XBOX 360 has a vision for it's gamers, be careful families

Camera brings both good and bad

Vision meets the public

Microsoft finally officially released their Xbox Live Vision accessory (see image below) for the Xbox 360 and Windows XP systems over the last few days. It had been out in limited quantities previously with some Toys R Us locations apparently ignoring the embargo and selling the units before they were supposed to.

Xbox Live Vision Camera

Vision is an innocent looking little accessory, and with the right gamers it is a nice addition to the gaming experience. Unfortunately there are some gamers that are ignorant enough, or stupid enough, to try to ruin the experience for others on the system and those are the folks I'm writing the quick warning about now.

With the release of the Vision camera, Xbox Live has truly become the place that Microsoft had previously warned us about with their generic "warning, gaming experience may change during online play" notice.

Xbox Live has always been a bit of a place where you had to be concerned about the langauge that others might use and the behavior you might encounter, but with the addition of the Vision camera the people that insist on ruining the experience for others are now able to make use of the virtual thousands of words via live pictures and some of them have been beyond crude and rude.

Eventually those people will be removed from the system as others report their behavior. Some may even find themselves nabbed by law enforcement agencies for things they suggest or try online. It's bound to happen, but it is a sad statement about some in our society that the problems exist at all.

Some comments about the Vision packaging

With the warning out of the way, I will say that getting the Vision camera has left me with mixed feelings. There were pre-release descriptions of what would come with the camera and obviously things were subject to change up until the last minute.

Some rumors made mention of a game that apparently wasn't ready in time for the initial batch of the packages, or perhaps Microsoft just decided that they wouldn't give the game away for free. Either way, the lack of the initially rumored Totemball game means that the camera doesn't offer the experience that those with the Sony Playstation 2 and the eye toy camera could enjoy. Hopefully Microsoft will make this up to customers in the future by keeping the pricing on Totemball very cheap (if not free, free would be very good!)

Meanwhile, the Vision camera enjoys a somewhat limited usefulness in current Xbox Live games. The games which support it are the card games and board game type games that are generally low bandwidth. The Hardwood Hearts, Hardwood Spades, Uno and Texas Hold 'em games being the first batch. Within those games, and with reasonable gamers involved, the camera makes a nice addition to the game -- especially with the Texas Hold 'em game where having the camera in the game can let you practice your game face against the others in the game. Let them try to read your face to see if you are bluffing and if you have a good poker face, perhaps you'll be more easily able to get your opponents to make the big bets you'll need to win to run them from the game.

The camera is also useful for Video chat with other Xbox Live gamers. You can fire up a chat session and make use of the technology that was dreamed of back in the 1950's and 1960's (if not earlier) at county, state and "world's" fairs. Heck, a better description is Jetsons' style technology. For those that want to make use of the feature, it can be a great thing.

Can be used with Microsoft Windows XP also

Somewhat surprisingly the Vision camera can be used with Windows XP also (and should be useable with Windows Vista in the future). That being said, there a few issues with such usage... read on just a bit further...

Incredibly sparse documentation leaves much to be desired

Unfortunately the documentation that comes with the camera is incredibly sparse. Heck, sparse is giving it too much credit. Granted, the device is plug and play and shouldn't be hard to make use of it, but the documentation that comes with it basically says plug it in and then quickly leaves off from there.

How about some instructions on how to use the device within Windows XP? Like, as an example, telling users how to use the device with Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger. Or, as an example, where to obtain another chat program or similar package that would be useful with the camera.

Worse, how about documentation that tells how to turn off the camera within the Xbox 360 system. Ooops, never mind, at least currently, as that is not possible on a global basis. On the Xbox 360 you can only turn off the camera in individual games, not globally. Hopefully that will be addressed in future updates/upgrades of the Xbox 360 dashboard.

For Windows XP (or perhaps later Vista) users, hopefully Microsoft will make instructions available online that document how to use the device with those systems if desired.

Is it worth the money?

Microsoft has a couple of packages available with the Vision camera. The basic package comes with the camera, a free Xbox Live Arcade game (which is currently the nice game Uno, but at the same time this is something to fault Microsoft for since Uno has long since been a best seller on the system and isn't something that most people that buy the camera would find themselves needing to purchase any more), It also includes a free month of Xbox Live Gold service, and is packaged with the Xbox 360 gamer headset (usable only with an Xbox 360 controller). Typically retailed priced at $39.99.

The higher level package comes with another Xbox Live Arcade game (Robotron 2084), a years subscription of Xbox Live Gold service, 200 Microsoft gamer points and the camera and headset. Typically retailed priced at $79.99.

Either package is worth the money, though if you don't need the additional pack-ins, obviously sticking with the lower cost package would make more sense. In either case the choice of pack-in titles that Microsoft has made can be frustrating for purchasers. The current pack-ins are games that have been available for a long time and most gamers will already have purchased them. It would have been much better for gamers if Microsoft had instead chosen to offer 400 gamer points or perhaps 800 gamer point cards. Doing that would have given gamers their choice of games to get for free. Instead, it seems that Microsoft and their partners have given away games that won't ever be played because they've already sold one to just about everyone.

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