I think the direction they want for the PC kinect is different than the xbox. It probably won't be gaming/entertainment-centric, and in that case, less likely to be subsidized by games.
Don't see why not, they may see its usage broaden beyond games, but that doesn't mean games wont still bring in money. I guess it may be a problem for MS to 'collect' the money? Do 'Games for Windows' have to pay a preimum to MS, i.e just as games on consoles do? Either way as far as i'm aware Kinect even at xbox prices were profitable from the get go on the hardware. Obviously they need to cover development/aquisitions costs, but increasing the cost of the hardware is hardly the best way to do that.
Only time will tell. I think the idea to bring kinect to PC has a lot of potential though and it could end up being brilliant. With 3D monitors coming in our future, I could imagine video chatting in 3D with the depth camera. Or double blinking to double click. Or all kinds of gestures/pointing that make more sense than using keyboard and mouse. Ultimately we won't know what is possible and practical until they open it up to the market, but the idea itself has quite a bit of potential if you think about it.[/quote]
Yikes that all sounds horrible, double blinking to double click, lol.
However I do see we are talking from slightly different perspectives. I'm looking at the kinect as a means for producing 'installation art/products', whilst you seem to be coming from the more 'personalised' aspect. In which case I could see some of our opinions differing.
Actually the original didn't work at all in the 50-80cm range. I think the nearest you could be was ~140cm. The depth camera just isn't accurate and also has a strange double-vision as you get close. I did some experimenting with the kinect sdk and always had to move way back in the room to test anything.[/quote]
Never had any problem getting data around 80cm or lower, though perhaps my needs in terms of accuracy is not as great as what you need. However i'm dubious this update is really going to make it much better in that regard. Double vision is due to 'shadowing' from the IR which can't be fixed (with a single kinect).
This I thought kind of sucked. I think you can get an addon that makes it closer, but I got a kinect in part to mess with it for PC use, and I'm kind of worried the stuff I want to try will be too close to the camera now. I'm sure I'll still come up with some intersting things to poke with. I'm still organizing my house after christmas, so I don't know how soon I'll get to mess with it anyway.
The add-on simply changes the fov to allow you to get closer whilst still having your entire body in view. I've not tried it, but from ther review I read its meant to work, so will probably look into in at some point. However it does nothing as far as i'm aware to increase actual depth accuracy.
Anyway unless they stop producing single kinect units for xbox ( can't see that being possible), or they add some secuirty to prevent them being used on PC's, its just easier to buy the xbox version for now to learn the ropes, then any commerical usage buy the full price one.
There is an official PC SDK released by Microsoft for the Kinect, so I don't see why they would purposefully block it.
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But its not for the xbox kinect, its designed for this new PC version including the license for commerical use. Seeing as MS will want indie developers to purchase the PC one it would make sense (financially) to cripple the xbox version to prevent it working on the PC. Although morally it would be another backwards step.
