" I'm confused at why they would be still working on this game. It was a cool tech demo, but the viability of it being an actual game is... slim. "
That's a pretty good description of Kinect in general. "
That's a pretty good description of motion control tech in general, but certain companies are stubborn enough that it's somehow acceptable now. "
That isn't true at all. Wii has proven, unfortunately in far too few games, that motion controls, especially when paired with a direct pointer, have real world applications in actual games. While Nintendo made a lot of mistakes, largely by excessively cheap corner cutting, that have hurt their ability to realize these advantages in more games they at least have moved that conversation forward in a right direction. Sony is positioned to deliver on that example in a much deeper way as their motion control technology delivers a much higher fidelity version of that basic concept. I don't think that such a setup is necessarily going to deliver a superior gameplay experience for most games but there are enough proven examples that it should be more than clear that there is a place for real games to use it.
Kinect on the other hand is merely a high fidelity version of something that has never been proven to deliver entertaining or compelling gameplay experiences. Sony's EyeToy for PS2 didn't fail as an input device because it lacked fidelity or precision, though it did have a host of short comings, particularly its inability to operate properly in anything short of optimal lighting, but rather it failed because waving your arms and jumping around to interact with a game isn't fun or precise and has limited, if any, ability to add to the experience to offset those failures.
I've been playing "tech demos" of camera-driven games for at least 20 years and the closest thing I've ever seen to something rising to the level of real game is EyeToy Antigrav. But even there I'm not sure that it would really be fun or compelling for more than 15 minutes even if the tech worked 100% and I'd probably still rather see a game like that controlled with a gamepad because it's faster, more precise, and doesn't require jumping around my living room. Back on that first hand we've got actual retail games on Wii that use motion controls and a pointer to actually make a game better even if the inputs could be handled just as easily with a gamepad. Of course I can only name a small handful of games on Wii where this is true (even though I generally hate Wii) so I'm open to hearing an argument that it isn't worth the investment but I'm not even having a conversation that it is pointless. Making that argument just shows that you don't know what you are talking about.
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