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[Aiii]

According to Dutch website gamer.nl, who got this news confirmed by Microsoft Benelux:
http://www.gamer.nl/nieuws/497907/g...herkenning-voor-xbox-one-kinect-bij-lancering (Dutch alert).

Google translate:

The Dutch speech recognition for the Xbox Kinect One is not present at the launch of the console, Microsoft confirms opposite Gamer.nl.

Earlier rumors the round that the Xbox Kinect One would provide for Dutch speech recognition. Not support a whole The Dutch dashboard is there already, but the speech late to wait until after the launch of the console on 5 September.

It is not possible to set the menu language of the Xbox One in Dutch, but to give. Simultaneously eg English or German voice commands Before the language of the console must be fully transferred. But who does that has no more access to the Dutch Xbox One Store and will have to give a foreign address to access a foreign store access.

Microsoft says to work on the Dutch speech recognition. When it becomes available is not known.

Why is this interesting news? Well, because The Netherlands was one of the former tier 1 release countries where the Xbox One was delayed last year, because (as per Joystiq):

The Xbox One launch was delayed to 2014 in eight territories – Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland – but it wasn't because of a "volume issue," Microsoft Senior Director of Product Management and Planning Albert Penello told OXM. The delay came down to localization with the new Kinect, the site reported.

"People assume there's a volume issue which in fact there isn't," Penello said. "You're actually seeing pre-orders pop back up now because we're able allocate the countries' volumes back in. It's there; the problem is localization. And once people see the system and how integral it is – it's not just text integration."

The new Kinect doesn't work like the Xbox 360 Kinect, and its new features make localization more difficult, Penello said.

"I think people are using the way [voice] works on Xbox 360, which was an accessory we built five years after release, as how it's going to work here," he said. "But it's so much more elegant and so much more integrated, and in many ways it's a lot faster and more convenient, whereas on Xbox 360 it's a lesser version of doing the thing you're used to doing on your controller."

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/08/27/report-xbox-one-regional-delays-due-to-kinect-localization-issu/

 

[Justified]

Bottom Tier......

 

[McDougles]

Hearing this news:

 

[Jedi2016]

That's fucked up.

 

[Bluekaveli]

Wow and here I was hoping to finally get one.

 

[gtj1092]

Did anyone actually believe it was a localization issue?

 

[Respawn]

Why are you folks surprised? The way things have been going since launch Im surely not.

edit: good ol Penello quote I see

 

[shem935]

Who would want to live there anyway?

Spoiler

/s

 

[Guymelef]

Tier 999

"People assume there's a volume issue which in fact there isn't," Penello said. "You're actually seeing pre-orders pop back up now because we're able allocate the countries' volumes back in. It's there; the problem is localization. And once people see the system and how integral it is – it's not just text integration."

Never change...

 

[Carn82]

it's because of all our regional accents!

 

[Fliesen]

i don't get it. Xbox One voice commands are so limited anyways.

how hard is it to localize a vocabulary of 20 or so commands?

the "speech-to-text" module surely should be able to understand the spoken words, right?

 

[Kysen]

The bad pr just keeps on piling up.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Wow and here I was hoping to finally get one.

It's obviously inconvenient, and I wouldn't argue at all that you should, but, you do speak English right? Can't people just use that until it's patched, assuming they all speak it?

 

[gizio]

Bad luck, mijn vriend
*hopefully not spelled that wrong*

 

[Denzar]

Well shit. I don't care, but I told my customers Dutch support would be added to the systems, we already unofficially sold, upon official release. Thanks for nothing Microsoft!

 

[Xando]

Why am i not shocked about this...

 

[KingRAW]

At the rate MS has been pumping out monthly updates I would say it won't be long until they have proper voice support.

 

[Rolodzeo]

Who would want to live there anyway?

Spoiler

/s

.

 

[PdotMichael]

I guess they hope that the climate change will solve the problem.

 

[Hoo-doo]

I called this ever since they revealed the damn thing. Half-assed through and through.

 

[Percy]

Imagine if they'd pulled this without Kinect having been made optional now. lol

 

[Crispy]

I'd actually feel more uncomfortable shouting things in Dutch at my Xbox One than in English. Apart from the very young, I think there are almost no Dutch gamers playing their games in Dutch, since English is so commonplace here.

 

[RedNumberFive]

"People assume there's a volume issue which in fact there isn't," Penello said. "You're actually seeing pre-orders pop back up now because we're able allocate the countries' volumes back in. It's there; the problem is localization. And once people see the system and how integral it is – it's not just text integration."

 

[Aiii]

I'd actually feel more uncomfortable shouting things in Dutch at my Xbox One than in English. Apart from the very young, I think there are almost no Dutch gamers playing their games in Dutch, since English is so commonplace here.

Unfortunately, if you want to use the dutch Store, you have to use the Xbox One Dashboard in Dutch and then you are not allowed/able to use English voice commands.

If you set to English, you lose access to the Dutch Store.

 

[Alx]

i don't get it. Xbox One voice commands are so limited anyways.

how hard is it to localize a vocabulary of 20 or so commands?

the "speech-to-text" module surely should be able to understand the spoken words, right?

Limited ? All functions of the console can be controlled by voice. The settings menu alone is probably more than 20 or so commands.
With that said I don't see any reason why Dutch would prove more difficult than other languages...

 

[teiresias]

Never change...

Penello can't say one truthful thing even if his life depended on it.

 

[Fliesen]

I'd actually feel more uncomfortable shouting things in Dutch at my Xbox One than in English. Apart from the very young, I think there are almost no Dutch gamers playing their games in Dutch, since English is so commonplace here.

if you don't have a sassy girlfriend, sure. Mine would totally make fun of me for talking english to my console...

Limited ? All functions of the console can be controlled by voice. The settings menu alone are probably more than 20 or so commands.
With that said I don't see any reason why Dutch would prove more difficult than other languages...

yes, limited. if you can count the number of commands, it's limited.

those should be easy to localize.

 

[Bluekaveli]

It's obviously inconvenient, and I wouldn't argue at all that you should, but, you do speak English right? Can't people just use that until it's patched, assuming they all speak it?

I'm on my toilet laughing at this post. It was a joke.

 

[El Topo]

Xbox One has truly become a laughing stock.

The bad pr just keeps on piling up.

I feel bad for their PR department. They have a hard job these days.

 

[Lach]

Well you could guess it wasn't a localization issue when it was delayed in Switzerland, while it launched in France, Italy and Germany, which means they had french, italian and german localization at hand.

 

[Out_Of_Ammo]

I'd actually feel more uncomfortable shouting things in Dutch at my Xbox One than in English. Apart from the very young, I think there are almost no Dutch gamers playing their games in Dutch, since English is so commonplace here.

This. I don't know a single person that plays his games in dutch or watches dubbed movies. Still sucks though...

 

[SkylineRKR]

PS4 has such a big market share over here that it doesn't really matter what MS does.

I always put English system language on. When I hear dubs I cringe, though Uncharted's isn't bad.

 

[Canis lupus]

Between Flanders and Holland, I think there are more than 100 accents.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

I'm on my toilet laughing at this post. It was a joke.

...

Oh

...

Carry on then. I'll go back to bed, or something.

 

[Aiii]

Between Flanders and Holland, I think there are more than 100 accents.

Every country has tons of accents. English. German. French. Spanish. They all have accents, I'd wager most of them just as many or more.

 

[Klart]

MS kan m'n kloten kussen.

 

[Hoo-doo]

Between Flanders and Holland, I think there are more than 100 accents.

Have you ever heard a dutch person speak english though?
The hokey way the average dutch gamer pronounces english words will lead to a 95% failure rate on voice commands either way.

 

[airborn]

The funny thing is: Dutch voice recognition does work for certain apps (Netflix) and Dutch achievements on the English dashboard. See Halo: Spartan Assault.

 

[SkeptiMism]

Localization can refer to multiple things. There are a lot of things to be done when you're bringing a console officially to a country. Not just Kinect. I'd assume he refers to those other things, because it's quite obvious that countries like Finland and Netherlands don't get Kinect localized.

In the old article itself, Penello doesn't say Kinect localization, but those are the words of the author of the article.

Strange to defend Microsoft, but I honestly just don't see an issue here.
edit: Though I do admit in many of the European countries that don't get Kinect localization, people will very likely have a lot of problems with Kinect so yeah, that's pretty problematic. But my main point is that OP seems to be reaching from what Penello said.
I might be wrong though.

 

[Majmun]

Jammer voor de vier mensen die van plan zijn om het te kopen.

 

[Kaydan]

I dont know about you guys, but if they weren't able to do the voice recognition in dutch up until now, it most certainly was a localization issue at launch.

 

[Steroyd]

Well you could guess it wasn't a localization issue when it was delayed in Switzerland, while it launched in France, Italy and Germany, which means they had french, italian and german localization at hand.

Don't be silly everyone knows the people of Switzerland speak Swissian and the Belgium's speak Belgiumeese.

 

[Hanmik]

I remember Albert posts a year ago..

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=79001409&postcount=520

First, people should understand – I don’t always know every detail happening with the program. Even though I run Product Planning (I'm not in PR!), that means we set the stage early for the features and HW, but a lot happens going through the development process. I stay very close as we approach launch, but I don’t always know the specifics when things change, so sometimes (frequently) I have to ask someone on the team. I also don’t run PR or Marketing, so I don’t see every piece of material that makes it to the public. In this case, there was an inconsistency between some small print on Xbox.com, and what I understood was happening – so I went to get more details.

Turns out the answer to this question is… complicated. It’s been an education for me as I’ve been looking into it.

There is no way that I could do justice to it in a post, so the marketing team is working on a chart that gives clarity on what locales, languages, and voice features are available in each country. Trying to write it down would be confusing. Stay tuned for a more detailed explanation, but just to give clarity:

In November
- We will launch in 13 geos
- 10 of those geos will support some voice features
- We support 8 languages

The 8 Languages at Launch are:
1) English – US
2) English – GB (WW)
3) French
4) Spanish – MX
5) Spanish – ES
6) Italian
7) German
8) Portuguese

NOW – the nuance to this is that some voice *features* won’t be available in all countries right away. “Xbox On”, for instance, is only available in 5 (hence the confusion on Xbox.com in the small print).

BigDug13 – the FAQ is correct, for launch. When you choose a language for your console, you will be offered the list of countries it is supported in. Using your example, if you choose Italy as your language, you only get Italian. We will continue to add more supported combinations over time. For example in Canada we will support English and French. The opportunity to “mix-and-match” languages and countries is something we’re looking to do post-launch.

I´m still as confused as back then..

 

[wrog]

Well, that's not a surprise. We are not getting Polish voice commands, Czech and Hungary don't even have localized dashboard etc. What I really don't like is locking languages with regions - http://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/25...tions/6028840-don-t-region-lock-the-languages

By the way, Albert Penello explained here on GAF what he meant:

I’m going to state it again, just like I said here and to OXM: The delay was localization related. Besides needing local language support, we also need to prop-up local Live, Apps, a Marketplace, and a variety of other services. We bundle that together as “localization” in messaging, but there is more to shipping in a region then text and voice translation. The offset to that, like we’ve said, X1 is region free and while that’s slightly more inconvenient, it will still allow people in the local countries to enjoy launch. Again, not something we’d be promoting if we were having issues with volume.

 

[twobear]

So they delayed in order to add European language support (apparently), but they aren't supporting all of the languages anyway.

 

[Aiii]

Localization can refer to multiple things. There are a lot of things to be done when you're bringing a console officially to a country. Not just Kinect. I'd assume he refers to those other things, because it's quite obvious that countries like Finland and Netherlands don't get Kinect localized.

In the old article itself, Penello doesn't say Kinect localization, but those are the words of the author of the article.

Strange to defend Microsoft, but I honestly just don't see an issue here.

Penello clearly states "it's not just about text integration" and that it's an "integral part of the system"

Now obviously dumping Kinect changed that last part, but it's very clear he was talking about localization of Kinect and not just translating the Dashboard.

 

[Diprosalic]

Well you could guess it wasn't a localization issue when it was delayed in Switzerland, while it launched in France, Italy and Germany, which means they had french, italian and german localization at hand.

Don't forget that it launched in Austria too.

 

[Out_Of_Ammo]

Have you ever heard a dutch person speak english though?
The hokey way the average dutch gamer pronounces english words will lead to a 95% failure rate on voice commands either way.

The ps4 camera has no trouble recognizing my english commands though, so I'd think kinect would be the same or better.

 

[Fliesen]

Between Flanders and Holland, I think there are more than 100 accents.

pardon my ignorance, but there surely must be one "standard dutch" just like there is on "standard german" that Bavarians, Austrians, Saxons, Swiss, ... use in written form - but also when they expect voice recognition software to understand what they are saying.

 

[Mugatu]

That's no Gouda.