Kinect Voice Controls Limited to Select Regions at Launch, Available to English-Speaking Canadians

September 1, 2010 2:10 PM

Microsoft's Kinect is months from retail stores, but it continuously finds ways to sneak on to our front page.

Earlier today, Eurogamer Spain reported that the upcoming motion-sensing peripheral would not support Spanish-speaking users for its voice commands. According to Microsoft Spain's PR & Event Manager Lydia Pitzalis, the device's voice-recognition feature is only set to support users in the U.S., U.K., Mexico and Japan at launch. Other regions would see voice support added in Spring 2011.

Although Pitzalis also stated that Canadian users would be left without the feature, Microsoft has told Shacknews that this was a misunderstanding.

"In Canada, English voice controls for Kinect will be available on November 4, 2010, with French support available in Spring 2011," a Microsoft Canada representative told Shacknews.

According to Pitzalis' original statements, the limitations to French-speaking Canadians makes sense since France will also see voice support held until 2011. Eurogamer Spain notes that users who purchase the hardware in "locked" regions will not be able to speak English to the unit. The functionality is actually disabled in the hardware and won't be available until the peripheral is updated in 2011.

Shacknews has asked Microsoft to provide a list of countries that will see voice support added in 2011, but has yet to hear back at the time of publishing.

Xav de Matos

Xav de Matos was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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kaijuseijin

 reply
September 1, 2010 2:31 PM

Supports braille too.
- yaystuff
  
   reply
  September 1, 2010 2:39 PM
  
  Actually maybe it *could* support sign language then do TTS on the other side.