So, a friend and I were kicking around ideas after watching pieces of the Kinect For a Day stream yesterday, and he brought up the implications something like Kinect could have for a game like Fight Night. Initially, I scoffed at this notion, my reasoning being as follows: I have one gripe about Kinect as a valid input device for normal games - There's no good way to simulate walking more than a short distance, or really interacting with the environment at all. I mean, I guess you could lean one way or another, but that seems sort of clunky. So, naturally, while Kinect could be really interesting in a boxing game, I couldn't fathom how they could let you actually move around a ring. I mean, they could do the punchout/wii boxing thing where you're basically just stationary the whole time, but that ain't fight night, son.
 
However, after considering it for a bit, the answer seems super obvious now. You have 6-8 feet space to move in Kinect's range, right? That's plenty. If the game made it so your fighter was always within a certain proximity to your opponent (Having him move forward or back automatically if your opponent moves a certain distance out of range), you could still move a reasonable distance around the guy to do you punching thang. Now, there's still the issue of circling (would you just side step to do that? your fighter would always be facing the other, so naturally you'd move in a circular motion, right?), but as a concept it sounds like it could be pretty solid. That combined with actual sensory for ducking, weaving, slipping punches, blocking, and striking, could result in either a terribly buggy, barely playable mess... Or a fight night mode where you actually have to be sort of good at boxing to win. I mean, it's kind of a logical step forward in the whole 'total punching control' system. What's more total control than the actual angle and velocity of your fists dictating how your punches go. Plus, it would be even more of a work out than something like Wii Boxing.
 
Anyway, that's all conjecture and theory, and for all I know there's already something like that in Kinect Sports or Fighters Uncaged (I haven't looked at either), so feel free to say so if there is. Otherwise, would you be interested to see a Fight Night mode with this sort of control scheme? I'm not suggesting the whole game be like this, but maybe an optional Kinect enabled "simulation" mode.