Kinect can’t understand most Europeans

Kinect has been the subject of strange controversies before. A few months ago, Kinect was being slammed because reports said it could recognize you if you’re sitting down. Microsoft was quick to refute that claim. That would have been a huge blow to the, everyone-can-play marketing direction Kinect has taken. Another key feature of Kinect is voice recognition. Kinect falls short in this department and Microsoft had admitted it.

Kinect is supposed to branch out across the globe, but it can only understand certain languages. At launch, Kinect will work fine American English, British English, Japanese and Mexican Spanish languages. The rest of mainland Europe and Canada will have to wait until an update in spring 2011 before they can speak to Kinect.

This is a pretty big deal. Mainland Europe covers a lot of countries such as France, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Austria and a number of other countries. It’s hard to believe Kinect’s technology wouldn’t include voice recognition for this massive territory at launch. Eurogamer also reports that due to the Xbox 360′s region lock, bilingual persons or people who can fake a good accent still can’t experience Kinect’s voice feature. Canada is probably being left out due to the volume of people who speak French.

Kinect will be available on November 4, 2010 for $149.99. Kinect will also be sold in bundles.

Via [Eurogamer] Read [Digital Spy]