SwiftDeath
Member
But then why have they bothered to show a demo that illustrates kinects ability to track users engagement with the content?
What other use does such a metric have?
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
AdvertisingAge: Xbox One's Data Treasure Trove Could Reshape Marketing
- Thread starter Freki
- Start date
But then why have they bothered to show a demo that illustrates kinects ability to track users engagement with the content?
What other use does such a metric have?
The thing is that you opt-in to everything a console manufacturer will subsequently do for the rest of the generation when you buy the console. The only way you can opt-out to even the slightest change to policy is to not install the latest firmware updates that come with the new TOS. Which means your console is effectively banned and you can no longer go online. So even if you are someone who reads all of the Terms and Conditions again every time there's an update, you have to constantly decide whether any change is significant enough to have your console functionality severely diminished.
You're giving your consent to all of this bullshit when you buy the Xbox, and you're only left with hoping against hope that MS won't do what they've made crystal clear at this point is in their fundamental nature.
I shall call this the Lando Compromise. You're either in and accepting every single humiliating alteration to the deal, or you're out, blowing up Stormtroopers and throwing away Cloud City...
You're giving your consent to all of this bullshit when you buy the Xbox, and you're only left with hoping against hope that MS won't do what they've made crystal clear at this point is in their fundamental nature.
I shall call this the Lando Compromise. You're either in and accepting every single humiliating alteration to the deal, or you're out, blowing up Stormtroopers and throwing away Cloud City...
But then why have they bothered to show a demo that illustrates kinects ability to track users engagement with the content?
What other use does such a metric have?
I can think of some legitimate uses. For instance, a Left 4 Dead-style director could monitor your engagement with the game and throw scares at you when you're paying less attention, or ratchet up the tension when you are.
Why bother showing any tech demo? They're to create a proof of concept and leave it up to devs to figure out how to make something fun out of it.
Kojima said that for MGS5 he's looking to do some interesting gimmicky stuff with the Kinect. He could use the camera to keep a tally of the number of people sitting in front of the TV, and then for a Psycho Mantis segment use it to tailor the dialogue for some fourth-wall breaking. "You with the controller! Look to your left, at your friend sitting next to you. Do you really trust that person?"
Of course I pulled that out of my ass, but there you go. That one was free.
SwiftDeath
Member
Not paying attention to the game?
So like multitasking or what?
Games usually require some form of engagement, enough that that it could be assumed
For that example it wouldn't matter if someone was engaged in the content on TV
It would just matter that they were there which kinect already tracks
Sword Of Doom
Member
Use your imagination. The demo makes "engagement" look like a pure binary state, so replace that line of dialogue with "Ignoring my speech? Fine, I'll just repeat it"
Oh God, Kojima could use the facial recognition software to make us listen to all his banal writing. Forget what I said, I'm with you guys, Kinect is terrible
Japanese vending machine tells you what you should drink
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-machine-tells-you-what-you-should-drink.html
2010 tech
Never heard of 'em.
Interesting article! But get back to me when someone demonstrates Kinect doing this. The challenge become exponentially greater once you realize that the vending machines are only expected to analyze Japanese faces, whereas the Kinect has to work for every race and ethnicity.
SwiftDeath
Member
I will admit there has to be some potential for the engagement metric in game-use
I just think it is far far more likely evisioned to be a advertiser or nielson rating use by MS
Does anyone know where that picture I posted is from?
It appeared earlier in the thread but I couldn't source it
Was kind of hoping someone could find the source
I really don't think that's going to be the big a problem
Although is it true kinect 1 had trouble with those of darker complexion?
Or was that not true?
There were some snafus with the original Kinect not recognizing people with darker skins in certain settings, yes. Also, it doesn't take an engineer to tell you that creating an algorithm to analyze the facial structure of a single isolated race is much easier than doing so for the entire cross-section of human ethnicity. The article doesn't go into much detail, it only mentions comparing the user's face to a database of 10,000 other facial portraits, and I assume they're all Japanese.
SmoothRunningGun
Member
"We do not have plans to target ads or content to you based on any data Kinect collects...
but plans are subject to change."
SwiftDeath
Member
I imagine this was said by MS execs at the intital design stage of the XB1
It has been a very crazy ride thus far
November looks to be incredible
1. Microsoft tells "Corporate partners" that Kinect will be a boon for advertising purposes.
2. Potential customers find out Kinect will be a boon for advertising purposes, don't like it at all.
3. Microsoft tells potential customers Kinect will not be a boon for advertising purposes, hoping that message takes hold.
Just wow.
2. Potential customers find out Kinect will be a boon for advertising purposes, don't like it at all.
3. Microsoft tells potential customers Kinect will not be a boon for advertising purposes, hoping that message takes hold.
Just wow.
Yeah, so there are some crazy-strech Kojima-nuts things we can think of with this tech that cost Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars.
...and then there's the obvious, massively profitable, nearly-revolutionary ad revenue application.
Which one seems more likely?
Each person on your Live Family Account will have their own login right? With information submitted to Microsoft. The Kinect changes who is logged in based on facial recognition. Basically it ties your face to your account info. So automatically your demographics are logged in based on who Kinect recognizes.
That means the targeted ads can be done without them actually collecting info. You've already given them your info to create your account and you authorized Microsoft to recognize you using Kinect face recognition.
Put them both together and targeted advertising is already possible without you consenting to Kinect data mining.
Ding ding ding!
Even without using the other emotions/biometrics tech included in Kinect at all, Microsoft has already made a killing on additional ad rev.
...this is kind of brilliant.
SoldierGryphon
Banned
Seems like that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. You know, with all the Americans with heart disease and all.
It is what it is. I've long ago tried to stop making absolute sense of what Microsoft is doing strategically and with PR. They keep highlighting their weaknesses in PR, over and over, endlessly, in interviews. It's like they read some business guide on how to sell consumers a product and decided to do the exact opposite of everything it said, just for shits and giggles.
I don't know where up or down is with them anymore. I feel like I'm completely detached from any central gravity whenever I have to read the latest release from Microsoft. Sometimes I can't even believe they were behind the 360, my most played console by far last gen.
From what I understand, it's not really the same people anymore. They lost a lot of their top people, and have different people leading it now, and it shows.
It hasn't been a sudden change either. They've been largely absent from E3 for 3-4 years, coasting on past successes all this time. Kinect on 360, Kinectimals, Nike app, ESPN, etc.
Lots of people called some of their issues years ago, I know I did. But no one expected it to truly turn out this bad.
Iacobellis
Junior Member
Nope. Only guy I truly recognize from the 360 days is Larry. Pete Dodd (famousmortimer) made a post in another thread about Ross Honey, who essentially killed Inside Xbox.
Xbox has shifted too much from gaming. They have gone too far. If you compare what was in store for the 360 at launch and in 2006 to the Xbox One, you can bet that J Allard and Peter Moore would be laughing all the way home.
It is sad, really. Nintendo was Nintendo, Sony was the leader that catered to the core and casual players, while Microsoft was the go-to hardcore gaming brand. I remember being blown away by having an "unlimited" storage on my first Xbox and being able to listen to any music I wanted to in PGR 2. 360 did it again with Achievements, Xbox LIVE, and just the dashboard itself. It was the first console for many where they could simply find a wealth of games to play outside of the usual retailer.
What's the selling point for Xbox One? Watching TV and Skyping my friends while playing Titanfall? If I'm playing a game, I don't want precious screen space taken away by distractions.
Well I noticed it early on, and connected it to their shift to Kinect focus. I had months where I was being told I was trolling every Kinect thread for mentioning my concern that this garbage bin technology was distracting resources that could be used to develop games that aren't complete shit and are aimed at the people who made their system a success in the first place.
And yet here we are, and my most dire pessimistic predictions were true. They lost the track after Kinect. They coasted on revisits to tired franchises that weren't even as high quality as previous entries (Forza Horizon excepted), and the level of variety and quality and whatnot from Microsoft Studios just evaporated all around. It was pretty much the argument after that point "well look at all these multiplatform games!"
Of course that didn't matter to me by that point, since I had a gaming level PC and most of my multiplatform gaming had shifted from 360 to PC. But even if it hadn't, I would have felt the same way. Their shifted focus led to a ruined system as far as I was concerned. Now I don't even have XBL activated on my 360 anymore. This is the system for which I put like a thousand hours into L4D 1 and L4D 2 each online. It's just a shame how things turned out.
The Kinect library on average is some of the worst reviewed and least acclaimed gaming products of their respective years. Nobody likes pretty much anything on it so far, except a few shallow mini-game compilation crap and dance games. Everything else is Child of Eden - which can be played more accurately without Kinect and doesn't even require a 360 - and Gunstringer.
I keep asking when to expect the new ideas the tech will bring, but it never happens
So for those years, it seemed as if 360 had just imploded from having everything aimed at me to being an unhappy wasteland by comparison. Or at least, it very much seemed like Microsoft had stopped trying.
It seems they are ready for a return to form with the games they have announced so far on XBo, but to get here we also have to support a disastrous platform that Microsoft cannot seem to find their own voice for.
Welp, at least they allow me to toss Kinect in the garbage now. The last 180 that mattered to me outside of the price and everything being behind a paywall. I hope they change their paywall philosophy. That just looks bad versus Nintendo and Sony's philosophy on the subject.
*sigh*
And think of all the people that won't know any better.
Maybe should go walk into their ivory tower and find out what's up. Not the Xbox Division. The head honcho HQ. You gotta go to Seattle.
It's no longer the simple PR of a company trying to sell you a product. What we've got from MS since the reveal of the Xbone is the PR of a massive political entity, with carefully (legally) worded messages and plausible deniability. It's just like the PR from major political candidates or parties.
The Snowden leaks came at the worst time for MS, just after the Xbone was announced. Now it's public knowledge that MS have zero regard for their customers privacy and rights. Working directly with the NSA to provide any and all data they hold, regardless of what privacy options you've opted in to, or what the EULAs or ToS state (or even what is in the constitution or EU laws).
This, more than anything, has shaped the message MS has put towards gamers around Kinect and privacy. Very vague snippets of PR that MS take privacy seriously and they wouldn't send data without consent, and that they have never planned on using Kinect data for adversing. While on the other hand, giving a complete different (i.e. true) message to the advertising world, that targeted NuADs and Kinect are the future and the Xbox One has been designed from the ground up to support them.
painful fart
Member
Just a short recapture.
The official Microsoft response:
http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-no-xbox-ones-kinect-wont-be-used-to-gather-user-data-for-ads
From the original AdAge article
http://m.adage.com/article?articleSection=specialreport:anaannualmeeting2013&articleSectionName=SpecialReport:ANAAnnualMeeting2013&articleid=http%3A%2F%2Fadage.com%2Fanaannualmeeting2013%2Farticle%3Farticle_id%3D244605
Maybe Albert Penello or someone else could fill us in what Mr Mehdi was talking about in the quote above? If it's not related to Kinect then what is it?
The official Microsoft response:
http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-no-xbox-ones-kinect-wont-be-used-to-gather-user-data-for-ads
From the original AdAge article
http://m.adage.com/article?articleSection=specialreport:anaannualmeeting2013&articleSectionName=SpecialReport:ANAAnnualMeeting2013&articleid=http%3A%2F%2Fadage.com%2Fanaannualmeeting2013%2Farticle%3Farticle_id%3D244605
Maybe Albert Penello or someone else could fill us in what Mr Mehdi was talking about in the quote above? If it's not related to Kinect then what is it?
Woo-Fu
Banned
Just like Achievements. People say Microsoft doesn't innovate but they've done some impressive things when it comes to Marketing.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
What we need is audio or video of the presentation
Sword Of Doom
Member
How about bringing online gaming to the masses. It was a brilliant long term move by them to bring all these people into their ecosystem with their friends. Moving those people over to PSN will be Sony's biggest challenge next gen
Woo-Fu
Banned
They just sped up, homogenized, and walled in what was already happening on PC. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
famousmortimer
Banned
If anyone gives a shit I recorded a podcast today based largely on shit from this thread... and then spreading out to other topics.
Why the Xbox One will fail.
Fair and balanced
Why the Xbox One will fail.
Fair and balanced
What you're saying makes no sense. The facial logon gimmick doesn't (or shouldn't) require any kinect data being sent to Microsoft, that would be tabulated on the console. And your last sentence would violate their own privacy policies. Those things technically aren't legally binding, but if you're just deciding now not to trust corporate privacy policies then you need to stop using internet applications. Like, right now.
I'm only playing Madden. Sure, why not? I've liked your other post too. This has exploded and that's good.
painful fart
Member
Well you claimed Kinect coud not decide age and sex which could be used as a base for targeted ads. He was just pointing out that the Xbox in many cases already have that information to aid the targeted ads.
I would argue that kinect could pick the right sex with good precision based on voice pitch, boob size and movement patterns, but as he pointed out that is probably not necessary.
FranXico
Member
Some people do appreciate the effort you put into your blog and podcast. Don't let some fanboys in denial get to you.
How are you failing to understand. That was my entire point was that MS doesn't need to data mine. Xbox Live account holders which include your family members are already signing up for the service and giving their info. Gender, age, location, etc. Kinect then recognizes who is who and logs in whomever it recognizes. Now your demographic information is already available to Microsoft because of your Xbox Live sign up, not because of data mining. So MS can already provide targeted ads from that.
I'm not sure what all that stuff you said had to do with my point at all. Data mining is exactly what they don't have to do because you're already providing your demographics info to them by signing up, then Kinect makes sure the right person is signed in through facial recognition.
I thought you were crazy once, but now I can see your nuts.
HORRORSHØW
Member
Are they hairy and wrinkled?
famousmortimer
Banned
xaosslug
Member
well, why are you staring at his nuts?!
Haint
Member
Guys I don't wanna blow your mind here or anything, but there existed this device called a Dreamcast that had millions of people playing console games online.
With zero BC, they really don't have the same level of ecosystem hold as they could have. If the next iPhone wasn't able to play my purchased games, it would be incentive to possibly look into Androids.
With only a friends list and gamerscore to keep you, doesn't seem like it's a substantial ecosystem grab to me. But had they had some sort of BC provided, they would have hooked a ton of 360 owners.
Neuromancer
Member
AdBox One