Editorial: Why The Microsoft Kinect Will Fail
I recently had the opportunity to play with the Kinect device. It is an impressive piece of technology. What it can do with a single camera as far as motion capture is an achievement. Unfortunately it translates into a very short list of gaming possibilities.
If you think about it, how much can a person do in front of a camera while facing a TV set? Not a whole lot.
Kinect in a nutshell: you have a trapezoid-shaped playing area you are restricted to. There is room for two people to stand side-by-side. You have to stay in the field of view to play games.You can jump, pose, and move around within your playing area, but that is it.
So the game types you are reduced to:
- Exercise games. Your basic stretching or aerobics or Tae-Bo thingy. I’d include very basic fighting games here too.
-Dancing games. Shake your booty.
-Mime games. Simple posing in front of the camera.
-Singing games. The Kinect has a microphone built-in.
-Sword-swinging and fencing games that don’t require a lot of movement.
-Anything on rails. Lets face it, you can’t run into your TV. You also can’t turn - that would nullify your ability to keep an eye on the TV.
-Racing games that rely on tilting your body to steer. I’m not convinced how they can incorporate breaking and accelerating effectively.
You can forget about any shooter games, again not being able to run around or turn in place, not to mention shoot a gun effectively.The Kinect knows when you are pointing your hand at the screen…but firing? Maybe if you made pew pew sounds.
No platform games. It’s hard to move your character in any direction freely. Kinect can detect jumps. Basically any platform game would have to be ‘on rails’. Think of Donkey Kong Country’s ‘mine cart’ gameplay. The cart moves forward automatically - you input the jumping.
Sports games? Maybe golf or bowling, as you are mostly stationary there. Hockey? Football? Basketball? Soccer? Nope. Unless you like playing sports ‘drills’, where you are stationary and tossing the ball around.
Rhythm Music Games are also limited. The Kinect can see you playing Air Guitar, but nothing as detailed as using specific keys, similar to what would be needed to play Guitar Hero. So strumming, foot tapping, and drumming gestures, and that’s about it. The Kinect does have a mic, so expect karaoke games to outnumber ‘instrument’ games.
Skateboard games? The Kinect 2009 E3 demo showed a kid scanning his skateboard prior to playing - not sure if this just created an in-game prop, or if the kid actually used the his board to play too. The game can see you in different stances and grabs, maybe an Ollie jump as well. I wouldn’t recommend playing like this! You could probably tilt your body to turn, but expect exploring an open-world skate park to be problematic, again with the not turning or moving freely.
For that matter, forget open-world games like Grand Theft Auto.
RPGs are a big no. Not only is running and turning ruled out (see a theme?), but frequent menu navigation will be a headache. You have to point a cursor (with your hand) around like the Wii, but you need to hold your cursor over a button for a few moments to trigger a button-press. It’s a huge flaw in my opinion. You’ll soon find getting through the menu of a Kinect game to be a time-consuming ordeal.
Puzzle games might work if the game was slow in pace, and not too prone to misreading gestures.
So there you have it. The Kinect will fail because of it’s limitations. It’s not nearly as limited as the Wii Balance Board, but it will become evident that Kinect will be home to many exercise games, or games that are very shallow in gameplay depth. I predict some games will eventually start using a controller to help out as well.
Don’t get me wrong, the Kinect is a very decent first step technologically-speaking, but as a gameplay tool, very limited. I originally envisioned many possibilities for this platform, but now all I can see is the ceiling.
Posted on July 20, 2010, in Electronics, Robots, Video Games and tagged Electronics, Entertainment, Robots, Technology, Video Games, XBOX. Bookmark the permalink. 17 Comments.
Me and my cherry pie agree with your assessment Dave, Unless they find a way to make Halo or Call of Duty function with this it’s going to be for kids and casual gamers, no hardcore gamer will go near it.
Much like the saps that eat up that Apple iPhone jazz, It’s going to be for the gadget geeks that want not so much a functional device but the latest gizmo, although I do see (young) kids being amused with this, but be honest, how many of these kids aren’t already playing Call of Duty?
B.T.Dub this pie is yummy (lol)
I suspect there will be an initial sales rush because many people are uninformed. It will eventually be a niche thing, like the Balance Board, Eye Toy, and SuperScope!
I think Exercise nuts who haven’t already invested in a Wii, or who have lots of disposable income, will pick this up and keep this platform afloat.
I had a SuperScope - that thing was ace, The exercise nuts will have fun yes but can it even attempt to push the Wii off its “It’s just as good as real exercise” pedestal?
Lets just agree exercise video games are just terrible *eats more pie* These people need to get outside and do some real exercise *eats more pie* or they’ll get *piepiepie* lol
Seriously, you are correct, the misinformed masses will be the first to try this out and I will be there laughing at them.
LOL yes pie will never go out of style. Pie > Kinect.
Come up with a camera related idea next so I can make more pie related comments.
Got a camera idea in mind. What does photography have to do with pies????
:p
Pies are related to every facet of society. Surely you know this? I’m a photographer that’s all.
Oh sorry - I thought you implied the two had a distinct connection, haha. I agree, Pies are universal. If everyone got to have a slice everyday, there’d be no war! Well, maybe fisticuffs for the last slice.
Surely you are mistaken Dave, the last slice is mine
We’ll see. Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!
*Khalid looks*
*Dave steals last slice of pie*
Touché!
Kinect IMO is one of the biggest jokes I have ever seen. All the demonstrations they show to the public are obviously staged. Its a shame that people will buy into something surrounded by so many smoke and mirrors.
I agree, much of what I saw from E3 looked staged. I expect a lot of disappointment on launch day.
Kinect will destroy the Sony Move, nuff said
That much is true! People who own a PS3 probably wouldn’t go for a Wii, and if they do, they probably own a Wii by now. The Move is just too similar, almost to the point that Sony is just copying Nintendo.
I’ll give props to Kinect for being an original idea, but it is just so limited.
Recently brought the kinect. I love it!
On top of the camera sensor you forget to mention the fact that it’s voice controllable as well.
The device is a fun way of playing games and interacting without sitting on your ass all day staring at the tv screen.
There are better games coming out for it and it opens many more doors than you implied.
Find all the positives before throwing down the negatives that may not even be true!
When I wrote this the voice-recognition feature wasn’t enabled yet, at least in my experience with the device prior to launch. I’m guessing voice input is limited to basic commands right now? And not used to recognize particular gamers or a wide array of speech and dialogue?
Games with voice recognition aren’t always a sure thing, like that Seaman game or the Pikachu pet game. Probably one of the main reasons Project Milo was cancelled.
I think Kinect has already proven itself to be a limited tool for gaming. Looks like only Dance Central sequels (and Dance Central-ish games) will be coming out for it! Not many games on the horizon.
But like the general consensus predicted, games will start using a hybrid of controller and Kinect gameplay, as is the case with the upcoming Gears of War 3 and Mass Effect 3.
However Kinect as a hacked device has proven to be a runaway success. Many people have done cool things with it - not practical, but neat stuff.
Kinect will be a hit, but the 2.0 version, with better camera resolution and maybe more internal hardware (as opposed to the console doing all the heavy lifting). Right now it’s potential is better used outside of gaming.