It’s worth telling you that the Australian Kinect doesn’t support voice control. As Kotaku reported back in September, Microsoft has decided that any region outside of America, the UK, and Mexico will have to wait until Autumn next year before voice controls work. Damn.
I actually spent a good 20 minutes last night trying to work out why voice controls weren’t working on my Kinect, only to rediscover this Kotaku post today. Considering there’s absolutely no mention of this lack of feature for Australians in any of the marketing we’ve seen from Microsoft, despite plenty of discussion about the feature, it’s exceptionally poor form from Redmond.
We’ve contacted Microsoft’s PR company for an explanation on the issue and will update when we hear an official response.
DAWOOKIE
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2:17 PMWell that has put a downer on my new purchase! Come on MS we are somewhere in between American and English, give us our voice control!!!!!
Biderjum
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2:17 PMIs it not in the device at all(purchased in Australia)? Or is it just disabled for now? Was thinking about getting one, or should I wait…
DAWOOKIE
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:13 PMNo it is just software, we are just the last priority (small population compared to americas and europe) for dialect tuning algorithms.
I hate how MS claims to be global but makes and releases everything in the US.
The only reason I think we got WP7 first was due to using us as a soft launch to get out any wrinkles before the US launch.
Biderjum
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:38 PMhmmm, so if change my location settings and talk like a yank or pom it will work?
Tom
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2:27 PMSeriously? At least 4-7 months?! That’s pretty damn poor.
Ray
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2:43 PMWow. I had no idea. That is BULLSHIT.
Normandy
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:25 PMTOTAL FAIL! FAIL FAIL FAIL! THATS IT.. no Kinect for me!
Daniel
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:26 PMi was almost thinking of buying a kinect…. but i wont be purchasing it until this has been enabled.
slightly broken voice recognition is better than none at all.
it would have been even better to have had to speak to it in a british/yank accent
ill be holding my purchase off, at least for a bit
MDolley
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:42 PMEverybody does realise that you can like play games with it and stuff right? The actual voice commands are only a small part of the package. I am still undecided on Kinect, but I don’t see this as being a deal breaker.
Normandy
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:46 PMvoice control was highly published, and they sneaked it in, and took away the feature… that makes people pissed!
simon
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:47 PMpeople are stupid.
but not you good sir. quite right, its a very very small option on a wider range of features… boo hoo, i cant talk to my xbox :(
Ray
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 3:55 PMYeah, but the games look to be total garbage. As opposed to the aweomse Minority Report-style functionality which we’re not getting.
MDolley
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 7:15 PMYou can still wave your hands around to contol menus. That is more minority report than voice commands isn’t it?
DAWOOKIE
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:23 PM+1
Although buy it from bigW they have it for $177 not JB at $194 :(
Leo W'ski
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:00 PMThey were prob worried when we spoke that the word “Mate” would result in our Avatar bonking something!
Liam Morrow
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 9:49 PMhahaha, thats awesome
Ray
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:07 PM@majornelson No Kinect voice control in Australia until Autumn 2011? Uh, what is that about Larry?
attila
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:13 PMI think MS assumed we spoke Austrian and therefore lumped us in with Europe…
veddermandan
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:33 PMYep i was getting one this weekend. But will wait until voice support is added. I already know the games wont be played after a few months like Wii games, so the other media options were the main selling points.
Namarrgon
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:54 PMWell bugger. That was one of the big things about it for me :-( Don’t much care for the leaping around part, but the voice control was important.
Somehow I missed that obscure mention of it – and it’s irritatingly suspicious that Microsoft AU have been silent on the matter.
Grant Hawkins
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 5:25 PMOK, well at least i can stop yelling Xbox at my TV like I have been for the last hour.
Glenn Mortimer
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 6:06 PMYeah i bought one today… a bit annoyed that this is not enabled.
quite a let down.
John M
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 9:48 PMJust bought one..very pissed off. Big black mark on what so far has been a great experience with xbox 360. MS owe us an apology. Not acceptable.
Steve Hewitt
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:04 PMif you change your region to “uk” it works fine.
altho, the second you log in, it reverts back to australia.
Tom Reynolds
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 8:19 AMI can’t understand if it works in the UK why Australian English is such a fail? We are used to speaking with US and UK voice recognition (iPhone for one!).
I’ve not just bought a Kinect, I upgraded to a new Xbox and this is just stupid, lazy thinking (or lack thereof) by Microsoft.
The simple solution would be to have a facility to completely “train” the Xbox to learn our accent and then upload that. Crowd source the training Microsoft. It’s 2010.