The hardware is also a little more advanced, supporting "near mode" detection.
They might do better to work towards building such an ecosystem for Windows, particularly given the wide range of uses and high level of interest which were demonstrated. "Warranty support" has not been high on the consumer values list in the existing ecosystem, so much as "cheap accessible cameras" and "does cool stuff."
The comments from the msdn blog are interesting in indicating the lifetime customer value of XBox users with a Kinect to Microsoft.
The extra cost might be worth it, if the documentation and examples were much more than simple library descriptions. I am thinking more of being able to grok the hardware/software driver interface than the higher-level calls.
Any fellow HN'ers with early insight to how good the Microsoft Kinect SDK extras look?
kinect for windows has better hardware which can see objects much nearer to it.
I must be missing something, because I don't see anything it will do for me out of the box.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kinectforwindows/archive/2012/01/20/...
"As I mentioned in the original post, the Kinect for Windows device has new firmware which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision... The lenses on the Kinect for Windows sensor are the same as the Kinect for Xbox 360 sensor, so near mode does not change the field of view as some people have been speculating."
