HDTV/3D TV News
As far as European buyers are concerned, another hitch has emerged with Microsoft’s Kinect, aside from the rather hefty asking price.
And that’s the fact the peripheral won’t support voice commands via its microphones upon launch over in mainland Europe, EuroGamer Spain reports.
While the device will support recognition of both American English and British English, the Kinect will be region locked, and the voice feature will have to be patched in by Microsoft. And while it will be available immediately in the States and UK, the patch won’t arrive in Europe until Spring 2011, so EG claims Microsoft told them.
In other words, European Kinect players won’t get to experience the voice command side of the peripheral until six months after launch. Which is not really a very satisfactory state of affairs.
As well as the US and UK English languages, Kinect will support Japanese and Mexican Spanish.
The other question that has been raised is how Kinect will cope with British accents, from West Country dialects to speedy Scouse, thick Geordie, or Scottish. We’re guessing it will struggle a bit, or perhaps even a lot.
Don’t worry, it’ll be in UK, just not anywhere else in EU. Engadget had the scoop on this yesterday
So how long before this get’s an update “actually it is available on the UK version, MS confirm” ?.
Thanks for pointing out the error… article now corrected.
It was also widely reported “Not for canada” but what it really meant was “Not yet for French-speaking Canadians” obvious really if the French European version is not yet finished.
As for “How Kinect will cope with British accents” well it will almost certainly ask you to repeat any words it does not understand(train it) and store it,problem solved.
The voice control hasn’t got to cope with something like -
“Oy geezer, I want to watch a video loike so get to the video menu sharpish”
It is simple things like “Xbox, Movies menu”
For a laugh on this subject http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFRoYhTJQQ
If this link doesn’t work, go to YouTube and search Burnistoun S1E1 – Voice Recognition Elevator – ELEVEN!
Link works okay.
Here is one for PS3 Move game “The Fight lights out”
Slow notion fighters only or here is what happens -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibommW6phEQ
Mike Tyson wouldn’t of had a hope if he had to slow to the speed this game requires