8 Million Kinect's Sold in 3 months.

[VirusType2]

8 Million Kinects Sold in 3 months.

http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/05/microsoft-sells-a-staggering-8m-kinect-motion-control-systems/

8 million in 3 months - that's almost 3 times faster than any Apple device sales have ever been. And it requires an Xbox 360, even. Remarkable.


I told you guys. I told you. Please don't make me use the torturous hl2.net search engine to put this in your face. I'll just paraphrase: "It's gonna fail", "Dead on arrival". I was like "You guys are dumb as shit this is going to be ****ing huge."

Microsoft will also launch a new game called Kinect Avatar, which will let you set up video communications with your friends. Only you won’t see them. When you speak, your friends will see your avatar, or Xbox 360 character, say the words. You can have group conversations avatar to avatar.

Haha I like this little anonymizer.

 

[MorganFreeman911]

Shut up, Virus <3. We knew it'd be huge. Everybody buys up this gimmicky bullshit. For the record, Kinect Dance, or whatever it's called, is actually kinda fun. For the first song, then you just watch all of your friends do it and laugh jovially.

 

[Raziaar]

The latest apple gadget will get a shitload of sales too, even if it's shitty.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be a box office success despite being a shitty movie.

Fox will continue to have more viewers than the other networks, even though they're completely biased and a horrible news outlet.


Actually I have no opinion on the kinect.

 

[VirusType2]

speaking of dark of the moon...

Oh, by the way

It's coming to the PC. [1][2]

Imagine this: for around $150 (and I assume it will get much cheaper) PC animators could do their own motion capturing for their 3D characters/games at their home computer. Why not?

[1] Microsoft
[2] Asus

 

[Krynn72]

Imagine this: for around $150 (and I assume it will get much cheaper) PC animators could do their own motion capturing for their 3D characters/games at their home computer. Why not?

GOD NO. I do not want to see this in my video games, ever.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Heh, I don't think many of us expected it to sell this well, myself included. Playstation Move on the other hand... yeah, everyone saw that coming.

 

[GreatEmperor]

Move is pretty damn good , Wii is total inaccurate garbage but the camera motion control system is decent

 

[morgs]

Wii is the new eyetoy it seems.

 

[ríomhaire]

speaking of dark of the moon...

Oh, by the way

It's coming to the PC. [1][2]

Imagine this: for around $150 (and I assume it will get much cheaper) PC animators could do their own motion capturing for their 3D characters/games at their home computer. Why not?

[1] Microsoft
[2] Asus

I'm pretty sure you can already use a Kinect on a PC if you use the right software.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be a box office success despite being a shitty movie.

God damn it allow a man one vice!

 

[VirusType2]

I'm pretty sure you can already use a Kinect on a PC if you use the right software.

Yes, you can, but it's nothing like "the Kinect". You plug it in USB and download some open source drivers. Without its software, the Kinect is just a device with an array of instruments. The Kinect 'hacking' is a totally experimental community.

But it would be cool to also have official drivers and official Kinect games and other software that supports it.

 

[StarBob]

Yes, you can, but it's nothing like "the Kinect". You plug it in USB and download some open source drivers. Without its software, the Kinect is just a device with an array of instruments. The Kinect 'hacking' is a totally experimental community.

But it would be cool to also have official drivers and official Kinect games and other software that supports it.

All Kinect IS is a motion tracking camera. All people had to do was figure out a way to get the basic features of it and turn it in to general input for a PC. The stuff has been around for a long time and no one ever really did anything with it, but now that there's a widespread consumer product it's like a whole new venue for motion tracking. Kinect's success has nothing to do with it being innovative or amazing in itself, but rather it's marketing campaign and software backend is what's driven it forward.

As we've all seen with Apple over the past decade or so... you don't have to have some super amazing ultra high quality new to the world device to conquer the market, you just need the right advertisement and the right target market.

 

[VirusType2]

All Kinect IS is a motion tracking camera. All people had to do was figure out a way to get the basic features of it and turn it in to general input for a PC. The stuff has been around for a long time and no one ever really did anything with it, but now that there's a widespread consumer product it's like a whole new venue for motion tracking. Kinect's success has nothing to do with it being innovative or amazing in itself, but rather it's marketing campaign and software backend is what's driven it forward.

As we've all seen with Apple over the past decade or so... you don't have to have some super amazing ultra high quality new to the world device to conquer the market, you just need the right advertisement and the right target market.

Well, first, it's a lot of different things in one. Yes it's a motorized, motion tracking camera, but there hasn't been anything like it before. It combines various technologies that have been around for ages, along with brand new technologies that haven't been seen anywhere outside of recent experimental military, and combines them with finely tuned software. It shines light on the subject with light that is out of the human range of vision, so it can see and track subjects in the dark. Obviously it has the multiple microphones, and 3D motion capture. The unit even uses a secondary (external) CPU. It combines all of these and in one integrated package. It tracks 6 people (in RAM) and tracks up to 2 people at the same time.

And don't understate the Kinect software. It has facial recognition software and can detect and store unique voice signatures. And working with the Xbox Live userbase, it constantly gives feedback to Microsoft so they can fine tune its functionality, or get ideas on how to improve the actual hardware in the future. It's constantly under further development that can be updated over Xbox Live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvvQJxgykcU
I had to look up some of this stuff, because I wasn't sure. You make feel like I'm selling it to you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-Nk62M7DnA
It's not just tracking motion, it's tracking joints and position:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk_cQVjqFZ4

 

[StarBob]

Well, first, it's a lot of different things in one. Yes it's a motorized, motion tracking camera, but there hasn't been anything like it before. It combines various technologies that have been around for ages, along with brand new technologies that haven't been seen anywhere outside of recent experimental military, and combines them with finely tuned software. It shines light on the subject with light that is out of the human range of vision, so it can see and track subjects in the dark. Obviously it has the multiple microphones, and 3D motion capture. The unit even uses a secondary (external) CPU. It combines all of these and in one integrated package. It tracks 6 people (in RAM) and tracks up to 2 people at the same time.

And don't understate the Kinect software. It has facial recognition software and can detect and store unique voice signatures. And working with the Xbox Live userbase, it constantly gives feedback to Microsoft so they can fine tune its functionality, or get ideas on how to improve the actual hardware in the future. It's constantly under further development that can be updated over Xbox Live.
I had to look up some of this stuff, because I wasn't sure. You make feel like I'm selling it to you.
It's not just tracking motion, it's tracking joints and position:
[

Aside from emitting a super bright LED light, that's all software. It doesn't make the hardware itself anything outside of a motion tracking camera. We have (and have had) one of those in our conference room for years now. It rotates, focuses, and zooms on individuals speaking and tracks them. The only thing that differentiates the two is the fact that Microsoft created some software that interprets the structure of a human body... which has been around in motion capture photography since... I don't even know when. All they did was package it into a consumer-priced bundle and market it like champions. Granted they probably are losing cash on the hardware sale, they're probably making cash selling more 360s and corresponding software.

 

[VirusType2]

Aside from emitting a super bright LED light, that's all software.

When 'hackers' mess with it, they aren't getting the full thing. They are not even using the complete array of sensors, but even if they could (or eventually will), they are still missing what makes it Kinect - the software, as I've said. And even if they have all of those things, they don't have native software support for Kinect in games and applications - they have some button mapping mess. So when anyone suggests that Microsoft, bringing it to the PC in an official way isn't a big deal, I will argue that is totally ridiculous.

And, it's not "just a motion camera with some other stuff and software". It is not something you have seen before at the office, you are mistaken.

Granted they probably are losing cash on the hardware sale, they're probably making cash selling more 360s and corresponding software.

FYI the Kinect is $50 in parts, which obviously does not include labor, shipping, R&D and advertising, tooling machinery, etc. For comparison, smarthphones are about $200 in parts, and they generally cost $500. It would be cheaper if Microsoft hadn't spent like a half billion dollars on advertising.

 

[GreatEmperor]

Aside from emitting a super bright LED light, that's all software. It doesn't make the hardware itself anything outside of a motion tracking camera. We have (and have had) one of those in our conference room for years now. It rotates, focuses, and zooms on individuals speaking and tracks them. The only thing that differentiates the two is the fact that Microsoft created some software that interprets the structure of a human body... which has been around in motion capture photography since... I don't even know when. All they did was package it into a consumer-priced bundle and market it like champions. Granted they probably are losing cash on the hardware sale, they're probably making cash selling more 360s and corresponding software.

What? no it costs about a third of what they sell it for