Oh dear. It’s not just Spaniards who won’t be able to control Kinect with their voices when the peripheral launches. It’s everyone who doesn’t live in the US, Mexico or United Kingdom.
Eurogamer has confirmed with Microsoft that when Kinect is released in November, no languages from mainland Europe will be supported. So if you’re in France, or Italy, or Germany, or Switzerland, or the Netherlands, or Poland, or the Czech Republic, or… well, you get the idea. Live in any of those places and you won’t be able to get around your Xbox 360 using the power of the human voice.
The kicker is that even if you live in those places and speak fluent English, it still won’t work, as your Kinect will be locked to the same region as your Xbox 360.
It’s not just Europe being left out, either. The only languages (or, in two cases, accents) Kinect will support in November will be English (USA), English (UK), Japanese and Mexican Spanish. Everyone else, even Canadians and presumably Aussies and Kiwis as well, will have to wait until an update in Spring 2011 (or, for Antipodeans, Autumn 2011).
I don’t quite understand this. How can Kinect be programmed to recognise accents from New York to Alabama, Sussex to Scotland, and somehow not understand Canadians in between?
As someone who was really only looking forward to Kinect for the voice recognition stuff, and also someone who does not live in the US, UK, Mexico or Japan, consider me slightly disappointed.
No Euro Kinect voice rec until spring [Eurogamer]
PiMan
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 11:16 PMI suspect that the American accent supported will be ‘General American’, which is very similar to that which is spoken in the mid-west. Canadians would be at just as much of a disadvantage as New Englanders
I don’t know which British accent would be supported, since accents vary there a ton, even from one side of London to the other, let alone between Scotland and England. If it ends up being ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP), then a portion of we Australians will be fine too, since ‘Cultivated Australian’ is very similar to RP.
Brendan Ingle
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 4:40 PMWhat about my Queensland drawl?
Dilbert
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 11:39 PMsnacks on snacks muthafucker
Steve M
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 11:54 PMI’ve noticed the same thing with a number of voice command software. If I speak in my normal (Australian) accent, certain words just won’t work. If I fake a British or American accent, those words work right away.
vibesublime
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 12:05 AMCan anybody remember the last time that they heard something good about Kinect? Apart from Child of Eden, I seriously can’t think of anything positive post-e3. The more actual information I have about this product, the less I want it.
Mr Waffle
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 1:51 AMDon’t know if I should laugh or facepalm at the thought that Japan is an important enough market to warrant priority over European countries, let alone Canada/Australia/etc…
JAPAN HATES YOU AND YOUR XBOX, MICROSOFT. GET OVER IT.
Kyle_Katarn
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 3:43 AMConsider me totally unimpressed. Kinect promised the moon, and only gives us a stone.
Zac F.
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 6:59 AMOh come on. Why can’t it just be enabled for everywhere, even if it won’t work? I’d rather speak to my Xbox in a stupid accent then not at all.
MunKy
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 7:47 AMWell then they can shove it – I too was only really looking forward to the VR tech…
Benjamin Sutton
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 7:52 AMIn the beginning, I was so keen for Kinect, and viewed the Playstaion Move as a Wii rip-off. Now we’re getting closer to the release dates, the Kinect is continually coming up with new ways to disappoint while the Move just looks better and better.
Anthony Bates
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:06 AMWonder why they blocked Australians. Most yanks think we sound British anyway? They don’t a clue and neither does Microsoft.
Mark
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 2:15 PMI was with you until you mentioned Kiwis. Can you honestly say that what they speak is English? “Uv ben down te the sheps te git sem fush en chups” :P
Sam Timmins
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 4:11 PMFuck you Microsoft. Even Nintendo, a JAPANESE gaming company added English recognition to Doctor Kawashima’s Brain Training/Brain Age that MOSTLY worked for all English speakers!
eeeHWah
Friday, September 3, 2010 at 10:31 PMSo the language is locked to region? I wanted to set mine to Japanese so I’m the only one in control!
normandy
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:00 PMI think having the mention on the Aussie web site that you can do voice… but a TINY little disclaimer saying its not enabled in Australia! total fail! This is a story for A current Affair, they run enough stories about it!
Andrew Klahn
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 8:05 AMACA will not run the story …MSN 9 website is run by/ sponsered by Microsoft. Maybe one for Today Tonight instead