Microsoft's head of product development Albert Penello, has told Official Xbox Magazine UK that Kinect localisation was behind the company's decision to delay the launch of the Xbox One in eight European countries.
Penello says Kinect's voice commands on Xbox One are much more integrated and improved over the existing Kinect functionality on Xbox 360.
"I think people are using the way [voice] works on Xbox 360, which was an accessory we built five years after release, as how it's going to work here.
“But it’s so much more elegant and so much more integrated, and in many ways it’s a lot faster and more convenient. Whereas on Xbox 360 it’s a lesser version of doing the thing you’re used to doing on your controller."
He says that there are no manufacturing issues and adds that the Xbox One titles available at gamescom last week were on the final revision of the Xbox One which will be released in 13 countries later this year.
"This is the part of the internet that’s frustrating, because everybody wants to assume there’s a [units volume] issue. And yet I’m showing real hardware here at gamescom – a real, final, retail kit. Which I have yet to see my friends show me.
“People assume there’s a volume issue which in fact there isn’t. You’re actually seeing pre-orders pop back up now because we’re able allocate the countries’ volumes back in. It’s there, the problem is localisation. And once people see the system and how integral it is, it’s not just text integration.”
However, just because your country may not have Kinect support functionality doesn't mean you can't import and use it.
“But at the same time we said, this is a region-free console. In regions like Switzerland where people speak German and French, they can get a German or French console. It’ll work fine. They can log in to their marketplace, use their language, we don’t geo-fence Live or any of the content any more. We don’t have official language support – but the console still works.”
The Kinect sensor was originally mandatory with Xbox One but can now be turned off. Microsoft will launch the Xbox One in November for $499/€499/£429 but a specific release date has not yet been announced. According to the latest rumours, the Xbox One will be released on November 8th, a week before the PlayStation 4's November 15th North American debut.
