Feel like the overpriced PC adapter really killed off what could have been a thriving scene for the second Kinect. Amazing piece of tech for its time.
If you have a semi decent soldering iron it's very easy to make a DIY pc adapter btw. The 36w power requirement is very easily managed now with most GaN chargers too (12v3a).
I chased a Kinect v2 for PC, but the driver story on linux isn't great (since it never hit that broad distribution). Well, that was a few years ago, it may have improved since then.
Same! I believe it's like VR: the lack of real commitment from the companies making them, which doesn't foster a community of creators will always be the death of any new technology.
Same applies to wearables (barely alive thanks to a few specific use cases and Apple).
It's like someone thinks they can create a TV, just let it be and it will develop into something bigger. Sometimes that's the case and sometimes you've got to fully be behind it.
The terrifying thing about Meta (and their large, connected world) is that, if you look at someone the wrong way and get reported, you lose access to all your games. Even single-player ones! It’s too dangerous to open, let alone engage with.
VR is IMO the evolution of systems like the Kinect, but that aside, the various companies that made VR sets have spent billions developing the technology and I'm confident they are offering (game) developers money to make VR versions of their games or new IPs targeting VR; I think at this point every major developer and publisher has done one or more VR titles, be they exclusives or VR versions of games (like Skyrim VR).
But even then, VR never became the runaway success that they were hoping for. I think, anyway. Same with Apple Vision, it went real quiet around that after the initial release.
Looking around my neck of the woods (the Netherlands), VR / AR is basically nonexistent. You'd expect VR and VR titles to have their own section in gaming stores... no such luck. (mind you / caveat, we don't actually have many gaming stores like that)
I think it's in a similar situation to gimmicks that Nintendo sometimes puts into their systems. Most games are cross-platform. They aren't gonna change the game fundamentally to take advantage of the different input mechanism. If your system relies on it, chances are you might not get a port. That's why almost all games that take advantage of these features are first party. The few that aren't are usually shovelware or if you are lucky 1-2 cool indie games.
They really tried for a while with the bundling the second version with the XBox One but that didn't last more than a year so it wasn't long enough to really saturate the market which is what odd peripherals REALLY need to get people to make games for them. They either have to be very very cheap or wide spread for it to make sense to make a game that requires them.
They are still in use at some museum in the Netherlands. Probably connected to some Windows computer. I wonder how long they will keep working, given driver support.
I love my Xbox Kinnects (Dance Central >>> Just Dance), but the current state of AI-enhanced motion capture is amazing.
In addition to Google MediaPipe, I just learned about MoCapade 3 that captures multiple people from any video (e.g. any camera): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jizULlZTAR8
Can you learn to dance well from those games? I've overlooked them as girl games and Wii JD was meh. If it's good on Kinect I may as well learn something. Gathering dust.
I worked on the VFX of a movie in 2012 where we actually used a Kinect as a cheap Lidar replacement for mapping set geometry. Such a useful little device.
I wonder why the Kinect is still so popular given the many more recent projects that have come to market, eg Realsense, Zed, Orbec.
I’ve recently been using the Realsense for robotics and they are satisfactory (although they have been drastically increasing in price for unclear reasons). I wouldn’t use Kinect because they are no longer being officially manufactured.
I went to a CeX recently and they have a bunch of Xbox 360 Kinects laying around for 8 euros. Even my hometown which doesn't have a lot of tech stores, has Xbox 360 Kinects laying around at some mall shops for pretty cheap. I can go out and buy one today for cheaper than a meal out, and make use of the wide software made for it by the Kinect community, and I know exactly what to expect in terms of its capabilities. Same can't be said for any of the other sensors, which are also low enough volume that if they get discontinued you'll probably have an even harder time sourcing them than a 360 Kinect discontinued 10 years ago
Xbox 360's were The Original Netflix Machine of that 2008-2012 range. Sure maybe Wii's sold more but they only effectively played Wii Sports and didn't support Full HD. Sure PS3's had blu-ray drives in them but people were beginning to stop caring about physical media. The most popular "game" in terms of hours played on the 360 was the Netflix App.
So because of that, I'm not surprised that casual audience also got a Kinect at some point too. Because of the Netflix app, you always had your 360 plugged into your TV.
Our problem is support for the products. If you are deploying these you are probably in the same boat where you only do about 200-300 a year and since you are small potatoes you get no support. Though we are not looking to move back to Kinect for the same reason we are looking to get off these sensors to some thing that can be supported.
I still have a kinect, but I haven't used it in years, I have started looking at some of the stuff I used it for, and now, I would just use what's in an iPhone pro. Since the 12, the main camera has LiDAR, and apples SDKs can handle everything the Kinect used to do and more.
Price, drivers and/or recognizability? There's a reason that the usually technically inferior Raspberry PI still probably outsells all the bananas,etc.
This reminds me of the 360 live stream camera by Microsoft Research which also died. Not many products made by Microsoft Research seems to ever be commercially fruitful.
And yet, a lot are well received. People still miss the Zune and are disappointed that Microsoft didn't continue with it.
But then, the dedicated music player industry pretty much died when smartphones became a thing. There was Windows Mobile for a while which also did some interesting innovations (I was impressed by the animations) but which probably did not meet expectations. A shame, it was probably the strongest contender for a 3rd party in the mobile OS ecosystem. Various other phone manufacturers built their own OS but ultimately conceded that it's a big effort.
I got a Kinect hoping for great things with my Mac. Never worked out. I scoured the net for software and I never got it to do better than hand tracking.
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If you have a semi decent soldering iron it's very easy to make a DIY pc adapter btw. The 36w power requirement is very easily managed now with most GaN chargers too (12v3a).
Same applies to wearables (barely alive thanks to a few specific use cases and Apple).
It's like someone thinks they can create a TV, just let it be and it will develop into something bigger. Sometimes that's the case and sometimes you've got to fully be behind it.
More physically engaging video games definitely seemed to have some interest, though, starting with the Wii.
But even then, VR never became the runaway success that they were hoping for. I think, anyway. Same with Apple Vision, it went real quiet around that after the initial release.
Looking around my neck of the woods (the Netherlands), VR / AR is basically nonexistent. You'd expect VR and VR titles to have their own section in gaming stores... no such luck. (mind you / caveat, we don't actually have many gaming stores like that)
In addition to Google MediaPipe, I just learned about MoCapade 3 that captures multiple people from any video (e.g. any camera): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jizULlZTAR8
Can you learn to dance well from those games? I've overlooked them as girl games and Wii JD was meh. If it's good on Kinect I may as well learn something. Gathering dust.
I’ve recently been using the Realsense for robotics and they are satisfactory (although they have been drastically increasing in price for unclear reasons). I wouldn’t use Kinect because they are no longer being officially manufactured.
So because of that, I'm not surprised that casual audience also got a Kinect at some point too. Because of the Netflix app, you always had your 360 plugged into your TV.
But then, the dedicated music player industry pretty much died when smartphones became a thing. There was Windows Mobile for a while which also did some interesting innovations (I was impressed by the animations) but which probably did not meet expectations. A shame, it was probably the strongest contender for a 3rd party in the mobile OS ecosystem. Various other phone manufacturers built their own OS but ultimately conceded that it's a big effort.
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