XBOX kinect tryout

September 17 2010 / 15:30

We were invited by Microsoft to go and try out the new XBOX Kinect at their loft in Brussels. It was a fun experience, a very nice welcome with breakfast, coffee and drinks.
We arrived as the very first and got the full explanation from Maarten. But after all, we did not really need an explanation, the Kinect interface is very intuitive. The cursor follows your hand, when you want to activate a button you have to hold your hand over the button. A timer appears, when it is full, the button is activated.
If you compare the Kinect with the standard WII, it is a huge difference. The quality of the graphics are much clearer, the response much higher and it tracks your whole body. You just have to move any arm, knee, hand, head, ... and the character on the screen follows it simultaneously.
Of course, the Kinect won't replace all controls for every game. But it is a very nice way of interfacing for the games we tried: Bowling, Adventure, Racing and dancing ;).
We look forward to buy the Kinect in November and make a smart home interface with it. Lots of possibilities, almost enough for our fantasy to get satisfied.

Here is a small video of our experiences this morning: