Fair enough. I admit I haven't followed the entire argument to know it was actually him who made that comparison. So my apologies.

But as for the second paragraph, I was thinking about the required fluency in English speaking for Kinect to recognize the commands. Most people here whom I know, while they may know how to read some English, they tend to struggle with pronounciating a fair chunk of words. It's anecdotal evidence, I know, and I'm also aware that Kinect commands won't be too complicated, if at all, but it's just to give you insight on where my reasoning is coming from.

Yeah, and where did I say anything bad? Did you even read what I said to begin with? If so, explain to me please where I've shown double standards. If not, then keep your snide remarks to yourself and read what I said before commenting.

Goddamn! I merely stated it MIGHT be a game of smoke and mirrors because of how fickle PR talk can be in general (and I even agreed with your response, for crying out loud!), and you're already jumping to irrational conclusions.

I'm sure most people realize this, but the initial voice control support is virtually guaranteed to be limited to basic Dashboard use and video playback controls.

'Xbox On, Xbox Off, Xbox Play, Xbox Fast Forward, Xbox Reverse, Xbox Stop."

Frankly, there's no reason to get bent out of shape if say, Tagalog isn't supported for the above commands when Kinect debuts.

Until we see developers using voice controls for anything other than menu interfaces, it's really not what most should consider to be an "essential" feature unless they're just into gimmicks.

Voice interaction with in-game characters would be the only real breakthrough use for Kinect voice recognition and so far, no titles using this have formally announced release dates.

I have called in a company and had to use a voice-operated menu. Sometimes it works and sometimes I have been told "I did not understand that last comment."  This proves that such general systems often have limited vocabularies. If you use the words they are looking for, it generally works. But if you do not, there are issues.  I do expect much more of the former than the latter for Kinect because I think Microsoft will tell people what their command should be.

Mike from Morgantown

Your website only quotes the opening two paragraphs from WIkipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect

According to information supplied to retailers, the Kinect is capable of simultaneously tracking up to six people, including two active players for motion analysis with a feature extraction of 20 joints per player.^[19]

^ ^a b "Play.com (UK) : Kinect : Xbox 360 - Free Delivery". Play.com. Retrieved 2010-07-02. "This information is based on specifications supplied by manufacturers and should be used for guidance only."

http://www.play.com/Games/Xbox360/4-/10296372/Project-Natal/Product.html#jump-tech

That could be why people are saying that only two persons can play Kinect games at a time -- because it appears to be what is being said by Microsoft.

Mike from Morgantown

http://www.videogamer.com/news/kinect_isnt_limited_to_two_players.html

By James Orry - 26/08/2010 - 1:49pm GMT

Kinect for Xbox is not limited to only two active players, Microsoft's Xbox general manager Kudo Tsunoda told VideoGamer.com at gamescom last week.

Contrary to what's been widely reported, many of the Kinect launch titles support only two active players because of developer choice, not any kind of limitation of the technology.

/end thread

From the original interview: http://www.videogamer.com/news/hanging_with_kudo.html

Q: Will Kinect evolve to offer support for more than two active players?

KS: I think that it all depends on the kind of experience that you want to build. Certainly if you look at a game, go down on the floor, Dance Central is already incorporating a lot more than two players. So you know it's not necessarily any kind of limitation as much as it is developers just trying to customise the experiences around what they think is the best way to play.

You can see like sometimes in a split-screen game it's hard to add more and more players because it's hard to see what's going on - and that's true of any game. I think something like Dance Central you can see is already incorporating more than two.

From a news story on Dance Central: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=252694

Dance Central: 'Time constraints' kill simultaneous multiplayer

Monday 21-Jun-2010 11:34 AM Maybe it'll appear in sequel, says Harmonix

You'd probably expect a game based around making a prat of yourself dancing like MC Hammer to have some sort of party mode, but according to Harmonix the push to get Dance Central out the door means it only features 'turn-based' multiplayer.

When asked, developers stressed that the decision is purely down to timing - and not a technical constraint of Kinect itself.

If the first Dance Central is successful and eventually spawns a sequel, the developer says, proper multiplayer will probably make it in.

It's a shame. That poor dev bustin' a move at the Microsoft E3 conference probably would've been less embarrassed with his mates alongside him.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

So note that no where does Microsoft say you can have full recognition of more than two players at once (the docs I printed said full of 2 and general of 6). And the game being cited by Kudo does NOT have more than one player playing at a time.

Mike from Morgantown

Languages supported at launch : English, Japanese and Mexican spanish. That's all

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=406189