Post: Kinect technological problems are too big for Sony.
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11-29-2010, 09:05 PM
#1
Howdoh
NextGenHoward.
This thread offers a chance to see what Sony think of there own product. It is an interview with a employee of the company, therefore there is a lot of quoting. But i will be adding in my point of view and that of others throughout the thread.
So as we all know, Xbox and Playstation have both released there solutions to motion control. With Xbox releasing Kinect and Sony the rival solution deemed PSMove. Since release of both of these the debate has been out on to which is better and which offers the better features. But we finally get to see what Sony thinks of there own product with an interview from Sony Computer Entertainment software engineer Anton Mikhailov to find out.
Well i shall start with a small quote from Anton Mikhailov that outlines how he feels about kinect as well as the capabilities of PSMove.
Originally posted by another user
"We're not necessarily against Kinect or against depth cameras, it's just we feel like Move has more applicability across more genres so it fits better with what we try to do.
So i hear you ask, if Kinect does not fit in with what Sony are trying to do, what is it that they would like to do that makes PSMove ideal for them? Well so far Sony themselves have outlined they want to implement Move into other games that have not been specifically designed for it. As you will see further in the in interview Anton Mikhailov covers this and he outlines why Move is best for Sony.
[multipage=Interview: Problems with Kinect.]
Anton was asked to go into further detail in the problems see in Xbox's Kinect:
Originally posted by another user
"We thought that they were just minor, well not so much minor. Marketing-wise they're minor tech problems, technologically-wise they're quite big," he explained. "The fact that it runs at 30 frames per second instead of 60, that's a common problem with all those cameras. It's actually hard to fix because you have a lot of data to transport. Sort of working with that image is expensive computationally-wise. I think they quoted something like 10-15 per cent of the Xbox resources, plus like 50 megs of memory or something like that. The Move takes less than 1%, and like 1 megabyte. So, you know, that's just a bunch of numbers but to developers that means like Killzone 3 can just put in Move and not have to worry about it, whereas something like Kinect you have to make significant game changes to actually fit that into your game. So that's a big plus for Move I think 'cause a lot of people can just try it out and put it in.
As you can see there a big problem for Sony is how sluggish Kinect appears to be compared to the Move. It seems Sony have decided to go for the 'Plug and Play' option, while it appears that Microsoft will have to have games developed that are made specific for the Kinect as the Sony could have a few updates and there away with almost any game such as SOCOM. Personally this appears to be much better and it will be much more cost effective for Sony. Anton goes on to explain the problems with the motion camera's used with Kinect.
Originally posted by another user
"Another issue is resolution; it's a 320x240 camera as far as I've heard and the out-to is 640x480 so neither of those are particularly hot resolutions but you can take what you can get. I mean, a lot of webcams now are 720p, etc. but the reality is those cameras are much more expensive and they're running again at lower frame-rates. So when you do a bunch of this maths, like, the resolution I think is too low, I think the frame-rate is too low, and I think some materials are still a problem. So like, some jeans are a problem. You get these things called infra-red black objects, so for example you're wearing a black shirt so the camera when it looks at you it sees black because no light is being reflected back at it. So infra-red is just another band of light and there are objects that are black in the infra-red spectrum. They're not the same objects that are black right now but for example, like, leather tends to have I think - it's newer or older leather - one of those in infra-red black and some denim jeans are infra-red black. I think those really shiny ones? And some are reflective so either you get things that are just missing from the image or you get things that are shining brightly and are hard to understand.
Now as it seems Sony dislike the Kinect's concept of motion capture as the frame rate is too low for a good performance for the user. But the main fault that is outlined by Anton is the problem different surfaces cause Kinect's camera's problems when recognizing the image. As Anton now goes on to say is how the 'Hacking' of kinect helps to further outline theses problems. But before i go on i know you are think he's working for Sony of course he would support there development over Microsoft's but you cannot deny the points he has raised are not significant problems with the add-on.
Originally posted by another user
"So an easy way to test it is if you look at any of those hacked Kinect videos which show the raw output, and if you pay attention closely - if you see a glass table - that'll usually be missing or there will be things that are kind of missing and you have to work around that. So that's the issues that they have. We felt that those are a different set of issues, they're not necessarily better or worse. That would be nice if those went away."
[multipage=Sony could still achieve the same as Microsoft.]
Sony could still achieve the same as Microsoft
Here Anton explains espite some technical shortcomings in the PlayStation Eye camera used by PSMove most of what Kinect can achieve remains possible for the PS3.
Originally posted by another user
"Kinect can sense the distance to an object whereas the [PlayStation] Eye has to do that through - Kinect kind of gets that for free, that's part of its output, whereas with the Eye we have to do vision algorithms to get that," he explained. "So something like Kung Fu Live, so that does background subtraction, so Kinect again gets that for free whereas with the Eye we have to do some algorithms. It's always more robust when you get it in the hardware but the reality is we can still do a lot of these features with just the Eye and if the users are happy with both then we're equivalent in that sense."
As you can see although Sony could seem behind when it comes to the technical aspect of motion gaming. They still feel that they could (If they wanted too) take the route which Microsoft chose to take though motion capture.
Thank you for reading my thread, I am hoping you found it informative.
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12-02-2010, 03:03 PM
#13
NeglectFate
[b][move]NGU - Home of The Virgins![/b][/move]
Good job man, I enjoyed the article :y:
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