the Kinect system where you just plug in a piece of hardware and go. With PCs it’s all about installation of various software and if you don’t then trying to find how to get your webcam, microphone and firewall all to work harmoniously.
On top of all that there’s the social appeal to the immediate physical environment. The Kinect platform IS a lot of fun and with friends it can be an awesome tool to make the living room a bit livelier. I mentioned how the Kinect is essentially one of the first steps into making the “Tony Stark garage” from Iron Man a reality and how it could one day link up to the room and control lighting and the blinds after all it can already control what you watch and what you listen to! The demonstrators jested about how I should get a job in their creative team but seriously, that would’ve been awesome! (If you’re reading this Andy/Tanya, then get me that job!)
Through the entire “tour” I eventually discovered something very important about the Kinect. It really is a social apparatus where people separated by distance can come together and interact with one another. This would be amazing for those who are homebound or working abroad. The video calling function from the Kinect can connect to other devices out there and help people keep in touch with loved ones.
After the conclusion of the demonstration I was convinced that Microsoft had demonstrated that they were still a powerhouse of research and technology and the introduction of those discoveries into our homes re-establishes once again the influence that company has on bringing new things into our lives. I couldn’t help but leave without dropping one final challenging question “With so many Kinect’s sold, why is there still such a limited library of games?” I got a surprising piece of advice from this question “Look out for us at this year’s E3.”
