Kinect only supports two players, Move supports two-ish

[Alby_da_Wolf]

slowmo said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

slowmo said:

Booh! said:

slowmo said:

By the way just to shoot down some of the more annoying critics on here:

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-12218-Video-Game-Examiner~y2010m6d21-Kiect-not-limited-to-2players-Has-unlimited-possibilites

At E3, PrimeSense showed a demonstration to JoyStiq which showed two-players going through a demo, though the camera technology did recognize more. This demonstration was built solely by PrimeSense and in no way has any relation or link to the software and game coding Microsoft has developed for Kinect. PrimeSense is the provider of the hardware chip for Microsoft, but Microsoft handles the rest, so the demo put on by PrimeSense does not reflect what Kintect can do in terms of total players.

The camera technology can detect an unlimited number of people, so if it's programmed in such a way, it can process and render more than two-players at a time. At the current time, Microsoft hasn't revealed how many players Kinect will support, but last year they did mention it could and would allow for 4-player gaming. PrimeSense did state that they do not know how many players Microsoft currently has Kinect setup to handle. With Kinect and the PrimeSense demonstration two completely separate entities, but the camera itself can detect a limitless number of people. It's solely limited based on the software that is implemented to the camera' hardware chip.

 

Enjoy

/thread

Not exactly: it is not software limited, it is hardware limited, as in processing power. PrimeSense already stated that the camera can track as many players as you wish (sort of), but that "it can only run calculations on two people at a time, just because the processing power required to track all of the body's locations and movements is so great". Since PrimeSense built the hardware and delivered the middleware, I doubt that it is possible to optimize the code in such a way that it doubles its performances.

btw, Kinect is $149.99 (http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Kinect-Sensor-for-Xbox-360/product/C737B081)

/Kinect

I doubt you know what you're talking about so that makes us even.  bye bye.

/thread

No, he's right. Theoretical limits of camera and control SW are higher, but they are limited by the amount of computing power available for control SW on XB360.

What exactly is the exact amount of power that Kinect uses of the 360 to track two people and how much would 4 people tracking require.  What optimisiation is left to allow 4 player tracking if it isn't within current limits?  Both of you cannot answer this question hence why I said he doesn't know whta he's talking about.  If the people who develop the camera say its possible and Microsoft too then I'll believe them over 2 PC and PS3 centric fans thanks.

He's right conceptually, about computing power available being a limit on what otherwise SW could do with further development, although he could be wrong about the max number of players on XB360.

Unlike him I didn't try to guess Kinect's exact limit on XB360: if MS fixes a limit on CPU power Kinect can use, we'll have a fixed limit for XB360, and obviously higher ones on the next MS consoles. Otherwise, if MS leaves some freedom, simpler games could allow more simultaneous players. But the latter possible case wouldn't deny the fact that console HW limits is a limit to what Kinect SW can do, and it will keep on being so until the XB720, or XB1080, we can't know which one, will be able to fully use Kinect up to its own limits.