No Euro Kinect voice rec until spring

By Robert Purchese Published 1 September, 2010

Region-locked 360s won't allow it.

Microsoft has told Eurogamer Spain that Kinect voice recognition will be disabled for mainland Europe until spring 2011.

The company confirmed rumours that the voice-recognition software will only accept American English, British English, Japanese and Mexican Spanish at launch this November. Even Canadians will have to wait until spring 2011 to be able to control the system via voice.

Frustratingly, even those fluent in English - or Spanish speakers that can imitate Mexican Spanish - won't be allowed to activate Kinect voice recognition due to the region-locked status of their Xbox 360.

Microsoft went on to explain that the decision to support Mexican Spanish and not native Spanish was a case of numbers: there are 106 million Spanish speakers in the US and 13 million Mexicans with consoles. And that compares favourably to the 45 million people in Spain.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (91) 1 year ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Rrralphster #1 1 year ago

    ?Que

  • mrpon #2 1 year ago

    JuanKerrs

  • tachometer #3 1 year ago

    What's Japanese Spanish?

  • Bitkari #4 1 year ago

    I'll be amazed if "British English" comes even close to detecting the massive variation of British accents.

    EAT UP MARTHA.

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #5 1 year ago

    I'm still massively excited for Kinect, I still think it will be a big success (eventually), and I still think, over time, possibly into the next console generation, it will be truly revolutionary.

    But this pre-launch is a bit of a cock-up.

  • Razz #6 1 year ago

    Eh really? I didn't know spain was so sparsely populated, the population of the uk is around 65 million!!

  • telboy007 #7 1 year ago

    Does it do cockney?

  • Shinji #8 1 year ago

    I like to imagine that "British English" will require us all to do a passable impersonation of the Queen in order to make our DVDs skip a scene.

  • Osahi #9 1 year ago

    The negative buzz keeps coming and keeps coming. Come on MS, we know Kinect works like shit (except in Dance Central), I tested it myselve on Gamescom, but you could do your best to make us believe otherwise, don't you?

  • Apostle #10 1 year ago

    That's amazing. It can't understand Spanish, but Mexican-Spanish. It can though understand Geordie, Manc, Scouse, Scots, Cornish, Cocker etc etc etc.. Impressive.

    Edit cocker = cockney, lol
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/10 @ 10:58

  • lucky_jim #11 1 year ago

    Canadians have to wait til next spring? How long can it take to program in the word "aboot"?

    Sorry, someone had to say it, it may as well be me.

  • kinky_mong #12 1 year ago

    Mister Fawlty! The kinect no work!

  • playgen #13 1 year ago

    Voice recognition isn't exactly a new thing, and they have had plenty of time to sort it out.

  • stevetrax #14 1 year ago

    Don't mind Kinect. It's from Barcelona...

  • 00.00.01 #15 1 year ago

    Nice to see that M$ is not shy of slapping their non-US customers in the face. The Natal-project has been active for at least 36 months now and they knew from the E3 2009 that this was going to be an issue.

  • DionyZ #16 1 year ago

    F****** B*******. So much for me buying kinect on launch. I can understand that it's hard to get every native language in there, but I'd be more then happy (actually I'd prefer) to speak english to my xbox.

  • youhavenomail #17 1 year ago

    "will only accept American and British English - as well as Japanese"

    It accepts Japanese? Well, that's a waste of programming.

  • menage #18 1 year ago

    Sacre blue

  • BAM! #19 1 year ago

    It's watching a car crash in slow motion.

  • MrLovePump #20 1 year ago

    So l

  • Moribundman #21 1 year ago

    If its anything like the google voice recognition running on Android it shouldn't have a problem with accents. I've had friends with thick Scottish and London accents search by voice on my phone and it didn't exactly have trouble identifying specific words - Kinect is just supposed to have simple commands for basic use, and I imagine "open X" or "skip track" doesn't really change much whether you have a Na'arn Aar'sh, Yarksha or cock er nee accent...

    Surely though, it'll only need to understand chavvy innit accents and all-singing, all-fagging American children's accents for online play... ;-)

  • miiiguel #22 1 year ago

    This doens't make any sense - I read the Spanish interview just to make sure it wasn't a translation problem. I hope EG.net clarify this, it's a very narrow minded decision. What about English/Americans living in Spain (or any other mainland Europe country) ?
    Makes no sense.
    Edited by 2 at 01/09/10 @ 11:13

  • Antaios #23 1 year ago

    Microsoft should have waited with announcing Kinect until they had all these things sorted out properly. Promising heaps of features and not delivering on most of them wasn't really a smart move.

    Edit; and region-coding the thing is just plain silly. If people at home would like to speak English to their games, why not let them? Could actually be a positive thing in teaching children the language.
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/10 @ 11:14

  • MiniAmin #24 1 year ago

    But will it detect my West African ticket warden accent?

    If it doesn't i'll give it a ticket.

  • sfp_noodle #25 1 year ago

    Ever Kinect story published these days confirms that its a rush job and that I think MS will be committing suicide by releasing it. What's happened to them? They've truly gone insane. They've announced an increase to Xbox Live when the service hasn't been improved since Christmas 2008, they've announced a controller that cocks up the colour scheme of not only the buttons but will only match your console if you bought the bloody Halo Reach edition. Plus they've announced ridiculous pricing for something that doesn't work and a controller which has a d-pad which probably doesn't even make a difference.

    It really does seem that MS is releasing all the extra overpriced tat to make up for the massive financial losses that Kinect will cause. There's been nothing but negativity surrounding MS since E3 and the momentum they had before the event has vanished.

  • mcmonkeyplc #26 1 year ago

    Lolz

  • Ignatius_Cheese #27 1 year ago

    That's stupid!

    Why you so stupid, stupid?

    /clicks fingers

    /jiggles ass

  • StanleyPointLarge #28 1 year ago

    region locks!!!! come on the internet is making the world a smaller place. Global etc etc.... stupid region locks.

  • superted1974 #29 1 year ago

    How many Spaniards does it take to change a lightbulb?

    Juan.

  • ziggy_played_guitar #30 1 year ago

    I can understand region locks for licensing issues or some adult rated games (ratings are different) but for this? It's weird... probably an update, sometime soon ?

  • peteb #31 1 year ago

    Hey, what about us ex-pats living abroad? :'(

  • cianchristopher #32 1 year ago

    "there are 106 million Spanish speakers in the US and 13 million Mexicans with Xbox 360 consoles"

    What? Of the 41 million Xbox 360's sold around the world, 13 million of them are in Mexico? Is that right?

    Also, are you a Mexican? Or a Mexican't?

  • smithdown #33 1 year ago

    Good lord, surely the difference between Spanish Spanish and Mexican Spanish can't be any more than the difference between Devonshire and Geordie accents? Makes me wonder if the Americans realise that most countries have more than 3 dialectic and accent variations - all they seem to have is New Yoik, Saathern and Californ-eye-aye dude. This could be royal fuck up in the extreme. What about Welsh speakers?

    That makes for the hat trick then - three appalling bits of xbox news in the last 3 days. What's next? A lifesize Master Chief USB add-on that melees you in the face every time you get pwned online?

    "Ethe,ethehthethethe...Chris Waddle".
    "Scorchio!"

  • Death-Jester #34 1 year ago

    Damn those Japanese and their Spanish-speaking ways!

  • Lee_Morris #35 1 year ago

    So has Kinect been tuned for all British accents? I'd be surprised if it can registrar a strong Gordie or Scot. Time will tell though.

    Still MS what the hell are you doing!!! please try and alienate more customer. Just because Sony has turned the corner now, it doesn't mean you have to fill for them and act like they did 3 years ago.

  • dingo75 #36 1 year ago

    My brother and his wife met during his trip to Middle America some years ago.
    She was speaking "Middle American Spanish" and he had learned the "Spanish Spanish".
    Still they managed to communicate just fine, fell in love and married 2 years after.
    A few words are different or have different meanings as far as I know but that's all.

    Doesn't seem too hard to make "Mexican Spanish" work for "Spanish Spanish" users I imagine...

  • Odessa #37 1 year ago

    If i order it from UK it will be activated or is it bound to the xbox live account? I am austrian on my account but live in germany.

  • Markitron #38 1 year ago

    So all that malarkey last week about the lack of voice recognition at launch was (Sort of) true? Seems they have been on damage control since E3, what with this and how they admitted (not announced) how much it will be. All they do is defend this thing, that cant be a good sign.

  • the_dudefather #39 1 year ago

    @smithdown
    'Makes me wonder if the Americans realise that most countries have more than 3 dialectic and accent variations - all they seem to have is New Yoik, Saathern and Californ-eye-aye dude'

    lol?

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #40 1 year ago

    Sorry, 13 million Mexicans that own a console, not necessarily an Xbox 360.

  • rodpad #41 1 year ago

    Sachsgate 2

  • sneetch #42 1 year ago

    Locked? Ridiculous! Given that it will be locked for Spain and Canada I expect it will be locked for Australia, Ireland and New Zealand too. Seems like I may have ordered a top hat and have been practising keeping my upper lip stiff for nothing! ;)

    This just means there's even less point in getting one at launch now.

    Edit: I love the reason they gave according to those Eurogamer.es articles (using Google Translate): "The reason? To ensure a satisfactory experience and [impression]" the fact that you don't support my regions language when you launch it in my country and refuse to let me even try another regions version would pretty much ensure that a "satisfactory experience and [impression]" is damn near impossible.
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/10 @ 12:04

  • darkmorgado #43 1 year ago

    I was under the impression that the Mexicans actually spoke Portugese? That's what we were taught in school and what all my portugese friends have told me (I grew up in Jersey, which has around 33,000 portugese).

  • Haerger #44 1 year ago

    It is getting worse and worse.

  • Zomoniac #45 1 year ago

    @darkmogado

    You were under the wrong impression.

  • ziggy_played_guitar #46 1 year ago

    @darkmogado : Only Brasil (Brazil) speaks Portuguese in America (well, and Newark)

  • CableNut #47 1 year ago

    Will it do brummie, if not im not buying it :D

  • drxym #48 1 year ago

    Voice recognition software stinks. State of the art dictation systems have to be trained, consume a vast amount of CPU time and still foul up. Phone voice menu systems (e.g. Tellme) are limited to simple menu / event driven choices and can be equally retarded, ignoring the user or getting the answer wrong causing much frustration. The problem gets worse if you happen to not have a perfect accent and pronunciation for the system, e.g. speaking with an English accent to a US system causes no end of frustration.

    This is why PCs don't bother with voice recognition. Because it sucks. And it's not for the want of trying either.

    So I wouldn't be surprised if voice recognition for Kinect stinks on ice. Either it won't recognize voices over the din in a normal house, or it will do the wrong thing entirely, or it will respond to random events such as the conversations, TV, radio or the dog barking etc.. Another issue for Kinect is a practical one - how are you supposed to take a 360 out of standby on with a voice command if its in standby? You can't. This suggests that 360s will fake a standby meaning it will use power for no good reason whatsoever except some stupid voice command.

    I think Kinect would have been better off if they hadn''t even bothered with the feature.
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/10 @ 12:09

  • mcmonkeyplc #49 1 year ago

    WAaaaaaaaaaahmbulance on the way.

  • Acrid #50 1 year ago

    Congratulations Microsoft you are completly fucking retarded

  • tachometer #51 1 year ago

    Does it do Welsh?
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/10 @ 12:37

  • ronuds #52 1 year ago

    I thought this was ALL of Europe, but just mainland. UK'ers are still safe!

  • drxym #53 1 year ago

    @Milky1985. A proper standby consumes < 1W of power. Fake standby is likely to consume at least 30W because the CPU and the Kinect device will have to be on to listen out for voice commands. BTW the PS3 and Wii have similar fake standby modes. The PS3 uses it for timed recordings in PlayTV, and the Wii has WiiConnect. IMO all these phone baloney standbys should stay firmly disabled if you are the person paying the bills.

  • StooMonster #54 1 year ago

    telboy007: Does it do cockney?

    Only the "Dick Van Dyke" variant I'm afraid.

  • AphoticCosmos #55 1 year ago

    Sucks for our continental chums, but I bet that it will struggle with anything other than the Queen's English here in the UK.

    "OI, XBOX, STOP VA FUCKIN VIDJA!"
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/10 @ 12:56

  • Ryze #56 1 year ago

    standard Kinect cut/paste comment:

    NO SALE!

  • StooMonster #57 1 year ago

    Xmas day, somewhere in England...

    "Play FIFA init"

    !INITIALIZING HARD DRIVE

    "Nah init"

    !INITIALIZING HARD DRIVE

    "Stop init"

    !INITIALIZING HARD DRIVE

  • governmentyard #58 1 year ago

    It will serve the proles right for talking like oafs if regional accents are incompatible.You may like to go around saying wayaay and eeeeeeeeeeh and so on but that's not what my taxes paid for you to be taught in school.

    And there's no such thing as American English, only correct English and wrong English.

  • CosmicFuzz #59 1 year ago

    ONE WOULD LIKE TO PAUSE, XBOX!

  • Boomerang #60 1 year ago

    Wonder if it can understand Drunken Weegie.

    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=YMZgt-f0wjk
    Edited by 1 at 01/09/10 @ 13:08

  • apoc_reg #61 1 year ago

    ... and worse and worse! By Nov it'll be a pc world branded webcam with a MS sticker on the front :-)

  • darleysam #62 1 year ago

    45 million people in Spain who, if I remember correctly (which I probably don't) haven't really been buying 360s. Europe's a lot more of a PS3/Wii kind of place.

  • Skooch #63 1 year ago

    WOW...so much Kinect hate, talk about resisting gaming advancements! Sony didn't even release thier console in Europe for months and months after Japan, any of you Sony fanboys thinking about that?

    This is just one aspect of the product, frustrating yes, but seeing as you lot are on an English website and I would imagine 90% reside in the UK this isn't even a problem, yet you bitch and moan anyway. As for general Kinect hate, 99% of you haven't tried it, at least wait until the damn thing is released, you never know, it might actually be fun. Y'know fun, the thing that gaming should actually be about.

    Oh, and remember, you don't have to buy Kinect if you don't want to, it is a free choice in a free world. I can understand concerns over the product or the features, fine, talk about them, but the constant whining is just getting annoying.

  • MrNyarlathotep #64 1 year ago

    Oh, and remember, you don't have to buy Kinect if you don't want to

    Thanks! I won't!

  • jonbwfc #65 1 year ago

    questo č un mucchio di stronzate.

  • r4z0rbl4d3 #66 1 year ago

    Bye Kinect, nice knowing y... Ok, maybe not so nice with all the downsides; the high price, awkward 'controls' with lag, lack of core games and now you make us wait even longer for basic functionality... I still love the 360 for the games but I will not buy Kinect unless they step up to the plate and make something interesting with it. Right now I feel like Sony is making everything right with Move and I bet you anything that most of the stuff Kinect is supposed to do will be done on PS3 before...

    Oh well, I best get pre-ordering for Move then.

  • NotSoSlim #67 1 year ago

    @ Skooch

    So are you saying that to not like Kinect your a Sony fanboy?

    End of the day Sony rightly got blasted for over promising and MS have done the same thing with that stupid E3 09 vid and presentation. I personally have not played Kinect and will if possible give it a go, however they have been forced in my opinion by the Move release date and by Sony showing working games we ended up with the E3 10 presentation.

    You then have a so called core game being a Harry Potter on rails game that looked shocking in the video.

    However as I said I will play it if I can but from what I have seen and cut or delayed features I won't rush to but if a cheap 2nd hand one pops up then I will take the plunge.

  • braydee89 #68 1 year ago

    @Bitkari I'm pretty certain there's a wider range of "American English" accents for them to cope with. Although giving Canada the special treament is odd.

  • 32768Colours #69 1 year ago

    @ r4z0rbl4d3

    We don't know that Move hasn't had it's fair share of problems, revisions and downgrades, nor do we know whether it'll have any patches applied at a later date. However, the key advantage Move has is one of perception. Sony have very wisely avoided giving any of this information away whilst MS have blundered from one PR disaster to another, severely damaging Kinect's reputation with most core gamers.

    MS should've stopped beating their chest so much, taken more than just the motion control leaf from Nintendo's book, and kept Natal under wraps until the last moment. That way at least, nobody would've known what ideas ended up in the R&D bin.

  • Skooch #70 1 year ago

    "@ Skooch - So are you saying that to not like Kinect your a Sony fanboy?"

    No, don't believe I wrote that anywhere in my post so not sure how you read between the lines to get that.

    What I was getting at is that there are blatantly loads of Sony fanboys moaning about how Kinect doesn't seem to have voice support for all languages, yet Sony didn't even release their console in Europe for months and months, and when they did it was a gimped version without back compat. That type of thing seems very quickly forgotten by lots of Sony lovers who post comments on this site.


  • JediMasterMalik #71 1 year ago

    MS sure are bringing out the good news for launch!

    Unfortunaely it's in a dialect no one understands. :(

  • Shigawire #72 1 year ago

    No voice recognition no kinect purchase

  • gandhimaster #73 1 year ago

    Fail.

  • Nephirion #74 1 year ago

    I predict M$ will buy there reviews of Kinetic or the core gamers will be drowned in a sea of fanboy hysteria and marketing bollocks.

  • Zero Beat #75 1 year ago

    Scheitern, échouer, fallire.

  • Loghorn #76 1 year ago

    Kinect = Sega Activator all over again. We all know how that turned out to be (if anyone here remembers it).

  • sarcasmoidosis #77 1 year ago

    So, Kinect will know both center and centre as words when it launches. Which it won't use.

    Does anybody actually know how many things it knows? I mean, 100, 200? 10000?

  • reverandglass #78 1 year ago

    You'd think MS would want to get as many sales as possible so region locking Kinect and preventing English, Japanese or Spanish speakers elsewhere in the world from having the voice recognition is a bit daft. Maybe they know Kinect will have sunk by next spring and they can save money this way. If so, look for the "it also makes a fine cup of tea - sometime in the spring" promises from M$ soon! lol

  • FairgroundTown #79 1 year ago

    The Spanish thing is (mainly) the pronunciation of the letter "v" which sounds like "v" in Latin-American Spanish, and like "b" in Spanish Spanish; and the letter "c" which is "s" in Latin-America, and "th" in Spain.

    For example...

    The city of Valencia, is called "Balenthia" in Spain, and "Valencia" in Mexico.

    This is a big deal in terms of speech-recognition, hence the problem.

  • sneetch #80 1 year ago

    Doesn't look good for English speakers in other countries either. From Eurogamer.es's interview:

    Eurogamer.es: We can not even pretend to use the accent?

    Lidia Pitzalis: Speech recognition will only be active in EEUU [the US], United Kingdom, Japan and Mexico. In other countries such as Spain, will be disabled until the arrival of the update in the spring.

    Eurogamer.es: English U.S. and UK are quite different. Will there be problems, too?

    Lidia Pitzalis: No problems, because they have built two versions of English. Canadian English, for example, will be available in spring.

    I've flip-flopped about Kinect, I want it to be good, I want there to be good games, I want to think "that's amazing! I'm buying that as soon as I can" like I did when they demoed it in 2009, this story is just another nail in that coffin. Particularly as they're unlikely to be prioritising adding English Ireland to their list of supported locales.

    @Skooch
    This is just one aspect of the product, frustrating yes, but seeing as you lot are on an English website and I would imagine 90% reside in the UK this isn't even a problem, yet you bitch and moan anyway.

    90%? I'd say more than 10% of us come from outside the UK. I've "bitched and moaned" about this and I'm Irish so it won't work for me. Or rather I won't be allowed find out if it'd work for me because it's region locked.

    The other Eurogamer sites don't have all the content this one does (this story doesn't appear on other sites although it does seem to stem from an interview on the Spanish site) so I'd imagine that any visitor to Eurogamer that can read English comes here as well as their native language site (if they even have a native language site). Including some people from outside of Europe, because you know, it's on the internet (I read US and Australian game sites as well after all).

  • makeamazing #81 1 year ago

    When they said Kinect was controller less because it was too complicated, they never said it was also featureless.

    Joking aside, i said this a few days ago, that MS seem to be stubmbling around in the dark at the moment, their PR has got into a right old mess. The big question is will this have any effect on the end user sales whatever (as most of them dont read gaming forums)... or will word of mouth cause it issues. Its certainly interesting to see if any of that will have an effect.

  • Evil_Supremacy #82 1 year ago

    Well from what I hear from my south american friends when playing xbox live the most common word they use is puto or puta which they tell me has different meanings depending on the phrase it's used in, i.e. can mean bitch, whore, shit, motherfucker etc. Though I normally hear them scream 'you fucking puto' after being killed so as long a kinect can translate that i'm sure it will do fine, even though 13 million mexicans may suddenly find themselves watching porn or throwing the piece of puto in the bin.

  • NHDavid #83 1 year ago

    I no Speek eeenglish

  • electrolite #84 1 year ago

    (puts hands together)

    (slowly leans forward)

    (rests head in hands)

    (quietly sighs in despair)

  • bratmandu #85 1 year ago

    I'm in belfast here, id be a quare geg when them xbaxes spake lik there fram the Falls ye durty ballix!

  • TheJuriel #86 1 year ago

    Kinect just keeps disappointing...

  • pinochet_cz #87 1 year ago

    And now..even greater news...if you are not one of ugly fat american rednecks it can't even detect your motion. Oh wait..if you actually are fat redneck, you can't move anyway.

  • pinochet_cz #88 1 year ago

    drxym
    hmm...google search on droids works just fine (only problem it have is with non english names). And..I really loved EndWar.

  • kimchibaka #89 1 year ago

    Bertie 'Sorry, 13 million Mexicans that own a console, not necessarily an Xbox 360.'

    How's that relevant whatsoever then? My US mate who spends a lot of time in Mexico told me a lot of gamers there have SNESes, Dreamcasts and the like. Does Kinect work on those too? It doesn't even sound like it works on the 360!
    Edited by 1 at 02/09/10 @ 18:38

  • Bluetooth #90 1 year ago

    Speak English or you can't play

  • kinectworkaround1 #91 1 year ago


    Here is a video i did as a workaround for people who are unfortunate enough to live out of the MICROBOX!!
    (after you have followed these steps first) then read the rest of this post,....... ok now you have a new US based windows live email account and gamertag/xbox live account all you have to do i just found out, is to log in with your new account first to activate speech recognition while logged in, secondly log in with your original account, then log out of your new acount and like magic, you have unlimited free speech recognition until you next log out. we can experience this feature until the freaks release the update for everyone else.

    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=3cfkdcsMOC4