Xbox One kinect

[FranBlagru]

Hi, I'm very interested into buying an Xbox One, but the best deal I found are without a kinect and with 3 games for 419.99 euro here in my country. So my question is, will I be missing out A LOT without the kinect?
Thanks in advance.

 

[jlzimmerman]

I thought about buying the XBOne without the Kinect. My greed got the best of me and I decided to go full monty and get it with the Kinect. I am completely glad I did. With my cable box routed through the console, I can pretty much navigate everything using my voice. While hand gestures aren't as cool as voice control, they are useful. I've had to use hand gestures during a time when the remote control was lost. Why didn't you use voice commands then, you ask? Well, that's because my wife hates the voice recognition. She hates it when it recognizes my face and logs me in and says "Hi." She doesn't trust it and it's big brother capabilities and that's completely understandable. But my rebuttal is, "You carry and use a smartphone which can track you, listen and look at everything you do all day long, yet you trust your smartphone?" She still doesn't like it, but she got my point. And if you end up in a similar situation you can turn all that stuff off.

I love the Kinect. It's very convenient when you start using its functions. Just be sure it's fully functional for your region/country. I think I read that voice commands are not yet available for some languages.

 

[Keith Wallace]

It'll depend on what you plan to do. If all you do is play games, you likely won't miss it. I have a Kinect, and while I used to use it for voice functions, I have basically stopped that entirely. All I do is play games, and I don't find a use for the Kinect as a result (I'm not one to do streaming or record game clips). So, if you want o just play games, you shouldn't miss it. If you want to use a bunch of the media features, it's more-likely that you would want and enjoy the Kinect's presence.

 

[MobileVortex]

I'm glad i have it, and both of my friends who dont have it wish they did. Even if its small things like checking your party, or snapping a new app. It is SOOOO much easier using voice vs doubble tap of the guide button, finding the app you want, opening it etc. Now that i have it I cant live without it, but i do imagine its easy to sell yourself on not having it.

 

[Bobvfr]

We have three Xbox One's in the house now and each is controlled in a different way.

Mine (Connected to our main TV, sound system and cable) has a Kinect, we do use it but maybe not as much as others do, I have the media remote control and use that more than voice but it is handy to sometimes say "Xbox, volume up" or "Xbox, watch BBC1".

My wife's Xbox One is hooked up to her TV, she doesn't like speaking to the Xbox and has no need for the system to log her on, she also has the media remote control, but to make this work with the TV etc. You either need a Kinect or a "IR blaster", this plugs into the 3.5 jack socket on the back of the Xbox and transmits Infra Red signals to other equipment.

My lad is just into games, no Kinect, no IR blaster, no media remote and he likes it this way.

As Keith mentioned, you need to think through what you want to do, also factor in the price difference between buying without the Kinect and then having to buy one later if you find you want one, although the IR blaster idea is a much cheaper and valid option if you are on a budget and don't need voice or gesture control.

I would add that Kinect has the power to still come into it's own in years to come as it's very clever and developers will become more adept at working with it.

Personally like Kinect but it's not needed, so down to what you want.

 

[Coreldan]

I suppose if I never had the Kinect I wouldn't know how to miss it, but if my Kinect broke now, I wouldn't have to think twice about replacing it.

It's probably 50-50 on how I start up my games and the console. The voice commands come in handy a lot of time. By the time I've found the controller and sat down, I have the console and the game already running pretty much. Hell, sometimes I start up a game while still in the toilet

The more purposes you use it for, the more awesome it is. Skype is amazing with it, it's really awesome for media purposes too. It kinda feels archaic now to have to press buttons to pause the video, especially if you happen to eat something at the same time and don't have clean hands etc. Then there's the IR blaster part that is great. TV starting up/shutting down with console is great, so is adjusting volume, so is using Smartglass as a whole TV and DVR remote. Actual Kinect-games arnt much to write home about, but from personal experience Just Dance 2014 and Fantasia have been great, D4 will be free with Gold next month and I've heard that's amazing with Kinect too, but most others are pretty so-so I hear. As for non-Kinect games that still utilize Kinect, it really depends on the game. Some utilize it well, some less so.

It kinda depends on how tight your budget is. If all you do is game and you want to keep budget tight, maybe not get Kinect then, but I repeat, I'd really have hard time going to not having Kinect even if all I did was play. I constantly use Kinect to start up games, snap things, adjust TV volume, etc...

I'm probably repeating myself by now, but like said, I personally wouldn't consider living without the Kinect now that I'm used to it. The UI has come a long way though so that it works pretty well with just controller too, though.

 

[Reflexx]

Just to interject... Voice Commander (free download) is a damn fine game.

I thought it looked boring, but I played it last night with my son. He was using the controller to control the little space ship while I was using voice to control the AI. It was pretty fun and a completely different gaming experience than I was used to.

 

[FranBlagru]

Thanks to everyone for the reply And thanks for taking your time to write all that, really helped!