http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-01-european-kinect-voice-recognition-disabled-until-spring-2011

Microsoft has told Eurogamer Spain that Kinect voice recognition will be disabled for mainland Europe until spring 2011.

The company confirmed rumours that the voice-recognition software will only accept American English, British English, Japanese and Mexican Spanish at launch this November. Even Canadians will have to wait until spring 2011 to be able to control the system via voice.

Frustratingly, even those fluent in English - or Spanish speakers that can imitate Mexican Spanish - won't be allowed to activate Kinect voice recognition due to the region-locked status of their Xbox 360.

Microsoft went on to explain that the decision to support Mexican Spanish and not native Spanish was a case of numbers: there are 106 million Spanish speakers in the US and 13 million Mexicans with consoles. And that compares favourably to the 45 million people in Spain.

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I guess this is what was meant with the statement at GamesCom, it seems weird that I'm not allowed to talk to it in english though...

Oi Exbox = doesn't compute!

Hey EXbawks = computes!

¡Ay, caramba!

Does anyone know if its expensive or difficult to program other languages with this kind of software recognition?

No voice control in Canada?  What's that a'boot, eh?

Next Movie Eh? lol can someone explain, why would it NOT recognize Canadian english? It's just simple commands and I'm sure they are not too different

Considering US English and Canadian English are practically the same thing, I find this quite bizarre. It's not like Kinect needs to tell the difference between "color" and "colour" when they're spoken. But this isn't unusual considering Canada (and really most of the world besides US) is given the shaft on features on the Xbox. No ESPN or Netflix and Canadians are still getting a raised price for Xbox live. What's that a'boot, eh? 

hum, bad move MS

the voice recognition feature was the ultimate selling feature ... "Xbox on !"

will still make it on NA and UK ...

Oh NOoooosoosoooOOOOO!!

MICROSOFT must not launch Kinect until its ready DAMN IT!!!  sigh..

It will eventually have the support and do we know for sure you can't use the option in Canada?   Seems like the programming should already have the features in it you may just have to tic the box for american english instead?  Who knows, I guess we will see when its launched. 

You can thank the Quebecois for this.  It is the lack of support for Quebec French that is the probablem.