@explodemode said:
What potential are people imagining? Kinect came out 3 (holy shit!) years ago and they have made no case for it as a worthwhile accessory. Microsoft had 3 years to say, 'here's why you bought this dumb thing.' And it never happened.
Third parties still aren't going to care because they are making their games on PS4 and PC too.
If third parties don't care and Microsoft doesn't know what to do with it, why do you have faith in this thing?
There's a big difference between an accessory introduced at the end of the generation and a standard controller in every box.
It was a $150 accessory that sold 30+ million units, and had 2 series which went on to be million sellers in Kinect Sports and Dance Central. I'd say that's not too shabby. The fact is like it or not, neither one of those games can be played without it and a lot of people like them. I look forward to both Kinect Sports and Fantasia, but the real potential for me is in its introduction into core games, like we're seeing with voice recognition in games such as Ryse.
The original Kinect operated mainly under the mandate of it being used solely as a controller-free device, which I think limited what you can really do with it. Now that MS's attitude has finally changed on it, if properly used for things such as for example voice controlled marines in Halo, it's going to completely change the way singe player games like that will play. So yeah, the potential is huge and re-invigorate series such as that one.
Going from a keyboard to real time chat online while playing a FPS was a big deal and I remember that being poo-poo-ed as well in the beginning when there were a bunch of people that swore that KB was the only way they ever wanted to communicate in games which to me was absolute stupidity especially on a console since it required you put down the controller. The same will be the case in being able to go from a few commands on a d-pad menu, to actual voice interaction with A.I. and actual co-operation on the fly in single player games such as squad based games or FPS or any type of games that has a cast of teammates.
And that's just one important use for it. It's not about faith, it's about common sense and a bit of vision. Kinect is going to do a lot more for video games than something like a 1080p texture and higher character model up close. That won't change a thing about how your games play. Two new methods of input, speech and gesture, without having to compromise on a controller that's pretty much perfect, is a pretty big deal for gaming.
There's a lot of gameplay actions that are not suitable for Kinect, and much better with a controller, such as for example walking with an analog stick or shooting a gun using a trigger. But there's also a ton of gameplay actions that are much better and more intuitive for speech or gesture recognition than a controller too and Kinect is finally a device that can make that happen, without having to compromise on the traditional controller.
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