Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim getting Kinect voice controls
Kinect-powered Dragon Shouts are officially coming to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in a free title update for Xbox 360, due later this month.
Kinect-powered Dragon Shouts are officially coming to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The idea was originally whipped together during Bethesda's game jam week, but has been expanded to give voice control over everything from follower commands to quicksaves, and will be coming to Xbox 360 in a free title update later this month.
Skyrim will support over 200 Kinect voice commands in all. The full list is promised "in the coming weeks," but for now Bethesda's offering the following taster:
The Kinect for Xbox 360 integration offers Voice Commands throughout the game including Dragon Shouts, Hotkey Equipping, Follower Commands, and all Menus (Items, Magic, Map, Barter, Container, Favorites, and Skills). With Voice Commands, quickly create and load saves during gameplay and access menus and inventories. Skyrim's Kinect for Xbox 360 Support also adds new functionality including special map functions, additional hotkey options, and the ability to sort inventory items by name, weight, and value.
There's also a little tease of DLC, which is said "will add new quests, locations, features, and much more." Skyrim game director Todd Howard had hinted that some more of the game jam's ideas, which included goblins, spell combinations, and dragon mounts, could make it into DLC.
Here's a video introduction to the Kinect commands:
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim getting Kinect voice controls.
Kinect-powered Dragon Shouts are officially coming to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in a free title update for Xbox 360, due later this month.-
Dragon mounts.. yes.
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If those Kinect features had been available when Skyrim came out, I would have RAN to the store to buy one. After putting in 100+ hours though it is really not that interesting.
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The video had some neat things. The quicksave/quickload and item sorting features looked halfway handy.
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yeah, no need to go into the menus and equip a different shout.
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I like that they're adding at least some of the game jam stuff for free.
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its much easier for them to implement this stuff using kinect because all of the voice recognition stuff is already there. they dont need to write it all themselves like they would without it.
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I'm not talking about Microsoft rewriting anything. I'm saying its easier for the developer to use the kinect stuff thats already in place.
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well I'm sure it COULD
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Blasphemy!
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I think the things that most appeal to me are:
1- Shout access. Any shout at any time as long as you remember the words. Yes.
2- Equipment "hotkeys". Switch weapons without pausing.
3- The map stuff! Scrolling around with the little cursor was annoying. Now you can just say the name of the town and the arrow pops over to it. If only there was a "fast travel" command.. -
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So what's the apparent difference between the 360 Kinect and the PC one that's coming out? If everyone is already using them on PCs, why bother buying another one?
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This seems more like a back alley deal than "features" added to an existing title.
As you know patches cost money to release on Xbox. I read somewhere upwards of 40k, perhaps a deal was struck where if they (Bethesda) included this nonsense (Kinect compatibility), in the newest patch then M$ would released it for free.
This is why perhaps PC users may not get this "update" its really meant to push sales of Kinect, kinda like the ill conceived Mass Effect 3 hoax.
So its a win/win scenario.
Bethesda gets to push their updates for free and M$ gets two things out of the deal. They can claim HARDCORE status with yet another title under the failed Kinect brand and one of the most popular games of last year can possibly help sell the failing hardware to-boot.
Now all they have to do is spit and shake hands.
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