Sitting down with Kinect how MS beat the problem

The can it/can’t it debate surrounding Kinect’s ability to recognise seated players has finally been put to rest with Blitz Games co-founder Andrew Oliver revealing that a simple change to the camera’s software has eradicated any potential problems.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Oliver explained that Kinect would use the bottom of the player’s spine as the base node” from which all telemetry was calculated. When a player sat and raised their knees above the pelvis, this caused problems.

However, Microsoft has since changed the base node to the back of the neck.

A few months ago they changed stuff around,” Oliver stated. A lot of developers were like ‘Oh my God! Everything’s broken’ because all the nodes were moved. But then it was like ‘Oh, actually this is more logical’.

It means that should the bottom of your torso get confused with the sofa, because your bum and your legs are enveloped inside the sofa, it doesn’t matter because your hands and arms are still working.”

The changes mean developers no longer have to create any custom software for games that require the user to sit or lay down.