You can now Kinect while seated

Microsoft updated Kinect's software just "a few months ago" to allow players to use the controller-free device while seated.


The platform holder has previously been somewhat evasive about Kinect's ability to detect seated players, and not without good reason, according to comments from Blitz Games Studios co-founder Andrew Oliver.

He told Eurogamer that the device's difficulty in detecting seated and lying players was caused by it setting the base node used to create skeletal models at the bottom of the spine.

Microsoft altered the software so that the base node was switched to the back of the neck quite recently, said Oliver, who's currently working on Kinect titles like movie karaoke game Yoostar2 and personal fitness title The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout.

"A few months ago they changed stuff around," he said. "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.'"

Prior to the update, developers had to create Kinect software internally in order to make a game in which players could sit or lie down.

"It was one of those ones where it was probably borderline whether Microsoft would have fixed it for you or not," Oliver said.

"We were talking to them last February saying, 'Are you ever going to fix the libraries so it will work on the floor?' And they went, 'Oh come on, that's lying on the floor. That's so rare. We've got other issues we're dealing with.' We said, 'Okay, we'll go write it ourselves.'"

With Microsoft;s update to the software, "games going forward won't have a problem," Oliver added.

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