Space. Unless you don’t have a coffee table or much furniture in your Xbox room (and you do have an Xbox room, don’t you?), you are probably going to need to rearrange most of your furnishings in order to clear space to play. Microsoft recommends at least 6 feet of unobstructed space, but reviewers are finding that 8-10 feet is better, especially for multi-player games. If your room isn’t that big to begin with, you might be out of luck. Mounting your sensor bar high up seems to improve matters a bit, but you’ll have to pay extra for a stand or mount.
Time. The use of the Kinect seems to slow down the boot process and can make navigating through menus a bit slower than when using a regular controller (though the voice commands do seem to work well for most people). But even though it is sometimes noticeable, lag does not seem to be a factor when playing games.
Recognition. After an initial setup, the Kinect is supposed to recognize your face on later visits, automatically signing you into the system. The accuracy of that Kinect ID feature has been spotty at best for most reviewers, with anything from wearing glasses to ambient lighting to skin color seemingly throwing off the sensor.
Interface. Want to use the Kinect to navigate through the console’s menu system? You can, but only using a separate, more minimal Kinect Hub, which critics found too limited and Kinect controls too inconsistently implemented from application to application. On the other hand, using voice commands to control the applications? That seems to be a hit (when they work).
Physicality. Though this could be a benefit rather than a complaint, prolonged Kinect-ing is a real workout (even if you aren’t playing one of the several games actually designed for exercise), and many reviewers reported being sore the next day. (Having to move all your furniture around probably won’t help matters.)
Games. Much as when the PlayStation Move launched, critics are complaining about a lack of solid launch titles for the new control system; only Dance Central seems to have anything to recommend it.
If there is a consensus, it is as expected: the Kinect is a piece of cool technology that certainly has potential to be a game-changer down the line, but at launch, it is an expensive novelty that will be of little interest to hardcore gamers.
