Kinect May Be The Cause of Scratched Discs
By Julia on January 2, 2011, 11:26 am
People have been experiencing this problem of scratches around their disc ever since the 360 released. Turning the console while the disc is running is a sure way to accomplish this scratch. How does it happen if your 360 is stationary? Xbox 360’s are made with a relatively cheap disc drive that allows vibration from your feet to move that disc drive ever so slightly. Mix this with Kinect’s constant requirement to move and jump around and you have a scratched disc.
Head On Collision
Getting started with Kinect if you have an Xbox 360 at hand is incredibly easy – just plug it in and follow the onscreen instructions to complete the short audio and camera calibration exercise. What follows is guaranteed to drop jaws across even the most hardened of tech enthusiasts, well at least till the novelty wears off. The array of cameras in the Kinect sensor essentially identifies you – the player, head, arms, legs and all – against the room background and starts responding to your movements a la Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Within minutes, you’re navigating game and Xbox menus on your TV by waving your hands in thin air, and the onscreen pointer responds appropriately without any discernable amount of lag. As with any new system, it takes a little bit of time getting used to the navigation controls, but I’ve got to say, not having to getting used to a new controller – we are, after all, intimately familiar with our appendages – is liberating.
Review
Kinect is a motion sensor bar with two depth sensors and an RGB camera. It is capable of reading gamers body movement, and allows them to control Kinect games using physical gestures. Microsoft launched Kinect last November with the aim of breaking into the growing market of motion gaming that was dominated by the Wii. Microsoft will be hoping to gain the edge over their rivals Wii and PS3 motion, by the fact that Kinect does not need a remote control. Kinect is also equipped with a built in microphone for voice command or voice and video chatting.