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150-548: In 2010, Xbox Live Vision was succeeded by Kinect , a new camera accessory that also incorporates a motion tracking system and adds voice recognition functionality to the console. The camera can be used for video chat , personalized gamer pictures, in-game video chat, and still pictures. The camera features 640 × 480 video at 30 fps and is capable of taking still images at 1.3 megapixels . It allows for video chat and picture messages (requires Xbox Live Gold ) with video effects along with in-game compatibility. Certain games allow

300-582: A Famicom/NES controller, or in some cases (including Excite Truck , Sonic and the Secret Rings , Mario Kart Wii , and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing ) as a steering wheel. It is also possible to play a single-player game with a Wii Remote in each hand, as in the Shooting Range game contained in Wii Play . At E3 2006, a few minor changes were made to the controller from the design presented at

450-479: A Princess Peach -themed Wii Remote Plus, on April 24, 2014. A year later, Nintendo also released Wii Remote Plus controllers themed after Bowser , a Toad and Yoshi in the fall of 2015 to accompany the releases of Super Mario Maker and Yoshi's Woolly World , exclusively available at GameStop . The Wii Remote has an expansion port at the bottom which allows various functional attachments to be added. The connector, and any accessories that attach to it, use

600-538: A US$ 200 price. Microsoft opted to discontinue the original Kinect for Windows by the end of 2014. However, in April 2015, Microsoft announced they were also discontinuing the Kinect 2 for Windows, and instead directing commercial users to use the Kinect for Xbox One, which Microsoft said "perform identically". Microsoft stated that the demand for the Kinect 2 for Windows demand was high and difficult to keep up while also fulfilling

750-416: A retail configuration that incorporated the peripheral, or as a hardware revision or upgrade to support the peripheral. Microsoft dismissed the reports in public and repeatedly emphasized that Project Natal would be fully compatible with all Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft indicated that the company considered Project Natal to be a significant initiative, as fundamental to Xbox brand as Xbox Live , and with

900-465: A sampling rate of 16  kHz . Because the Kinect sensor's motorized tilt mechanism requires more power than the Xbox 360's USB ports can supply, the device makes use of a proprietary connector combining USB communication with additional power. Redesigned Xbox 360 S models include a special AUX port for accommodating the connector, while older models require a special power supply cable (included with

1050-619: A 1-month pre-launch period in which Toys "R" Us stores in New York City and Los Angeles sold them to build up hype. It was released in Europe and Asia on October 6, 2006, and November 2, 2006 in Japan. Using its USB 2.0 connection, the Vision Camera is compatible with Windows XP Service Pack 2 (32-bit only), Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), and Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit, although 64-bit

1200-516: A 16 KiB EEPROM chip of which a section of 6 kilobytes can be read and written to by the host. Part of this memory is available to store up to ten Mii avatars, which can be transported to use with another Wii console (but it can be used to upload Miis to the Mii Parade and keep it on the console (by copying Mii to remote, moving Mii to parade from console, and then moving from remote to the console)). 4,000 bytes are available for game use before

1350-581: A 400 kHz I²C protocol. This expandability is similar to that available with the port on the Nintendo 64 controller. There is a female connector on Wii remotes, to which expansions with a male connector can be connected. The multiple kinds of controllers that can connect to the Wii Remote make it into a more versatile controller, opening up new Wii controller configurations and likewise multiple control schemes. Various racing games such as Mario Kart Wii and

1500-402: A Wii Remote, Wii MotionPlus, and Nunchuk, all in a sky blue color referred to as Mizuiro and distinct from other blue Wii Remotes. For North America, Nintendo announced on September 1, 2009, that black versions of the Wii Remote, Wii MotionPlus, and Nunchuk would be released during the holiday season . On November 16, 2009, the black Wii Remote and Wii MotionPlus was released as a bundle, and

1650-544: A built-in safety jacket that is unsafe to remove, according to Nintendo. At the E3 2006 trade show, Nintendo displayed white, black, and blue controllers; press images released for the event featured white, red, silver, lime green, and black versions. The Wii console and controllers launched in only white versions, with Shigeru Miyamoto commenting that new hues would be provided when supplies became available. On June 4, 2009, Nintendo revealed that it would release black versions of

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1800-477: A dedicated Kinect for Windows unit along with the commercial SDK on February 1, 2012. The device included some hardware improvements, including support for "near mode" to recognize objects about 50 centimetres (20 in) in front of the cameras. The Kinect for Windows device was listed at US$ 250 , US$ 100 more than the original Kinect since Microsoft had considered the Xbox 360 Kinect was subsidized through game purchases, Xbox Live subscriptions, and other costs. At

1950-537: A digital zoom of 2x or 4x while video chatting. It also features three camera effects, in which the currently captured video image is overlaid on the dashboard background. The three effects are 'watery', 'edgy', and 'dotty'. The camera uses a standard USB 2.0 connection and is also Windows ( XP and newer) and Mac OS X ( v10.4.9 and newer) compatible. The Xbox Live Vision Camera was announced at E3 2006 and released in North America on September 19, 2006, following

2100-474: A few Need for Speed video games, as well as some fighting games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl , Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars and the Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution trilogy take advantage of the versatility the expansion port confers to offer multiple control schemes to suit different kinds of players. The Nunchuk (model number RVL-004) was the first attachment Nintendo revealed for

2250-530: A human body at 30 Hz. Microsoft had not committed to a release date for Project Natal at E3 2009, but affirmed it would be after 2009, and likely in 2010 to stay competitive with the Wii and the PlayStation Move ( Sony Interactive Entertainment 's own motion-sensing system using hand-held devices). In the months following E3 2009, rumors that a new Xbox 360 console associated with Project Natal emerged, either

2400-457: A lower frame rate) and other colour formats such as UYVY . The monochrome depth sensing video stream is in VGA resolution (640 × 480 pixels) with 11-bit depth , which provides 2,048 levels of sensitivity. The Kinect can also stream the view from its IR camera directly (i.e.: before it has been converted into a depth map) as 640x480 video, or 1280x1024 at a lower frame rate. The Kinect sensor has

2550-417: A monochrome CMOS sensor , which captures video data in 3D under any ambient light conditions. The sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, and Kinect software is capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on gameplay and the player's physical environment, accommodating for the presence of furniture or other obstacles. Described by Microsoft personnel as the primary innovation of Kinect,

2700-410: A motion-enabled controller began when development of the Wii console started in 2001. In that year, Nintendo licensed a number of motion-sensing patents from Gyration Inc., a company that produces wireless motion-sensing computer mice . Gyration had previously pitched their idea and patents of a motion controller to Sony and Microsoft , who both declined. Nintendo then commissioned Gyration to create

2850-494: A movable slide to prevent the strap from working loose during prolonged play; the lock clip strap became the standard form. In 2012 with the launch of the Wii U, the wrist strap was once again updated to allow users to push the sync button through the new jackets and battery covers. Nintendo announced a free accessory for the Wii Remote, the Wii Remote Jacket, on October 1, 2007. The removable silicone sleeve wraps around

3000-614: A new line of Sky Glass television units to launch in 2022 that incorporate the Kinect technology in partnership with Microsoft. Using the Kinect features, the viewer will be able to control the television through motion controls and audio commands, and supports social features such as social viewing . Microsoft announced that the Azure Kinect hardware kit will be discontinued in October 2023, and will refer users to third party suppliers for spare parts. The depth and motion sensing technology at

3150-706: A not-for-profit group to develop portable drivers for the Kinect and other natural interface (NI) devices, in November 2010. Its first set of drivers named NITE were released in December 2010. PrimeSense had also worked with Asus to develop a motion sensing device that competes with the Kinect for personal computers. The resulting product, the Wavi Xtion, was released in China in October 2011. Microsoft announced in February 2011 that it

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3300-527: A one-handed controller for it, which eventually became the "Gyropod", a more traditional gamepad which allowed its right half to break away for motion-control. At this point, Gyration brought in a separate design firm, Bridge Design , to help pitch its concept to Nintendo. Under requirement to "roughly preserve the existing GameCube button layout", it experimented with different forms "through sketches, models and interviewing various hardcore gamers". By "late 2004, early 2005", however, Nintendo had come up with

3450-465: A pair of flashlights or a pair of candles , as Sensor Bar substitutes. The Wii Remote picks up traces of heat from the sensor, then transmits it to the Wii console to control the pointer on your screen. Such substitutes for the Sensor Bar illustrate the fact that a pair of non-moving lights provide continuous calibration of the direction that the Wii Remote is pointing and its physical location relative to

3600-951: A planned launch akin to that of a new Xbox console platform. Microsoft's vice president Shane Kim said the company did not expect Project Natal would extend the anticipated lifetime of the Xbox 360, which had been planned to last ten years through 2015, nor delay the launch of the successor to the Xbox 360. Following the E3 2009 show and through 2010, the Project Natal team members experimentally adapted numerous games to Kinect-based control schemes to help evaluate usability. Among these games were Beautiful Katamari and Space Invaders Extreme , which were demonstrated at Tokyo Game Show in September 2009. According to Tsunoda, adding Project Natal-based control to pre-existing games involved significant code alterations, and made it unlikely that existing games could be patched through software updates to support

3750-413: A practical ranging limit of 1.2–3.5 m (3.9–11.5 ft) distance when used with the Xbox software. The area required to play Kinect is roughly 6 m , although the sensor can maintain tracking through an extended range of approximately 0.7–6 m (2.3–19.7 ft). The sensor has an angular field of view of 57 ° horizontally and 43° vertically, while the motorized pivot is capable of tilting

3900-505: A product manager at Microsoft, stating "There are hundreds of organizations we are working with to help them determine what's possible with the tech". Microsoft launched its Kinect for Windows program on October 31, 2011, releasing a new SDK to a small number of companies, including Toyota , Houghton Mifflin , and Razorfish, to explore what was possible. At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in January, Microsoft announced that it would release

4050-521: A prototype that resembled a cell phone. Another design featured both an analog stick and a touchscreen , but Nintendo rejected the idea of a touchscreen on the controller, "since the portable console and living-room console would have been exactly the same". Coincidentally, this idea would later be implemented on the Wii U 's GamePad controller, as well as the Nintendo Switch . Sources also indicate that

4200-526: A second-generation version of Kinect with improved tracking capabilities. Microsoft also announced that Kinect would be a required component of the console, and that it would not function unless the peripheral is connected. The requirement proved controversial among users and critics due to privacy concerns, prompting Microsoft to backtrack on the decision. However, Microsoft still bundled the new Kinect with Xbox One consoles upon their launch in November 2013. A market for Kinect-based games still did not emerge after

4350-452: A shorter time of flight than those more distant, so the infrared sensor captures how much the modulation pattern had been deformed from the time of flight, pixel-by-pixel. Time of flight measurements of depth can be more accurate and calculated in a shorter amount of time, allowing for more frames-per-second to be detected. Once Kinect has a pixel-by-pixel depth image, Kinect uses a type of edge detection here to delineate closer objects from

4500-582: A similar scale to a console launch; the company was reported to have budgeted $ 500 million on advertising for the peripheral, such as television and print ads, campaigns with Burger King and Pepsi , and a launch event in New York City 's Times Square on November 3 featuring a performance by Ne-Yo . Kinect was launched in North America on November 4, 2010; in Europe on November 10, 2010; in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore on November 18, 2010; and in Japan on November 20, 2010. The Kinect release for

4650-467: A single Wii controller, enabling the multiplayer modes of Bash! and SpeedZone to support five to eight players across the maximum four Wii controllers that can be synced to a single console. One Nunchuk comes bundled with the Wii console. Additional Wii Remote units are sold separately without the Nunchuk. The two shoulder buttons, formerly named Z1 and Z2 respectively, have been reshaped and renamed from

Xbox Live Vision - Misplaced Pages Continue

4800-439: A system consisting of an infrared projector and camera and a special microchip that generates a grid from which the location of a nearby object in 3 dimensions can be ascertained. This 3D scanner system called Light Coding employs a variant of image-based 3D reconstruction . The Kinect sensor is a horizontal bar connected to a small base with a motorized pivot and is designed to be positioned lengthwise above or below

4950-562: A time that Microsoft executives wanted to abandon the Wii-like motion tracking approach, and favored the depth-sensing solution to present a product that went beyond the Wii's capabilities. The project was greenlit by late 2008 with work started in 2009. The project was codenamed " Project Natal " after the Brazilian city Natal , Kipman's birthplace. Additionally, Kipman recognized the Latin origins of

5100-532: A ton of work and effort to make sure doesn't actually occur. What has happened is someone wrote an open-source driver for PCs that essentially opens the USB connection, which we didn't protect, by design, and reads the inputs from the sensor. The sensor, again, as I talked earlier, has eyes and ears, and that's a whole bunch of noise that someone needs to take and turn into signal. PrimeSense along with robotics firm Willow Garage and game developer Side-Kick launched OpenNI ,

5250-459: A wider visible spectrum than the human eye. The Wii Remote provides basic audio and rumble (vibration) functionality, but the Nunchuk does not. At the 2006 E3 press conference, it was revealed that the Wii Remote has its own independent speaker on the face of the unit. This was demonstrated by a developer as he strung and shot a bow in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess . The sound from both

5400-464: Is happening tomorrow." and had engaged Adafruit with the contest as he been frustrated with trying to convince Microsoft's executives to explore the non-gaming avenue for the Kinect. Microsoft initially took issue with users hacking into the Kinect, stating they would incorporate additional safeguards into future iterations of the unit to prevent such hacks. However, by the end of November 2010, Microsoft had turned on their original position and embraced

5550-595: Is not confirmed by Microsoft). Because the Vision Camera lacks audio input, a microphone must also be connected to the computer for voice chat and audio recording. Drivers are not included with the Vision Camera but can be downloaded automatically by Windows when prompted. One restriction of the Vision cam when used on the Windows is that it will not natively record videos, only take pictures. Additional software may be used to alleviate this problem. Mac OS X 10.4.9 added support for

5700-411: Is only limited by how many will fit in the field-of-view of the camera. Reverse engineering has determined that the Kinect's various sensors output video at a frame rate of ≈9  Hz to 30  Hz depending on resolution. The default RGB video stream uses 8-bit VGA resolution (640 × 480 pixels ) with a Bayer color filter , but the hardware is capable of resolutions up to 1280x1024 (at

5850-417: Is placed on. The Remote should be pointed approximately towards the Sensor Bar; precise pointing is not necessary so long as it is within the limited viewing angle of the Wii Remote. Use of the Sensor Bar allows the Wii Remote to be used as an accurate pointing device up to 5 meters (approx. 16 ft) away from the bar. The Wii Remote's image sensor is used to locate the Sensor Bar's points of light in

6000-479: Is supported in Australia , Canada , France , Germany , Ireland , Italy , Japan , Mexico , New Zealand , United Kingdom and United States . The Kinect sensor's microphone array enables Xbox 360 to conduct acoustic source localization and ambient noise suppression , allowing for things such as headset-free party chat over Xbox Live . The depth sensor consists of an infrared laser projector combined with

6150-457: Is that it was/is perceived as a toy." Images of the GameCube prototype of the Wii Remote, including the Nunchuk, were found online in October 2018 when one of the prototypes was made available through an online auction. As the Wii gained in popularity, reports surfaced of counterfeit Wii Remotes entering circulation. Although these devices may provide the same functionality as official Wii Remotes,

Xbox Live Vision - Misplaced Pages Continue

6300-511: The Game Developers Conference on. The circular top shoulder button, now called C, is much smaller than the lower rectangular shoulder button, now called Z. The body of the Nunchuk is 113 mm (4.4 in) long, 38 mm (1.5 in) wide, and 37 mm (1.5 in) thick. The connection port also has a larger size. The Nunchuk can be connected to any microcontroller capable of I²C (e.g., Arduino 's Atmel AVR ), where

6450-494: The Mario series' 25th anniversary, was included in red Wii bundles released for the occasion along with a matching Nunchuk and console, Wii Sports and New Super Mario Bros. Wii . The red Wii Remote Plus would also be bundled with European copies of Wii Play: Motion , which is replaced with a black one in other regions. A red Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk of matching color is also included with every Wii Mini . At E3 2011 , it

6600-399: The Wii U , the Wii's successor. Another sync button on the battery cover was added, allowing users to sync without removing the battery cover. A year later, Nintendo began releasing Wii Remote Plus controllers that are themed after Mario characters, starting with Mario and Luigi on November 1, 2013, to accompany the release of the Wii U Deluxe set. A few months later, Nintendo released

6750-539: The Wii Zapper and Wii Wheel and comfortably use the Wii Remote horizontally without having to remove the Wii MotionPlus attachment from the Wii Remote. Wii Remote Plus competed with Microsoft Corporation 's Kinect and Sony Computer Entertainment 's PlayStation Move with PlayStation Eye motion controllers , respectively. Nintendo later announced that the remote would be available in white, black, blue and pink. It

6900-481: The keypad of typical television remotes. Also, the symbol on the Home button was changed from a blue dot to a shape resembling a home/house, the shape of Power was made circular rather than rectangular, and the blue LEDs indicating player number are now labeled using 1 to 4 small raised dots instead of numbers 1 to 4, resembling the dots used to mark the four controller ports of the GameCube console. The Nintendo logo at

7050-443: The portmanteau Wiimote , is the primary game controller for Nintendo 's Wii home video game console . An essential capability of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with and manipulate items on screen via motion sensing, gesture recognition , and pointing using an accelerometer and optical sensor technology. It is expandable by adding attachments. The attachment bundled with

7200-439: The "Boneyard", a collection of possible technology they could not immediately work on. In 2005, PrimeSense was founded by tech-savvy mathematicians and engineers from Israel to develop the "next big thing" for video games, incorporating cameras that were capable of mapping a human body in front of them and sensing hand motions. They showed off their system at the 2006 Game Developers Conference , where Microsoft's Alex Kipman ,

7350-482: The "Xbox" button), or the PlayStation 3 's mid-game XMB . It may be accessed under most circumstances during Wii operation, which pauses the on-screen action. Otherwise, a "home" symbol with a no symbol on it appears onscreen. It is also inaccessible during Nintendo GameCube play, as the Wii Remote cannot control Nintendo GameCube software. The Wii Remote has the ability to sense acceleration along three axes through

7500-409: The "replacement program". The old 0.6 mm (0.024 in) diameter strap is replaced by a larger, 1.0 mm (0.039 in) diameter version. Nintendo's online "Wrist Strap Replacement Request Form" allows owners to receive up to four free straps when a Wii serial number and shipping details are provided. On August 3, 2007, a new wrist strap was found to be supplied, with a lock clip instead of

7650-492: The Game Developer's Conference. The controller was made slightly longer, and a speaker was added to the face beneath the center row of buttons. The B button became more curved resembling a trigger. The "Start" and "Select" buttons were changed to plus + and minus – , and the b and a buttons were changed to 1 and 2 to differentiate them from the A and B buttons, while also evoking

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7800-508: The Kinect for Xbox One orders, and that they had found commercial developers successfully using the Kinect for Xbox One in their applications without issue. With Microsoft's waning focus on Kinect, PrimeSense was bought by Apple, Inc. in 2013, which incorporated parts of the technology into its Face ID system for iOS devices. Though Kinect had been cancelled, the ideas of it helped to spur Microsoft into looking more into accessibility for Xbox and its games. According to Phil Spencer ,

7950-472: The Kinect technology was also used within Microsoft's HoloLens project. Microsoft discontinued the Azure Kinect developer kits in October 2023. The origins of the Kinect started around 2005, at a point where technology vendors were starting to develop depth-sensing cameras . Microsoft had been interested in a 3D camera for the Xbox line earlier but because the technology had not been refined, had placed it in

8100-578: The Kinect, provided free during an initial promotional period after the console's launch. The more powerful Xbox One X also lacked the Kinect port and required this adapter. Even though developers still released Kinect-enabled games for the Xbox One, Microsoft's lack of statements related to the Kinect during this period led to claims that the Kinect was a dead project at Microsoft. Microsoft formally announced it would stop manufacturing Kinect for Xbox One on October 25, 2017. Microsoft eventually discontinued

8250-594: The Mii data. Pokémon Battle Revolution and Super Swing Golf also use this memory. This function is also used in Super Smash Bros. Brawl , allowing the user to save controller configuration data to the Wii Remote. Monster Hunter Tri also uses this function by allowing players to save their profiles to the Wii Remote. Pokémon Rumble uses this section to store Pokémon. Carnival Games: Mini Golf and Club Penguin: Game Day! as well as other games use this to store

8400-421: The Sensor Bar using triangulation . Rotation of the Wii Remote with respect to the ground can also be calculated from the relative angle of the two dots of light on the image sensor. Games can be programmed to sense whether the image sensor is covered, which is demonstrated in a microgame featured in launch title WarioWare: Smooth Moves , where if the player does not uncover the sensor the champagne bottle that

8550-479: The USB "video class" group of peripherals, which includes the Vision Camera. The Vision Camera works in iChat , Photo Booth , Facetime for Mac , and other applications that use QuickTime for video display, such as Skype . A USB 2.0 connection is also mandatory. The camera continued to work from 10.5 to 10.7, but soon after that support was removed. PlayStation 3 system software (firmware) version 1.54 added support for "video class" USB devices, allowing use of

8700-883: The Vision camera, as well as webcams and other similar devices. Linux The Vision Camera works with native support, tested with v 4.19.66-v7+ on a Raspberry Pi with resolutions up to 960x720. In-game video support Controller functionality Face mapping support ( Digimask ) Other Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flight calculations, which can in turn be used to perform real-time gesture recognition and body skeletal detection, among other capabilities. They also contain microphones that can be used for speech recognition and voice control . Kinect

8850-502: The Wii Remote Plus in late 2010, which featured built-in Wii MotionPlus technology, it would initially be available in the same four standard Wii Remote colors, plus a special red variant that was included with red Wii consoles manufactured to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Mario series. In the years that followed, Nintendo released more Wii Remote Plus color schemes based on its first-party game franchises. Accessed with

9000-532: The Wii Remote and television was altered as the bow shot to give the impression of the arrow traveling away from the player. In addition to reproducing certain in-game sound effects that reflect the on-screen action, the Wii Remote speaker can also function as a voice receiver through which non-player characters can speak to the player with long-distance telecommunication , featured in games like Red Steel , Real Heroes: Firefighter and GoldenEye 007 . Some party games and hotseat multiplayer games also utilize

9150-485: The Wii Remote at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show . It connects to the Wii Remote via a cord 1 to 1.2 m (3.5 to 4 feet) long. Its appearance when attached resembles the nunchaku weapon, hence the name. It also resembles the middle handle of the Nintendo 64 controller . Like the controllers of the Wii's two predecessors, the Nunchuk has an analog stick whose movement is restricted by an octagonal area. The Nunchuk also has two trigger buttons (a last-minute modification changed

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9300-424: The Wii Remote can also control rotation of a cursor or other objects. The use of an infrared sensor to detect position can cause some detection problems in the presence of other infrared sources, such as incandescent light bulbs or candles. This can be alleviated by using fluorescent or LED lights, which emit little to no infrared light, around the Wii. Innovative users have used other sources of IR light, such as

9450-611: The Wii Remote flying. WarioWare: Smooth Moves also sometimes requires the Wii Remote to be dropped, which would cause problems in the event of a strap failure. In response, Nintendo has posted guidelines on proper use of the strap and the Wii Remote. On December 8, 2006, units with thicker straps began to appear in some areas of the world. On December 15, 2006, Nintendo denied reports of a Wii wrist strap recall. While Nintendo denied claims that three million straps had been recalled, it replaced broken wrist straps free of charge. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission became involved in

9600-408: The Wii Remote for the GameCube, noting that "Nintendo said that it hoped that GCN could enjoy a longer life cycle with the addition of top-secret peripherals that would forever enhance the gameplay experience." He suggested that Nintendo may have wanted to release the Wii Remote with a new system, instead of onto the GameCube, as "[the] Revolution addresses one of the GameCube's biggest drawbacks, which

9750-622: The Wii Remote in such a way that would be hindered by a wrist strap, such as Let's Tap , most House Party games in Wii Party and the Treasure Twirl game in Wii Play Motion . In such games or game modes, on-screen prompts, as well as instruction booklet text, will specifically state that they must be played without the wrist strap. Video game web site IGN reported that the strap tends to break under heavy use, which would potentially send

9900-419: The Wii Remote to provide a better grip, and cushioning to protect the Wii Remote if dropped. Nintendo started including the jacket with the controller on October 15, 2007. The safety jacket included with every Wii Remote is usually translucent. However, for black Wii Remotes and red Wii Remote Plus controllers, the safety jacket would be of the same color. The original Wii MotionPlus accessory also comes with

10050-468: The Wii Remote was originally in development as a controller for the GameCube , rather than the Wii. Video game developer Factor 5 stated that during development of launch title Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader , it had an early prototype of a motion-sensing controller. Video game journalist Matt Casamassina , from gaming website IGN , stated that he believed that Nintendo had planned to release

10200-481: The Wii Remote's Home button, the Home Menu displays information about the controller(s) currently being used, and allows the user to configure certain options. At the bottom of the menu screen, the battery life of all connected controllers is displayed. Below that is a bar labeled Wii Remote Settings. Selecting it brings users to an options screen where they can control the audio output volume, rumble settings, and reconnect

10350-458: The Wii Remote's field of view. The light emitted from each end of the Sensor Bar is focused onto the image sensor which sees the light as two bright dots separated by a distance "mi" on the image sensor. The second distance "m" between the two clusters of light emitters in the Sensor Bar is a fixed distance. From these two distances m and mi, the Wii CPU calculates the distance between the Wii Remote and

10500-458: The Wii Remote's less traditional "wand shape", and the design of the Nunchuk attachment. Nintendo had also decided upon using a motion sensor, infrared pointer, and the layout of the buttons, and by the end of 2005 the controller was ready for mass production. During development of the Wii Remote, video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto brought in mobile phones and controllers for automotive navigation systems for inspiration, eventually producing

10650-417: The Wii Remote's pointer in-game. Because the Sensor Bar allows the Wii Remote to calculate the distance between the Wii Remote and the Sensor Bar, the Wii Remote can also control slow forward-backward motion of an object in a 3-dimensional game. Rapid forward-backward motion, such as punching in a boxing game, is controlled by the acceleration sensors. Using these acceleration sensors (acting as tilt sensors),

10800-669: The Wii console is the Nunchuk , which complements the Wii Remote by providing functions similar to those in gamepad controllers. Some other attachments include the Classic Controller , Wii Zapper , and the Wii Wheel , which was originally released with the racing game, Mario Kart Wii . The controller was revealed at the Tokyo Game Show on September 14, 2005, with the name "Wii Remote" announced April 27, 2006. The finalized version of

10950-468: The Wii console. The position and motion tracking of the Wii Remote allows the player to mimic actual game actions, such as swinging a sword or aiming a gun, instead of simply pressing buttons. An early marketing video showed actors miming actions such as fishing, cooking, drumming, conducting a musical ensemble, shooting a gun, sword fighting, and performing dental surgery. The LEDs can be seen by some digital cameras, phone cameras, and other devices with

11100-424: The Wii, Wii Remote, Nunchuk, and Classic Controller PRO in Japan on August 1, 2009. Each black Wii Remote includes a matching solid-black Wii Remote Jacket. In addition, Club Nintendo in Japan held a contest between June 25, 2009, and August 31, 2009, wherein members who purchased and registered a copy of Wii Sports Resort would be entered into a draw to win one of 5,000 blue controller sets. Each set included

11250-518: The Xbox 360 was estimated to have sold eight million units in the first sixty days of release, earning the hardware the Guinness World Record for the "Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device". Over 10 million had been sold by March 2011. While seemingly successful, its launch titles were primarily family-oriented games (which could be designed around Kinect's functionality and limitations), which may have drawn new audiences, but did not have

11400-428: The Xbox One to function. This raised concerns across the video game media: privacy advocates argued that Kinect sensor data could be used for targeted advertising , and to perform unauthorized surveillance on users. In response to these claims, Microsoft reiterated that Kinect voice recognition and motion tracking can be disabled by users, that Kinect data cannot be used for advertising per its privacy policy , and that

11550-401: The Xbox One's launch; Microsoft would later offer Xbox One hardware bundles without Kinect included, and later revisions of the console removed the dedicated ports used to connect it (requiring a powered USB adapter instead). Microsoft ended production of Kinect for Xbox One in October 2017. Kinect has also been used as part of non-game applications in academic and commercial environments, as it

11700-438: The adapter in January 2018, stating that they were shifting to manufacture other accessories for the Xbox One and personal computers that were more in demand. This is considered by the media to be the point where Microsoft ceased work on the Kinect for the Xbox platform. While the Kinect unit for the Xbox platform had petered out, the Kinect was being used in academia and other applications since around 2011. The functionality of

11850-403: The background of the shot, incorporating input from the regular visible light camera. The unit then attempts to track any moving objects from this, with the assumption that only people will be moving around in the image, and isolates the human shapes from the image. The unit's software, aided by artificial intelligence, performs segmentation of the shapes to try to identify specific body parts, like

12000-515: The backlash. Among these was that the system would no longer require a Kinect unit to be plugged in to work, though it was still planned to package the Kinect with all Xbox One systems. However, this also required Microsoft to establish a US$ 500 price-point for the Xbox One/Kinect system at its November 2013 launch, US$ 100 more than the competing PlayStation 4 launched in the same time frame, which did not include any motion-sensing hardware. In

12150-459: The bar. The LEDs farthest from the center are pointed slightly outwards, the LEDs closest to the center are pointed slightly inwards, while the rest are pointed straight forward. The Sensor Bar's cable is 353 cm (11 ft 7 in) in length. The bar may be placed above or below the television, centered horizontally, in line with the front of the television or the front of the surface the television

12300-455: The batteries may be temporarily interrupted. If the Wii Remote is not used for more than 5 minutes, such as when the player is using a GameCube controller, it will shut off, and can be re-activated by pressing any button (this was also the case when using a now discontinued video-on-demand service). Games are able to determine and react to the current battery life of Wii Remotes, with certain games using unique, extra- diegetic methods of alerting

12450-506: The beginning of its instruction booklet (even if the game does not use motion controls). The latter is a word-for-word reproduction of a standard wrist strap warning notice established by Nintendo. The wrist strap is also used to restrain the Nunchuk's connector by its hook, safely slowing any sudden movement of the Nunchuk's cord if the connector is forcibly disconnected. In spite of widespread wrist strap safety notices, there are certain Wii games, in whole or part, that are played by moving

12600-543: The black Nunchuk was released as a standalone purchase. Blue and pink Wii Remotes were released in Japan on December 3, 2009. In North America, the blue and pink Wii Remotes were released February 14, 2010, in a bundle with a standard white Wii MotionPlus. In Australia, the black, blue and pink versions of the Wii Remotes were released on February 25, 2010. In addition, the black Nunchuk and black Wii MotionPlus were also released on that day as well. When Nintendo released

12750-436: The bottom of the controller face was replaced with the Wii logo. Also, the expansion port was redesigned, with expansion plugs featuring a smaller snap-on design. The Wii Remote had the capability of turning the main console's power on or off remotely with a power button, further reinforcing the impression that it looks like a television remote. The blue LEDs also indicate the battery's state: on pressing any button (other than

12900-406: The build quality is typically inferior and components such as the rumble motor and speaker are noticeably different. It is also unclear whether official accessories operate correctly with counterfeit units due to the differences in internal components. The Wii Remote assumes a one-handed remote control -based design instead of the traditional gamepad controllers of previous gaming consoles. This

13050-470: The computational work from Kinect, as well as more powerful features enable by Azure such as artificial intelligence would improve the accuracy of the depth-sensing and reduce the power demand and would lead to more compact units, Microsoft had envisioned. The Azure Kinect device was released on June 27, 2019, at a price of US$ 400 , while the SDK for the unit had been released in February 2019. Sky UK announced

13200-412: The conference—Microsoft's Ricochet and Paint Party , and Lionhead Studios ' Milo & Kate created by Peter Molyneux —while a Project Natal-enabled version of Criterion Games ' Burnout Paradise was shown during the E3 exhibition. By E3 2009, the skeletal mapping technology was capable of simultaneously tracking four people, with a feature extraction of 48 skeletal points on

13350-439: The console via short-range Bluetooth radio, with which it is possible to operate up to four controllers at a distance of up to 10 metres (30 ft) from the console. The Wii Remote communicates with the Sensor Bar by infrared, providing pointing functionality over a distance of up to five metres (16 ft) from Wii Remote to Sensor Bar. The controller can be used in either hand; it can also be turned horizontally and used like

13500-506: The console would not redistribute user-generated content without permission. Several other issues with the Xbox One's original feature set had also come up, such as the requirement to be always connected to the Internet, and created a wave of consumer backlash against Microsoft. Microsoft announced in August 2013 that they had made several changes to the planned Xbox One release in response to

13650-659: The console's physical reset button . Operations Guide : On Wii Menu channels, including the News Channel, Forecast Channel , Internet Channel , Everybody Votes Channel , certain WiiWare titles and Virtual Console titles, the Operations Guide button appeared on the Home Menu. The guide accessed acts as an instruction manual for the game being played. The Home Menu can be compared to the Xbox 360 's in-game menu (accessed by pressing

13800-468: The console, so that developers would know that Kinect hardware would be available for any Xbox One, and hoping to encourage developers to take advantage of that. The Xbox One was first formally announced on May 23, 2013, and shown in more detail at E3 2013 in June. Microsoft stated at these events that the Xbox One would include the updated Kinect hardware and it would be required to be plugged in at all times for

13950-402: The controller (see Wii Remote Chargers ). Nintendo's industrial designer Lance Barr said that the Wii Remote's expansion port is unsuitable for internal battery charging. The only type of (externally charged) rechargeable battery supported is nickel-metal hydride (NiMH). A 3300 μF capacitor provides a temporary source of power during quick movements of the Wii Remote when connection to

14100-406: The controller was later shown at E3 2006 . It received much attention due to its unique features, not supported by other gaming controllers. The Wii's successor console, the Wii U , supports the Wii Remote and its peripherals in games where use of the features of the Wii U GamePad is not mandated. The Wii U's successor, the Nintendo Switch , features a follow-up named Joy-Con . Development of

14250-614: The controllers, for example to connect Wii Remotes through one-time synchronization. Depending on when the Home Menu is accessed, a different number of buttons are displayed. Wii Menu : No matter when the menu is accessed, the Wii Menu button will always be present. Selecting this will exit a game or a Wii Menu channel and return the player to the Wii Menu, where users can choose another channel. When playing certain Virtual Console titles, with

14400-448: The core of the Kinect is enabled through its depth-sensing. The original Kinect for Xbox 360 used structured light for this: the unit used a near- infrared pattern projected across the space in front of the Kinect, while an infrared sensor captured the reflected light pattern. The light pattern is deformed by the relative depth of the objects in front it, and mathematics can be used to estimate that depth based on several factors related to

14550-424: The depth-sensing camera system for detection of objects at close range, as close as 50 centimetres (20 in), in the new "Near Mode". The SDK included Windows 7 compatible PC drivers for Kinect device. It provided Kinect capabilities to developers to build applications with C++ , C# , or Visual Basic by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and included the following features: In March 2012, Craig Eisler,

14700-615: The depth-sensing camera would either need to be adjusted manually, or would require an expensive motor to move automatically. Upper management at Microsoft opted to include the motor despite the increased cost to avoid breaking game immersion. Kinect project work also involved packaging the system for mass production and optimizing its performance. Hardware development took around 22 months. During hardware development, Microsoft engaged with software developers to use Kinect. Microsoft wanted to make games that would be playable by families since Kinect could sense multiple bodies in front of it. One of

14850-447: The exception of the Nintendo 64 and Neo Geo , this will also create a suspend point. Reset : In applications and games (both retail and downloadable), the Reset button is available. This performs a soft reset of that particular application, for example returning a game to its title screen or the loading screen of a Wii Menu channel, the same as what would happen if the player were to press

15000-466: The external efforts to develop the SDK. Kipman, in an interview with NPR , said The first thing to talk about is, Kinect was not actually hacked. Hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit inside of the Xbox and was able to actually use them, which hasn't happened. Or, it means that you put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating, which also has not happened. That's what we call hacking, and that's what we have put

15150-475: The first internal titles developed for the device was the pack-in game Kinect Adventures developed by Good Science Studio that was part of Microsoft Studios . One of the game modes of Kinect Adventures was "Reflex Ridge", based on the Japanese Brain Wall game where players attempt to contort their bodies in a short time to match cutouts of a wall moving at them. This type of game was a key example of

15300-522: The general manager of Kinect for Windows, said that almost 350 companies are working with Microsoft on custom Kinect applications for Microsoft Windows. In March 2012, Microsoft announced that next version of Kinect for Windows SDK would be available in May 2012. Kinect for Windows 1.5 was released on May 21, 2012. It adds new features, support for many new languages and debut in 19 more countries. Wii remote The Wii Remote , informally referred to with

15450-465: The general manager of hardware incubation, saw the potential in PrimeSense's technology for the Xbox system. Microsoft began discussions with PrimeSense about what would need to be done to make their product more consumer-friendly: not only improvements in the capabilities of depth-sensing cameras, but a reduction in size and cost, and a means to manufacturer the units at scale was required. PrimeSense spent

15600-452: The hardware layout of the Kinect. While other structure light depth-sensing technologies used multiple light patterns, Kinect used as few as one as to achieve a high rate of 30 frames per second of depth sensing. Kinect for Xbox One switched over to using time of flight measurements. The infrared projector on the Kinect sends out modulated infrared light which is then captured by the sensor. Infrared light reflecting off closer objects will have

15750-588: The head of Xbox at Microsoft, they received positive comments from parents of disabled and impaired children who were happy that Kinect allowed their children to play video games. These efforts led to the development of the Xbox Adaptive Controller , released in 2018, as one of Microsoft's efforts in this area. Microsoft had abandoned the idea of Kinect for video games, but still explored the potential of Kinect beyond that. Microsoft's Director of Communications Greg Sullivan stated in 2018 that "I think one of

15900-433: The head, arms, and hands, and track those segments individually. Those segments are used to construct a 20-point skeleton of the human body, which then can be used by game or other software to determine what actions the person has performed. Kinect for Xbox 360 was a combination of Microsoft built software and hardware. The hardware included a range chipset technology by Israeli developer PrimeSense , which developed

16050-419: The initial teaser video that revealed the controller at Tokyo Game Show 2005, the 1 and 2 buttons were labeled X and Y. The Wii Remote has a wrist strap attached to the bottom to prevent it from flying away during game action if not held securely. The wrist strap is tied with a cow hitch knot . Every Wii game contains safety warnings concerning wrist strap use during its startup sequence and also at or near

16200-505: The latency of motion detection and improving speech recognition. Microsoft provided news of these changes to the third-party developers to help them anticipate how the improvements can be integrated into the games. Concurrent with the Kinect improvements, Microsoft's Xbox hardware team had started planning for the Xbox One around mid-2011. Part of early Xbox One specifications was that the new Kinect hardware would be automatically included with

16350-404: The launch, Microsoft stated that more than 300 companies from over 25 countries were working on Kinect-ready apps with the new unit. With the original announcement of the revised Kinect for Xbox One in 2013, Microsoft also confirmed it would have a second generation of Kinect for Windows based on the updated Kinect technology by 2014. The new Kinect 2 for Windows was launched on July 15, 2014, at

16500-451: The level of motion tracking they desired. While they could determine hand gestures, and sense the general shape of a body, they could not do skeletal tracking. A separate path within Microsoft looked to create an equivalent of the Wii Remote, considering that this type of unit may become standardized similar to how two-thumbstick controllers became a standard feature. However, it was still ultimately Microsoft's goal to remove any device between

16650-410: The light sources. There is no way to calibrate the position of the cursor relative to where the user is pointing the controller without the two stable reference sources of light provided by the Sensor Bar or substitutes. Third-party wireless sensor bars have also been released, which have been popular with users of Wii emulators since the official Sensor Bar utilizes a proprietary connector to connect to

16800-589: The months after the Xbox One release, Microsoft decided to launch a Kinect-less Xbox One system in March 2014 at the same price as the PlayStation 4, after considering that the Kinect for Xbox One had not gotten the developer support, and sales of the Xbox One were lagging due to the higher price tag of the Kinect-bundled system. Richard Irving, a program group manager that oversaw Kinect, said that Microsoft had felt that it

16950-440: The motion-tracking would add to a game's high computational load and exceed the Xbox 360's capabilities. These observers believed that instead the industry would develop games specific to the Kinect features. During Microsoft's E3 2010 press conference, it was announced that Project Natal would be officially branded as Kinect, and be released in North America on November 4, 2010. Xbox Live director Stephen Toulouse stated that

17100-469: The name was a portmanteau of the words "kinetic" and "connection", key aspects of the Kinect initiative. Microsoft and third-party studios exhibited Kinect-compatible games during the E3 exhibition. A new slim revision of the Xbox 360 was also unveiled to coincide with Kinect's launch, which added a dedicated port for attaching the peripheral; Kinect would be sold at launch as a standalone accessory for existing Xbox 360 owners, and as part of bundles with

17250-482: The new slim Xbox 360. All units included Kinect Adventures as a pack-in game . Microsoft continued to refine the Kinect technology in the months leading to the Kinect launch in November 2010. By launch, Kipman reported they had been able to reduce the Kinect's use of the Xbox 360's processor from 10 to 15% as reported in January 2010 to a "single-digit percentage". Xbox product director Aaron Greenberg stated that Microsoft's marketing campaign for Kinect would carry

17400-484: The next few years working at these improvements. Nintendo released the Wii in November 2006. The Wii's central feature was the Wii Remote , a handheld device that was detected by the Wii through a motion sensor bar mounted onto a television screen to enable motion controlled games . Microsoft felt pressure from the Wii, and began looking into depth-sensing in more detail with PrimeSense's hardware, but could not get to

17550-424: The player and the Xbox. Kudo Tsunoda and Darren Bennett joined Microsoft in 2008, and began working with Kipman on a new approach to depth-sensing aided by machine learning to improve skeletal tracking. They internally demonstrated this and established where they believed the technology could be in a few years, which led to the strong interest to fund further development of the technology; this has also occurred at

17700-424: The player to low battery life. In September 2010, rumors were circulating of a Wii Remote with Wii MotionPlus already built in after the box art for the upcoming FlingSmash revealed it to be bundled with "Wii Remote Plus". Nintendo initially declined to comment, but later announced the device on September 29, 2010, confirming it to be a Wii Remote with MotionPlus built in, allowing players to use peripherals like

17850-412: The player's hands independently, a feature that is leveraged to implement boxing controls for Wii Sports or dual wield combat in some hack and slash games, such as Prince of Persia: Rival Swords . Despite having fewer buttons, the Nunchuk can also be used as a controller itself, a feature that is leveraged by Opoona , Bust-A-Move Bash! and SpeedZone . This allows two players to share

18000-501: The player's in game avatars. The game Petz: Monkey Madness allows players to transport their monkey between copies of the game. The Wii Remote uses two AA size alkaline batteries as a power source, which can power a Wii Remote for 60 hours using only the accelerometer functionality and 25 hours using both accelerometer and pointer functionality. In May 2013, Nintendo announced a rechargeable battery and dock accessory, and various third-party manufacturers market charging solutions for

18150-405: The possible applications of the Kinect outside of gaming, issued a security challenge related to the Kinect, offering prize money for the successful development of an open source software development kit (SDK) and hardware drivers for the Kinect, which came to be known as Open Kinect. Adafruit named the winner, Héctor Martín , by November 10, 2010, who had produced a Linux driver that allows

18300-501: The power button) while the controller is not being used to play games, four LEDs flash to indicate full battery, three for 75%, two for 50%, and one for 25% life remaining. Similarities have been noted between the Wii Remote and an early Dreamcast controller prototype. In the Red Steel trailer shown at E3 2006, the Wii Remote had a smaller circular shaped image sensor instead of the larger opaque IR filters shown on other versions. In

18450-492: The remote represents will not open. The Sensor Bar is required when the Wii Remote is controlling up-down, left-right motion of a cursor or reticle on the TV screen to point to menu options or objects such as enemies in first-person shooters . Some Wii games that depend on infrared pointing, such as The Conduit and The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return , allow the player to calibrate

18600-422: The selling power of major franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty —which were primarily designed around the Xbox 360 controller . Only an estimated 20% of the 55 million Xbox 360 owners had purchased the Kinect. The Kinect team recognized some of the downsides with more traditional games and Kinect, and continued ongoing development of the unit to be released as a second-generation unit, such as reducing

18750-427: The sensor up to 27° either up or down. The horizontal field of the Kinect sensor at the minimum viewing distance of ≈0.8 m (2.6 ft) is therefore ≈87 cm (34 in), and the vertical field is ≈63 cm (25 in), resulting in a resolution of just over 1.3 mm (0.051 in) per pixel. The microphone array features four microphone capsules and operates with each channel processing 16- bit audio at

18900-409: The sensor) that splits the connection into separate USB and power connections; power is supplied from the mains by way of an AC adapter. Kinect for Windows is a modified version of the Xbox 360 unit which was first released on February 1, 2012, alongside the SDK for commercial use. The hardware included better components to eliminate noise along the USB and other cabling paths, and improvements in

19050-428: The shape and posture of a body in a quantifiable manner to enable improved health-care decisions. Around November 2010, after the Kinect's launch, scientists, engineers, and hobbyists had been able to hack into the Kinect to determine what hardware and internal software it had used, leading to users finding how to connect and operate the Kinect with Microsoft Windows and OS X over USB, which has unsecured data from

19200-429: The software technology enables advanced gesture recognition , facial recognition and voice recognition. According to information supplied to retailers, Kinect is capable of simultaneously tracking up to six people, including two active players for motion analysis with a feature extraction of 20 joints per player. However, PrimeSense has stated that the number of people the device can "see" (but not process as players)

19350-410: The speaker to indicate changes between player turns. The volume can be changed or muted with the "Home" button and selecting the corresponding controller icon at the bottom of the screen; if the speaker is muted, any sounds intended to be emitted from the speaker will come from the television in most cases. The rumble feature can also be switched on or off using the Home Menu. The Wii Remote contains

19500-523: The system's skeletal mapping, Microsoft reported in January 2010 that the sensor would no longer feature a dedicated processor. Instead, processing would be handled by one of the processor cores of Xbox 360's Xenon CPU. Around this time, Kipmen estimated that the Kinect would only take about 10 to 15% of the Xbox 360's processing power. While this was a small fraction of the Xbox 360's capabilities, industry observers believed this further pointed to difficulties in adapting pre-existing games to use Kinect, as

19650-400: The system. Microsoft established its own large-scale manufacturing facility to bulk product Kinect units and test them. Kinect was first announced to the public as "Project Natal" on June 1, 2009, during Microsoft's press conference at E3 2009 ; film director Steven Spielberg joined Microsoft's Don Mattrick to introduce the technology and its potential. Three demos were presented during

19800-459: The things that is beginning to be understood is that Kinect was never really just the gaming peripheral...It was always more." Part of Kinect technology was integrated into Microsoft's HoloLens , first released in 2016. Microsoft announced that it was working on a new version of a hardware Kinect model for non-game applications that would integrate with their Azure cloud computing services in May 2018. The use of cloud computing to offload some of

19950-407: The two triggers to one trigger and a C button, as described below). It works in tandem with the main controller in many games. Like the Wii Remote, the Nunchuk also provides a three-axis accelerometer from STMicroelectronics for motion-sensing and tilting, but lacks any feedback features. The presence of a motion sensor in the Nunchuk allows the Wii controller to recognize gestures from both of

20100-596: The type of interactivity they wanted with Kinect, and its development helped feed into the hardware improvements. Nearing the planned release, there was a problem of widespread testing of Kinect in various room types and different bodies accounting for age, gender, and race among other factors, while keeping the details of the unit confidential. Microsoft engaged in a company-wide program offering employees to take home Kinect units to test them. Microsoft also brought other non-gaming divisions, including its Microsoft Research , Microsoft Windows , and Bing teams to help complete

20250-416: The unit along with its low US$ 150 cost was seen to be an inexpensive means to add depth-sensing to existing applications, offsetting the high cost and unreliability of other 3D camera options at the time. In robotics , Kinect's depth-sensing would enable robots to determine the shape and approximate distances to obstacles and maneuver around them. Within the medical field, the Kinect could be used to monitor

20400-445: The unit. Microsoft also expanded its draw to third-party developers to encourage them to develop Project Natal games. Companies like Harmonix and Double Fine quickly took to Project Natal and saw the potential in it, and committed to developing games for the unit, such as the launch title Dance Central from Harmonix. Although its sensor unit was originally planned to contain a microprocessor that would perform operations such as

20550-483: The use of Analog Devices MEMS -based three-dimensional accelerometers . The Wii Remote also has a PixArt optical sensor that allows it to determine where it is pointing. Unlike a light gun that senses light from a television screen, the Wii Remote senses light from the console's Sensor Bar (RVL-014), which allows consistent usage not influenced by the screen used. The Sensor Bar is about 24 cm (9.4 in) long and has ten infrared LEDs , five at each end of

20700-453: The use of both the RGB camera and depth sensitivity functions of the device. It was later discovered that Johnny Lee , a core member of Microsoft's Kinect development team, had secretly approached Adafruit with the idea of a driver development contest and had personally financed it. Lee had said of the efforts to open the Kinect that "This is showing us the future...This is happening today, and this

20850-475: The various camera elements that could be read. This further led to prototype demos of other possible applications, such as a gesture-based user interface for the operating system similar to that shown in the film Minority Report , as well as pornographic applications. This mirrored similar work to hack the Wii Remote a few years earlier to use its low-cost hardware for more advanced applications beyond gameplay. Adafruit Industries , having envisioned some of

21000-423: The video display. The device features an " RGB camera, depth sensor and microphone array running proprietary software", which provide full-body 3D motion capture , facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities. At launch, voice recognition was only made available in Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and United States. Mainland Europe received the feature later in spring 2011. Currently voice recognition

21150-409: The word "natal" to mean "to be born", reflecting the new types of audiences they hoped to draw with the technology. Much of the initial work was related to ethnographic research to see how video game players' home environments were laid out, lit, and how those with Wiis used the system to plan how Kinect units would be used. The Microsoft team discovered from this research that the up-and-down angle of

21300-469: Was cheaper and more robust than other depth-sensing technologies at the time. While Microsoft initially objected to such applications, it later released software development kits (SDKs) for the development of Microsoft Windows applications that use Kinect. In 2020, Microsoft released Azure Kinect as a continuation of the technology integrated with the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform. Part of

21450-461: Was done to make motion sensitivity more intuitive, as a remote design is fitted perfectly for pointing, and in part to help the console appeal to a broader audience that includes non-gamers. The body of the Wii Remote is 148 mm (5.8 in) long, 36.2 mm (1.43 in) wide, and 30.8 mm (1.21 in) thick. The Wii Remote model number is RVL-003, a reference to the project code-name "Revolution". The controller communicates wirelessly with

21600-414: Was enough of a Kinect install base to justify release, which resulted in a lack of games for the Kinect and reducing any consumer drive to buy the separate unit. Microsoft became bearish on the Kinect, making no mention of the unit at E3 2015 and announcing at E3 2016 that the upcoming Xbox One hardware revision, the Xbox One S , would not have a dedicated Kinect port; Microsoft offered a USB adapter for

21750-427: Was first released on November 4, 2010, and would go on to sell eight million units in its first 60 days of availability. The majority of the games developed for Kinect were casual , family-oriented titles, which helped to attract new audiences to Xbox 360, but did not result in wide adoption by the console's existing, overall userbase. As part of the 2013 unveiling of Xbox 360's successor, Xbox One , Microsoft unveiled

21900-416: Was more important to give developers and consumers the option of developing for or purchasing the Kinect rather than forcing the unit on them. The removal of Kinect from the Xbox One retail package was the start of the rapid decline and phase-out of the unit within Microsoft. Developers like Harmonix that had been originally targeting games to use the Xbox One had put these games on hold until they knew there

22050-404: Was originally developed as a motion controller peripheral for Xbox video game consoles , distinguished from competitors (such as Nintendo's Wii Remote and Sony's PlayStation Move ) by not requiring physical controllers. The first-generation Kinect was based on technology from Israeli company PrimeSense , and unveiled at E3 2009 as a peripheral for Xbox 360 codenamed " Project Natal ". It

22200-429: Was planning on releasing its own SDK for the Kinect within a few months, and which was officially released on June 16, 2011, but which was limited to non-commercial uses. The SDK enabled users to access the skeletal motion recognition system for up to two persons and the Kinect microphone array, features that had not been part of the prior Open Kinect SDK. Commercial interest in Kinect was still strong, with David Dennis,

22350-531: Was released in Australia on October 28, 2010, in Europe on November 5, 2010, in North America on November 7, 2010, and in Japan on November 11, 2010. In addition to being available in the four standard Wii Remote colors, specially colored Wii Remote Plus controllers themed after Nintendo's first-party video game franchises were also released in the years that followed, with one golden Legend of Zelda Wii Remote Plus and several others based on Mario characters . A red Wii Remote Plus, initially designed to celebrate

22500-458: Was revealed that a gold Wii Remote Plus with the Hylian Crest superimposed over its speaker would be released alongside The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword . It was available as part of a bundle with Skyward Sword for a limited time. A matching gold Nunchuk was also available to earn for Club Nintendo members for a limited time. In 2012, the Wii Remote Plus was reissued, and branded for

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