Kinect Technical Specifications & Xbox 360 Requirements Revealed

The most notable reveal would perhaps by the requirements of the Xbox 360 console itself. While Microsoft has insisted since the original unveiling of Kinect at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2009, then known as Project NATAL, that the device would be compatible with all Xbox 360 consoles, the revelation of a dedicated port included on the newly redesigned Xbox 360 model has sparked rumours of incompatibility, which were quickly debunked.

[lzim]

odd, i was led to believe it lacked an internal processor and so also needed a core to itself, if not 1-2 processing threads.

[Wikkid666]

The article says nothing about whether the processor is internal or it uses the 360s.

[darthv72]

Also, the notion of a dedicated port really lends nothing to the idea of older units being incompatible. I believe the kinect port is a custom usb port (think the original xbox controller ports) but one that will feed power and data.

Older models will require a splitter that will run off a single usb port (prob the back one) that will work for the data but not the power. That is why they keep saying it will have an external power for those systems.

As for the processor, combo of both makes sense. Using 360 cpu/gpu power to help calculate the finished product on screen along with the cpu in the kinect.

Remember people...this is not a cheap usb web cam (like the original live vision).

[Inside_out]

They say they are using 10-15% of one 360 P4 cores. I know that the Kinect we see today is a watered down version of the patented tech they bought and own. Maybe one day the " real " tech will be cost effective. It still is very impressive tech even without a super computer running it.

[wicked]

No, the previous artical said they removed a processor, but I would guess that it had more than 1 to start with. So it will have some form of processor still within it. Arm9 or Cortex M3, all dirt cheap now but powerful.

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

Does it matter? They showed Forza Kinect that looked amazing working with Kinect real time!

[callahan09]

Are you just talking about how the graphics are able to look amazing while working with Kinect? If that's what you're talking about, ok. The game itself, though, well... I think I'll stick with the real Forza, with an Xbox 360 control pad. The limited-control Kinect Forza they showed doesn't look like it's worth any attention, in my opinion. Why would anyone want to control a car like that, with hands held out and holding onto nothing, with no control over acceleration or braking? Just seems totally pointless to me.

[CrawFail]

lol real time? I don't quite think it was real time.

[Bigpappy]

You guy know that the motion tech is from prime sense right? Please go to their web site primesense.com,and have a look at what they say the tech can do. It can read fingers well enough to type with each finger and can be used while sitting. No one ever said it has to scan the entire body to work. What we have seen from kinect so far is not all it is capable of.

Reading these specs and trying to compare them to PSeye is pointless, because they are different types of cameras and provide completely differnt types of info to the consoles (Kinect is a 3D camera and provides 3D images. PSeye is a 2D camera and provides 2D images). Per Primsense, the camera is capable of providing video at 60fps, but the 3D is 30fps. The specs for 2 players active is for full body scans. There are no specs given for people sitting and just using their hands.

This tech is obviously a work in progress and has yet to be fleshed out. I suggest all you N4G Kinect experts, research before you post you doom and gloom so you atleast have solid facts for you skepticism. You can also relax and see what M$ does with the tech insteat of pretending to know more that the people developing the tech.

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

The game was available for people to try on the show floor at E3 so yes it was real time. Wetter you like it for Forza or not wasn't my point.

That is up to the developer to figure out.

[jazzking2001]

nice

[Apolloeye]

So pretty much the same spec as the PS Eye, although I thought the eye went up to 120 Hertz...

[Theonik]

The eye goes to 60Hz i think. Regardless the eye should be capable to do any Kinect shown so far with less lag. (they revolve on a 2D axis and only use the depth tracking to separate players.) I am really disappointed by the tech and how it is utilised thus far.

[shoddy]

More or less powerful we need to see the product.
So far it seem the pseye can do anything kinect can do.
2d 3d I not yet see the advantage.

[IHateYouFanboys]

no, the PSEye cannot do 3D tracking. Kinect can.

the PSEye does 2D motion recognition, Kinect does 3D motion tracking. they are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT things.

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

Going from alkaline to lithium was a significant step for batteries, but at the end of the day it is just a battery. PSEye and Kinect are kind of the same way. At the end of the day it is a game camera - with camera games.

[IHateYouFanboys]

@Sheikh Yerbouti: your example is not really on the same scale of difference as PSEye/Kinect.

a better example using batteries would be the jump from standard batteries to rechargable batteries. theyre both doing the same thing - being batteries - but one of them does things that the other one cannot possibly do, which is be recharged and used again. it does everything the standard battery does, and more.

Kinect does everything the PSEye does (2D motion recognition), and more (3D motion tracking). no amount of software updates can change the hardware in the PSEye, and the hardware is not capable of 3D motion tracking as it lacks infra-red.

[IaMs12]

Yes i see your point but how you guys feel about the PS3 can be said the same way.

The PS3 may produce better graphics and be more powerful then the Xbox360, but by the end of they day its still only a console. Also inferior to PC :)

[PirosThe4th]

... PSeye can do 3d as you say... even eyetoy... they used shadows and other stuff to recognize it.
Move is also 3d...

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

Lithium batteries are rechargeable batteries.

Kinect isn't a true 3D camera - it can't render a picture of your butt if you are always facing front. It makes an approximate 3D model using visual cues. The PSEye can do the same, although it will be cruder.

Plus, just because the technology is different, doesn't necessarily mean gameplay will be.

@lams12
Yes, you're right. Similarly Kinect will have some good games, different from PSEye, only if Microsoft makes them. But they haven't made games too different from the PSEye.

[Theonik]

Which is what i meant from the start. None of the games they have shown so far could not have been on the PS Eye.

[Xwow2008]

"Tracks up to 6 people, including 2 active players"
I think now its official that just 2 ppl can play at the same time.

[Godmars290]

Love that you're quoting something and you're getting disagrees.

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

Only room for two anyway when you think about it...
but it can keep track of six people during a game in regards to facial recognition. I think that's impressive.

I would love to have Kinect built into my laptop, so only I can get in even without a password. Why is Microsoft wasting this on the XBox again?

[Ilikegames76]

still couldn't play it sitting down. Honestly, some guys are so easily impressed by copy cat technology.

[blackpanther25]

i was at the engadget show and kudo showed its 3d tracking and when two people where on screen......one person would be red while the other would be green.......but as soon as a third person steped into the camera view two people automatically turned gray and it couldnt read their movements well.

what i took away from that event is that the kinect is pretty kool but for right now it can only work with two people(they could still be working on it)

[Colonel-Killzone]

There was no reason to mention move in this article. You are trolling and I won't agree with you even though we support the same brand. For all the people who agreed with you are clearly fanboys. Trolling is trolling and I never agree with them and I could care less whether you make a valid point or not. Because if this was a article talking about Move and someone came in here bragging about Kinect the PS3 community would have attacked that troll like a pack of wolfs on raw meat. And I can't believe 17 idiots agreed with your nonsense.

[FragMnTagM]

as there are not too many of them left anymore. It is good to see someone able to support a company without being a troll to the competition. +Bub man.

[BX81]

Colonel for President! You get my vote plus a bub!

[knifefight]

Man I am the only one not totally digging this motion-control stuff? :/

[BX81]

Yes! Now leave... Naw I'm joking. I'm not to sure about all the motion stuff anymore. I really like the arcade type games that require a gun though. I love to shoot sh$t. Duck hunt, house of the dead, crisis, silent scope etc!

[IaMs12]

It is interesting, i think it could be really something. It has the potential lets just see if MS goes the right route

[Christopher]

Not liking these specs.

***Depth sensor range: 1.2m - 3.5m***

Why would this vary so greatly? I thought it was controlled by the IR camera?

***Tracks up to 6 people, including 2 active players***

So, it is now just a two-person controller scheme. So, that's equaling out about the same price as buying two PS Move wands for motion gaming.

***Tracks 20 joints per active player***

Meaning, no intricate finger tracking at all.

***Vertical field of view: 43 degrees***

That's means a 5'6" person would have to stand at least 6' away from the Kinect cameras if it's positioned at exactly the mid point of their body, further if it's lower or higher in order to fully scan the full body. That's a lot of room to ask for in many households.

====

I'm really disappointed if these specifications are correct. I expected a lot more out of this technology. As it is, it's doing nothing that wasn't done more than 5 years ago as it is. Microsoft, I expected a lot more out of you here and so far you've failed to deliver on it. You need to step up your game and vastly improve the software elements to improve on what this technology can do, otherwise it really is just shovelware.

[Theonik]

Also alarmed by these specific specs. Also the 30fps camera causes a concern as it sets the lowest theoretical response time to 100ms. Demos so far have 200 with the TV lag according to Eurogamer. I was considering giving Kinect a second chance but after these specs no way.

[hmmmm]

How do you get 100ms?

1000/30!=100

Unless there's something I'm missing? If there is I apologise.

[Theonik]

There is an explanation for that. In a nutshell the lowest delay a game can have is 3 frames. So it's (1000/30)*3
http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...
This is a good article that explains it.

[Shadowstar]

***Depth sensor range: 1.2m - 3.5m***

===Why would this vary so greatly? I thought it was controlled by the IR camera? ===

I'm pretty sure they mean it doesn't sense depth closer than 1.2m (4') or farther than 3.5m (11.5'). I think you'd want that range to be as large as you could get it.

[Christopher]

That makes sense, but is still baffling considering other IR cameras track depth from as close as one foot.

[IHateYouFanboys]

who plays video games on their tv closer than 1.2m? who plays further away than 3.5m?

noone, thats who.

[Bigpappy]

It is obvious that the IR signal gets weaker with distance. It would make since then that it becomes less accurate at some point. You also have to be mind full that the IR is not being produced by your body so it has to travel from the camera to the bodies and back to the camera, which would reduce the range of the IR by at least half.

[JustTheFactsMr]

"I'm really disappointed if these specifications are correct. I expected a lot more out of this technology."

Have to agree. It would explain some of the lag. By comparison

PlayStation Eye

640 x 480 pixels at 60fps
320 x 240 at 120 fps
56 (upper body) or 75 degree (full body) field of view
4-microphone array.
16-bit audio with a signal-to-noise ratio of 90dB.

$30

With Facial recognition, head tracking, already in the PS3 SDK and games starting to ship with skeletal tracking the hardware of Kinect is quite low in some key areas. I was at least expecting it to match if not exceed the Eye in both resolution and speed. I mean it's 2-4 times slower in data capture than the Eye.

$150 (if true) seems a bit much for Kinect. Even $99 seems like gouging now. Will need to drop the price significantly.

[Bigpappy]

cos of 43 deg * 66" = 48" = 4'(4 feet). I have not use trig in a while (15 yrs), so please feel free to point out any errors.

I get 4 ft, but 6-8 ft away would be optimal to allow for jumping and what not. This would be a problem in some countries, but is workable in the US.

The storage size is a non-issue and I refuse to try and explait that to those who are unable to do it for themselves. I do not work for M$.

[Pillville]

"the only requirement placed upon the console when using Kinect is the need for 175MB of storage for drivers and other software, ...."

So, old Arcade units are pretty much screwed?
They come with 256MB or 512MB of internal storage, I doubt you'd want to use up to 70% of your storage for drivers.
And I really doubt you can use an external USB drive for storing the drivers.

These are things they need to tell us.

[Wikkid666]

It's a good thing you can get a usb flash drive for 10 bucks

[Pillville]

Did you even read what I typed?

[Wikkid666]

LOL! ok... read what you typed then think about it. Us the internal for drivers. Then use flash for storage! My point is that is only 10 bucks.

[Pillville]

The point is still that the arcade internal storage is going to have a huge chunk taken out of it for kinect drivers/software.

I guess that's what you get for buying the cheap model. I have an arcade, but I also have the hard drive from my first (broken) xbox. So I'm good to go.

[Wikkid666]

That's not just drivers and Kinect software... that is a complete dashboard update. If you have Kinect there is a mandatory dash update... so If you check there is already going to be a huge dash file on the internal memory, which will be replaced by the larger file.

[BubblesDAVERAGE]

Hmmm... I thought it was 4...and I knew it wasn't...so now that argument about kinect can support 4 players being a better value is in the dirt...

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

Only two can play at a time. You can have up to six-player.

Besides Microsoft doesn't want six people flapping their arms at once - legal reasons.

[callahan09]

What does it mean that it tracks 6 players, including 2 active players? I don't have a clue what that could possibly mean...

[supersonicsaga]

It means only two people can actively play a game, but it can display 4 other people(poses and basic mirroring probably). That kinda sucks.

[Qui-Gon Jim]

Maybe it can track 2 active users at a time, but also keep track of up to 4 other people to quickly and easily switch the active users.

Guess this confirms that you can only play two players simultaneous, but who has room for four people flailing around at the same time anyway?

[DlocDaBudSmoka]

it was able to track 42 skeletal points? idk, i could be wrong. But, the article said 20 per each player.

[Trroy]

Maybe its ~40 total? 2 players @ ~20 points each, or 1 player with ~40?

I'm just guessing with that, but there could be some processing limitation that needs to split the work across the entire image/players. Its possible that it could be more accurate for single player games.

[RIPSKATEDESTROY]

so whos psyched for Kinect???

[absolutecarnage]

I have kids and if it will make my 360 experience even better than great. I mean like seriously Kinect isn't going to break the bank even at the imgainary 150 rumor price, ( which i hardly doubt ) Since Microsoft is trying to get the casuals to buy it

[dukegodtezza]

prob day 1 for me