Can Kinect Compete?
We see how Microsoft's motion controller shapes up against the opposition.
UK, July 30, 2010
by Tom Butler


Now that Microsoft has finally planted its flag in the sand by releasing the pricing of Kinect, we were keen to find out what it had to offer for £129.99. This coming festive season will be a keenly fought battle of the motion sensors, but how does Kinect compare to Move and Wii?

With a hint of festive anachronism, Microsoft held its Christmas Showcase at the Saatchi Gallery on a stifling mid-July morning to show off its new product range that's designed to get parents parting with their hard-earned cash this coming Yuletide.

Traditionally the show is held to show off their products to buyers, gift-guide writers, and parenting groups, but this year Microsoft wanted to let the unlucky few who didn't make it to E3 the chance to have a play with Kinect.

After first being introduced to the new Kinect-enabled Xbox Live interface which allows you to control online content with voice commands, we were ushered through into a much larger room dominated by a stage with Dance Central being demoed by a trio of lithe dancers bopping away to Lady Gaga.

Volunteers to step up onto the stage to have a go at Dance Central were thin on the ground, but everyone else was keen to have a go at the four other games on offer – Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures, Joy Ride and Kinectimals – to finally get a chance to see whether Kinect can justify its £130 price tag.

Joy Ride – a cartoony kart-racer - was surprisingly difficult to control, and most of the seasoned gaming journos spent half the time spinning off the track. Waving your limbs around in front of a screen, regardless of how simplified the game is, isn't an intuitive control system.

The system's responsiveness also seemed a little off balance and only time will tell whether this gets easier with practice. You can see the potential for Kinect, but it feels like Microsoft was still either keeping its cards close to its chest, or had over-promised with the initial reveal.

Kinect Sports and Adventures seemed a better fit for the new interface, but for most of the time trying the ball-dodging mini-game in Adventures was spent flailing around at random. Whether this was caused by the infamous 'lag' that seemed to plague early demos was difficult to tell, but when you have to resort to waving your arms like a semaphore enthusiast at a rave whilst you're trying to do something as simple as bat a ball back at the screen it can get frustrating.


Here's what you get for your cash, but will it be worth it?
Our final demo was with Kinectimals, which was shown to us in a curtained off area of the showfloor, seemingly to enable voice commands to be heard by Kinect. The system really struggled in the darkened area, with the sounds of Lady Gaga still heard through the thick curtains, and the on-screen lion cub responded to the demonstrator's commands only sporadically.

It seems silence and solitude are needed by Kinect for optimum performance - conditions seldom found in homes with young children – Kinectimal's target audience.

From what we were shown, there is little that Kinect has to offer for the hardcore gamer from its opening titles, with the casual gamer clearly their number one target.

The games being shown were clearly just designed to demonstrate the peripheral's capability at a very basic level, but until Microsoft begins to utilise some of Kinect's more exciting features in a – dare we say it – cooler way, then it may struggle to convince even its most fervent fans to part with £130 when it finally becomes available later this year.

As it stands, PlayStation's Move looks a much more accessible piece of hardware and the tech demos we've seen blew Kinect's flailing displays out of the water. Nintendo is still ahead of the game when it comes to motion sensing, and both Sony and Microsoft still have a long way to go to catch up, but so far Kinect seems like the lame donkey in the race.