Kinect Sensor with Kinect Adventures (Xbox 360): Amazon.co.uk: PC & Video Games

Manufacturer's Description

Jump In With Microsoft Kinect

Introducing Kinect, a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required.

Kinect will turn YOU into the controller for games and entertainment, and it will work with every Xbox 360. Unlike 2-D cameras and controllers, Kinect tracks your full body movement in 3-D, while responding to commands, directions, even a difference of emotion in your voice.

Amazon Page

Kinect brings games and entertainment to life in extraordinary new ways - no controller required. Easy to use and instantly fun, Kinect gets everyone off the couch moving, laughing and cheering. See a ball? Kick it. Control an HD movie with a wave of the hand. Want to join a friend in the fun? Simply jump in. With Kinect technology evaporates, letting the natural magic in all of us shine. And the best part is Kinect works with every Xbox 360*.
Kinect for Xbox 360 View larger.	Kinect With the Kinect sensor, you can experience gaming like never before. Easy to use and fun for everyone, the Kinect sensor utilises revolutionary full-body tracking to put you in the center of the fun. This amazing new technology allows the sensor to recognise your body and mirror your movements in the game, making you the controller. The sensor is compatible with every Xbox 360* and comes with a Kinect game. With Kinect Xbox 360 now has the best controller ever made - YOU.	You are the controller. View larger.
Features Colour VGA Motion Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS Depth Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS Array of 4 microphones supporting single speaker voice recognition Fully compatible with all Xbox 360 models* Revolutionary technology that includes body recognition

How does it work?

“Kinect” sensor. “Kinect” is the world’s first system to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multiarray microphone and custom processor running proprietary software that brings “Kinect” experiences to every Xbox 360 console. The “Kinect” sensor tracks full-body movement and individual voices, creating controller-free fun and social entertainment available only on Xbox 360.
RGB camera. “Kinect” has a video camera that delivers the three basic color components. As part of the “Kinect” sensor, the RGB camera helps enable facial recognition and more.
Depth sensor. An infrared projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor allows “Kinect” to see the room in 3-D (as opposed to inferring the room from a 2-D image) under any lighting conditions.
Multiarray microphone. “Kinect” has a microphone that will be able to locate voices by sound and extract ambient noise. The multiarray microphone will enable headset-free Xbox LIVE party chat and more.
Custom processor (running Microsoft proprietary software layer). A proprietary software layer makes the magic of “Kinect” possible. This layer differentiates “Kinect” from any other technology on the market through its ability to enable human body recognition and extract other visual noise.

Additional Screenshots:

Jump in with Kinect.
View larger.

You are the controller.
View larger.

The box.
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Sleek, smooth design.
View larger.

You are the controller.
Kinect provides a whole new way to play. It uses a sensor to track your body movement and recognise your face, even listen to your voice.

Full-body tracking allows the Kinect sensor to capture your movement, from head to toe, to give players a full-body gaming experience.

Personalised play.

Kinect is smart enough to remember voices and faces and provides an in-game experience in which the player’s face and voice are recognised. Greet and speak to characters in the game, or simply step into view of the sensor to log into Xbox LIVE and connect with friends.

Full-body play. Kinect provides a new way to play where you use all parts of your body — head, hands, feet and torso. When you're the controller, you don't just control the superhero, you are the superhero. Full-body tracking allows the Kinect sensor to capture your movement, from head to toe, to give players a full-body gaming experience.

Off-the-couch play. Kinect provides gameplay that gets you off the couch, on your feet and in the fun. Each Kinect experience is designed to get players moving, laughing, cheering and playing together. Kinect makes social gaming off-the-couch fun.

Sensor

Colour and depth-sensing lenses
Voice microphone array
Tilt motor for sensor adjustment
Fully compatible with existing Xbox 360 consoles

Field of View
Horizontal field of view: 57 degrees
Vertical field of view: 43 degrees
Physical tilt range: ± 27 degrees
Depth sensor range: 1.2m - 3.5m

Data Streams
320x240 16-bit depth @ 30 frames/sec
640x480 32-bit colour@ 30 frames/sec
16-bit audio @ 16 kHz

Skeletal Tracking System
Tracks up to 6 people, including 2 active players
Tracks 20 joints per active player
Ability to map active players to LIVE Avatars

Audio System
LIVE party chat and in-game voice chat (requires Xbox LIVE Gold Membership)
Echo cancellation system enhances voice input
Speech recognition in multiple

Product Description

Includes Kinect Sensor and Kinect Adventures! Game

Jump In With Microsoft Kinect

Introducing Kinect, formerly "Project Natal", a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required.

Kinect will turn YOU into the controller for games and entertainment, and it will work with every Xbox 360. Unlike 2-D cameras and controllers, Kinect tracks your full body movement in 3-D, while responding to commands, directions, even a difference of emotion in your voice.

Kinect brings games and entertainment to life in extraordinary new ways - no controller required. Easy to use and instantly fun, Kinect gets everyone off the couch moving, laughing and cheering. See a ball? Kick it. Control an HD movie with a wave of the hand. Want to join a friend in the fun? Simply jump in. With Kinect technology evaporates, letting the natural magic in all of us shine. And the best part is Kinect works with every Xbox 360

With the Kinect sensor, you can experience gaming like never before. Easy to use and fun for everyone, the Kinect sensor utilises revolutionary full-body tracking to put you in the center of the fun. This amazing new technology allows the sensor to recognise your body and mirror your movements in the game, making you the controller. The sensor is compatible with every Xbox 360* and comes with a Kinect game. With Kinect Xbox 360 now has the best controller ever made - YOU.

Features

Colour VGA Motion Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS
Depth Camera: 640x480 pixel resolution @30FPS
Array of 4 microphones supporting single speaker voice recognition
Fully compatible with all Xbox 360 models*
Revolutionary technology that includes body recognition

How does it work?

Kinect sensor. Kinect is the worlds first system to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multiarray microphone and

Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

234 of 242 people found the following review helpful

I agree with the 'UK living room size' review ... but! 10 Nov 2010

By Chris Read

Fun:

ok well this arrived today

Plenty of cable and installation is painless .... although your xbox will require 2 or 3 downloads before its all working

I stuck mine to the top of my tv with blu tak ... worked a treat!

The problems start tho when you realise just how much room you need

The sensor wants you to be stood AT LEAST 6 feet (2m) away from the sensor ... and something i had not read anywhere ... if you want it to be able to recognise 2 people at the smae time you need to be stood at least 8 feet (3m) away. I never saw this mentioned in any of the promotional videos or articles and think that it is a bit of a deal breaker

Not only that, but you need room to step backwards comfortably too. Thinking of family and friends living rooms, i would say only about of quarter of the people I know would have the room for Kinect. Not only that but alot of people sit their couch 6 - 10 feet from their tv, so you would probably have to move that too ...

The Kinect needs to be positioned in line with the centre of your TV, so you cant position it off to one side either.

OK so now the good news .... i did manage to get it all setup despite the back of my legs being against the sofa .... and i have to say that the technology seems pretty impressive to me. I have a fairly dark living room and didnt have to do anything with lights, curtains etc to get it to work ... it all worked straight out of the box and the motion sensing is indeed pretty impressive ... when you see it picking out each of your joints for the first time you will be impressed

I have never bought a dancing game before but i would love to try dance central, as from what i can tell, Kinect seems perfect for it and it would be alot of fun.

So impressed with the speech recognition ... it can still recognise what you say when the xbox is playing a loud film!

The most fun i had was using speech recognition to flick between film trailers on xbox Zune ..... just by saying 'Suggest a Movie', it started streaming (full screen) a recommended movie trailer ... saying 'next' immediately starts the next trailer, there are 100+ to watch and its so quick, smooth and slick (on 10mb broadband) that u can flick through loads of trailers in seconds ... great stuff

Its not immediately apparent what words the xbox can understand and it doesnt discuss it anywhere in the paperwork .... there is a video in the 'Welcome' bar which covers using the Kinect and it also covers this.... basically when Kinect is active ... most of the text you can see on the screen is understood when spoken by Kinect ..... only currently works for English ...

The bundled Kinect Adventures works well in helping you to discover the Kinect gaming experience ... the outside box says other game demos are included on the disc , but due to room limitations i quickly left the game and hadnt noticed any mention of other playable demos ... but i hope they are there

So ... if youve got the room ... get one .... if you can make room by moving things around .... get one ... if you dont have a big enough room, make sure you have a friend who gets one ... because although it might end up getting dusty like most hardcore gamers Wii's now are, it is certainly a big leap forward and an experience you wont forget in a hurry

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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

Step backwards? To Where?... 9 Sep 2011

By Steph

From research prior to release this looked like the perfect present for my boyfriend. Fun games - check, 6 foot of space - Check, Voice Activation - check & value for money - Half a check. So I bought the kinect in the hopes of fun filled evenings with my boyfriend and I wouldn't exactly say they are fun but more adequate.

Pros:

- The Games are good fun - Kinect adventures (free with most kinects) is the equivalent to Wii play for the Wii where as it has a light hearted mix of activities throughout. I also bought him sonic which is a good game but contained many cons (see con section).

- The pictures that are taken whist playing wii adventures are a great laugh and provided us with good entertainment.

- The kinect ensures that you are actually working out as opposed to the wii where I discovered I can bowl while lying on the sofa.

Cons:

- Space issue - I will get grief for this (see any 1* reviews as to why) but I made sure I had 6ft of space before I purchased but what I didn't realise is for 2 player you need 8ft plus approx another 2 foot of 'playing room' as I discovered when I needed to walk backwards and walked my calf of the sofa. It is not a big deal in the sense that yes we can each take turns and just lose the points when required to go backwards but I just don't think that enough consideration was put into the development considering it was an issue raised in testing. I'm not saying that this will affect everyone as we live in an apartment (a small one at that) but I would ensure you have about 10foot of room to ensure you get the most out of the kinect.

- Lag - A lot of reviewers have also commented on the lag and it is not an overly big issue with me but an annoying one at that. I do not appreciate a lag at the 6ft mark considering it is the recommended distance but a friend pointed out that when she moved it back to 8ft she lost all the lag so until I move into a bigger house the lag will also be there.

- Also the voice command function seemed like a great idea but realistically you can operate very few commands by voice.

- Game controls - Maybe I am too use to the conventional gaming where I click pause and it pauses straight away but holding my arm in one sport for 10secs is a bit irritating. It is even worse when playing with my hyperactive 5 year old niece who cannot stand still that long for it to work.

- Few Games - I maybe was a bit naive but I did believe that by now there would be some decent games out for the Kinect. There were only 2 of interest at Christmas and maybe one more since but I think it is a bit harsh that there is still a lacking in the games department.

- Sonic - Oh dear this game ended up being more trouble than it was worth. The game seemed to start the power things without me even asking it to and several involuntary movements occurred. Think it has been played twice now.

Overall we use it and its fine. I will not rave about it but I will not totally disregard it. We are in the process of trying to sell it at the moment more to do with the lack of time we have as opposed to the problems we have had but realistically that did add to it. I know others have had more luck than I have hence not giving it 1* but it was a disappointment. I would compare it to the 3DS in the sense that although the 3D effect gave some people headaches others found it fine and with the kinect some people have the space and some just don't. I'm sure the ones who have no issues find it great but until they fix my few gripes I probably would not rush to purchase it again.

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78 of 81 people found the following review helpful

Review based on hardware, rather than games available 12 Nov 2010

By XBL:Hatch87

Amazon Verified Purchase

As My title says, this is a review on the Kinect itself, rather than what games I have for it.

The camera looks pretty smart and comes with plenty of cable for power and usb connection. You also get provided a USB extender so you can still plug in your wireless adapter if you have one.

The Camera has a motor which adjusts itself to get the best angle to see you. You can manually over ride this for finer tuning if you like.

My 4 year old daughter tried one of the games on Kinect Adventures which involved flapping your arms to fly around a space station, which she loved and needed very little guidance.

I tried river rapids and was pleasantly surprised at how well it interacts with the 3D space. You can move forward and back within the boat, as well as left and right. Then when you had to jump, the amount you jumped actually effected the in game hight which I wasn't expecting. After using the Wii balance board, it was hard to remember I actually needed to move, rather than just lean.

The Voice recognition worked every time (so far), say 'Xbox' and it prompts you with what you can say at the bottom of the screen, or say what box you want. Never has opening and closing a disc tray been so much fun lol.

You also get a small box in the bottom right which is what the camera sees, so you can tell if its seeing you clearly or not.

If you go to far back/forward, it tells you to move accordingly, you soon get use to the play area.
I use a projector so have the lights off and the camera was still tracking me fine. The only issue with the light source coming from behind was the facial recognition for auto sign in, kind of expected though.

I was also impressed with how quickly two players can join in, I was helping my daughter to select an option with her hand, and suddenly I popped up and was playing with her, then move back out of shot and its back to 1 player.

Conclusion
The tech is very good, and can be improved with updates, I dropped a star as the play area is very limited, and recommend you all get out a tape measure and make sure you have enough space. This isn't suitable for every lounge, and certainly not for your average childs bed room, but if you got the play space it is a lot of fun and can only get better with more in depth games in the future.

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