Even though Kinect has been hyped as one of the most sophisticated motion tracking devices in the history of video games, Microsoft is reportedly already looking into ways to make it even better.
While Kinect does track user motion in a pretty sophisticated manner, there’s a problem. Only about 15 MB of data can be sent from the camera to the console every second. That’s less than half of what is possible over a USB connection, which is what the Kinect uses.
The reason it’s being so under-utilized is because there are other USB ports on the Xbox 360, and they’re working against each other. As such, the camera’s resolution is 320×240 and captures at a rate of 30 frames per second.
However, according to a Eurogamerreport, it would be theoretically possible for that resolution to be doubled, if there were fundamental changes to the way the Xbox 360 accepts USB control inputs. The publication reports Microsoft is actively working on a fix to this.
Although Kinect has been selling well, thanks to a multi million-dollar marketing push the likes of which Microsoft has never done before, hardcore gamers are lambasting it. Because the control is so radically different than standard Xbox 360 games, no one is going back to previous 360 games to add Kinect support. As such, the only games playable with Kinect are relatively nascent and consist primarily of mini-game compilations and fitness games.
Nevertheless, Microsoft appears happy about the direction Kinect is going, and plans to make 2011 all about its new motion controller. [[Kinect]]
