As so with a stubborn family member, Xbox One owners might need to tell their fancy new console what to do more than once.
In flashy commercials that began airing last week to promote Microsoft’s upcoming video game system, users verbally command their Xbox Ones to do stuff like answer a Skype call, fire up a “Titanfall” match or play a “Star Trek” film. The ads leave out one detail: They probably had to repeat themselves a couple of times for it to work.
At a demonstration Wednesday of the Xbox One organized by Microsoft, the new version of the company’s voice-and-motion-detecting Kinect sensor didn’t work nearly as flawlessly in real life. The Xbox 360 successor, scheduled for release Nov. 22, required several commands to be repeated for the response to pop up on screen.
During a private presentation, about 10 of 45 voice commands issued had to be repeated by a Microsoft spokesman — some as many as four times. Kinect didn’t immediately detect such orders as “Xbox, Bing movies with Sandra Bullock” during the demo.
“Everything you’re seeing here is going to get better,” said Xbox spokesman Jose Pinero. “Right now, we’re still a couple of weeks away — but voice, the more you use it and the more the system learns, the more accurate it becomes. We’re still working on fit and finish.”
When the company unveiled the Xbox One at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters, Microsoft hyped it not as a super-powered gaming console but rather as an all-in-one entertainment solution that would allow users to easily switch between activities on a TV screen, without needing to mash buttons.