They are pretty plentiful in the Milwaukee area. The red wii the kids want for christmas has proven much harder to find...

They have been hard to find at Our local best buys, Last weekend all 3 were sold out and this Week when I got mine they only had 3 left.

Force the wife to master the Dance Central demo thats included on the Kinect Adventures disc, it only has two songs (Poker Face and Poison) but if she can withstand dancing to those two, she can handle anything

The Red Wiis are instock everywhere here, same goes for the Kinect.

Weird, non-important question, but does anybody know why there's a difference in retail packaging this soon after release? I had to return my first kinect because the motor was screwed, and that one came in the box with the 'slip case' where the game came out the back from the little slot, blue cardboard inside etc. My new one came in a box with no slipcase, art printed on the actual box and boring white cardboard inside, with no slot in the back so I basicly had to tear the thing apart to get the game out.

Really? i see them everywhere. They had them in big pyramids about 6 feet tall at best buy today while I was there. Theyre also in stock at amazon so no tax or shipping

My local BB had about 30 of these + a Kinect girl showing people how to use it.

I still have <0% interest in Kinect, but my wife thinks it looks "awesome" and wants the kids to have one as a big Christmas present. If nothing else, I'll grant that Dance Central is about 1000 times better than the Just Dance game that the kids are addicted to. So I guess I'll pick one up just in case I can't find one between BF and Christmas. If there's a deal in the meantime, I'll bring this one back to Game Stop (they had dozens of them today)

I went to a Walmart near Madison today and they had about 30 of them on an endcap.

Must not have been looking hard enough.

Now we have another wii to collect dust...

Is anyone else seeing a delay in Kinect Adventures? It's a bit frustrating.

Dance Central is pretty fun though.

I tried the demo with the kids at Best Buy after dinner tonight. It was TERRIBLE. The machine kept losing sight of us. We were standing there like idiots with our hands over our heads hoping Kinect might see us. We had to recalibrate twice. Lag was pretty bad on soccer game as well. Kids were very unimpressed. My daughter left saying "The Move is a LOT better than that". Not sure it'll be the Christmas home run I was expecting. Maybe it was a bad set up? Maybe kids had messed with the sensor in-store? It can't really be that bad, can it?

It isn't. I haven't tried soccer but the stuff that I have tried has been really responsive. I think the in-store setups have some serious issues, it may be with the lighting, the units themselves, or people walking by in the background. I'm using one in an apartment and haven't experienced any issues with it picking me up or responding.

...at least, it worked great with Adventures, Dance Central and Your Shape.

Well, that's good to hear. It was really bad there. Best Buy did themselves no favors with that set-up; I heard several people commenting on how bad it was and how it wasn't working right. Unsurprisingly, there were lots of Kinects available there. Unfortunately my plan for having the kids all psyched up for a Kinect totally backfired.

The Best Buy I demo'ed it at has three or four mock living rooms where they set up different home theater systems and they had the Kinect in one of those. So there wasn't a lot of foot traffic going on where I tried it out.

Both the in-store demo and my at-home set up have been great. The Kinect hasn't had any problem recognizing me and I haven't experienced any kind of loss or lag.

If the in-store demos are still using the earlier firmware, well it seems like there have been a lot of improvements between the ones used at preview events and those that outlets are receiving for review. So that could be the problem.

I only noticed it with Kinect Adventures (hitting the balls). But my camera needs to be farther away...so that may be the problem. So far it's fun. I looked like an idiot dancing to Lady Gaga.

Yeah, it works really well. My little one even goes out of camera a lot of times because she's jumping so much and the Kinect recognizes her back pretty fast.

Mine is great and never acts up really. The only lag that seems noticable is oddly in the Kinect Adventures menu. In game its great.

You guys have the camera mounted above or below your TV? Mine is below...maybe above would work better?

Mine is below. I actually have a projector and just put a little table below the screen and the camera there.

Below the tv. It's great. I wouldn't trust Best Buy employees to tie my shoes, let alone set up any sort of specialized equipment to mimic actual home use. There's an entire calibration routine they could have fucked up or even ignored. /obvious

Mine is also below, though I have a projection setup as well. ...and a little off center (I'm in an apt, both my projector (holdover from college) and the kinect are a bit of a stretch but I have no real complaints.)

I am certain that the in-store unit wasn't calibrated correctly or some kids messed it up. I have had mine since launch and it works beautifully. I am amazed at how responsive it is. Don't let that experience discourage you.


on to other things -- I was able to convince my wife to let me buy Kinect Sports this weekend. 2 thumbs up

Ping Pong -- this is definitely my favorite so far. It feels just like I am playing actual ping pong. I was surprised that you would be able to put spin on the ball, but you can do it. You have free movement behind the table, so I can use the exact same tactics I use in actual ping pong. I played this online and had a blast.

Soccer -- I only tried this twice, it didn't grab me like the others did. This game seemed more restrictive. There wasn't alot of freedom here. Like I said, I didn't play this but a couple of times so my opinion may change.

Volleyball -- wow, this is really fun. you actually have to jump to spike the ball which surprised me. you can do regular serves or jump serves.

Track and Field -- I have not tried this out.

Bowling -- awesome as well. i suck at actual bowling so I suck at this too.

Boxing -- this is my second favorite. you feel like you are actually boxing, you can put your punches exactly where you want them to go.


So far I am loving the Kinect. I didn't think I would like it as much as I do. I look forward to its future and what new experiences it will bring to the table.

Decker see one of my earlier posts. I had the same experience at my local BB. The setup was terrible. Mine doesn't have any mock living rooms so it was setup on a TV along the giant wall of TVs that they have. People were walking behind us and the Kinect kept losing track of us. If I had to base my purchasing decision solely on that demo experience, then I'd stay as far away as I could. Luckily it seems as long as your setup is good then Kinect works as advertised for the most part.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I knew that it HAD to work better than that. In fact I tried it in another store briefly on launch day and it seemed much better than this one. I can't believe they have such a problematic demonstration set up right before the holiday season.

I wonder how many sales BB and thus MS will lose just based on bad setups like Decker and I have experienced? The more tech savy / video game educated shoppers will know that the Kinect works when setup correctly and realize the setup at the store was terrible. However, what about the clueless parents/grandparents/girlfriends/spouses who come in wanting to get it, try it out and ultimately pass because the darn thing just didn't work at the store?