Questions about Kinect

[BirdManJr]

I have all the systems...ps3...wii...xbox 360.

Out of all of them my son likes the wii...he is 5 years old...likes the controller and can play it we have alot of fun with it.my wife likes the wii also...when i play xbox or ps3 they will watch sometimes but not into very much...

with move out and kinect on the way...i was wondering your thoughts on kinect and will it be easy for children / non gamers like the wii is....im not that interested in move for some reason...i am kinect tho...only thing is with wii and ps3 theres a actual controller involved....without a controller...i was just wondering how kinect would be with a child trying to play..

[OG Pooh]

I too have all the current consoles, and in fact use the 360 the most (probably because it was out first & I have more games for it than the others).

Kinect is the one thing I am the least interested in. Sorry, but in my opinion, games should have some kind of controller. Who wants to race a car by pretending to hold a steering wheel or shoot a gun by pointing a finger in the air? Sure, you could use props, but c'mon, who's going to assemble a collection of junk in order to not feel like an idiot while playing a video game? I truly believe in terms of actual real-world use, Kinect will be met with a lot of oohs & ahs, then quickly fade into the land of forgotten gimmicks. Either that, or it will find limited uses as a secondary device. But my guess is that it will get caught in the optional peripheral catch-22, where developers won't really commit to it because everyone won't have one and players won't buy one until developers commit (which they won't until we buy). Really, how big of a future could it have with mainstream players when even hardcore fans of the console disagree about the thing? That's just common sense whichever side you're on.

As for a child playing with Kinect... I don't know if I could see a child (depending on age) having the restraint to control his/her entire body long enough to actually play a game for any real length of time. I see a lot of distractions that a child would give in to that could render Kinect useless, or at least very sloppy.

[Jeff Kleist]

Kinect is the one thing I am the least interested in. Sorry, but in my opinion, games should have some kind of controller. Who wants to race a car by pretending to hold a steering wheel or shoot a gun by pointing a finger in the air? Sure, you could use props, but c'mon, who's going to assemble a collection of junk in order to not feel like an idiot while playing a video game?

The same idiots that bought 10 million Wiis to bowl on their televisions. There will always be a bigger idiot

And for the record, I already had the lightsaber for when the Star Wars game comes out

Seriously, there's going to be games that use the controller too, MS is almost certainly going to be forced to introduce a more one-hand friendly doohicky at some point, but in the meantime you can hold the controller with the buttons at the top and it works (just not for lefties). Sony is chasing the casual and the hardcore, while MS is looking to steal the kids growning out of the Wii and capture the yuppie trendy people with the latest thing. They're not even thinking about the hardcore till next year.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The same idiots that bought 10 million Wiis to bowl on their televisions. There will always be a bigger idiot

And for the record, I already had the lightsaber for when the Star Wars game comes out

I think you misunderstood my point. The Wii has a controller that came standard with every Wii sold... One that can be customized with (relatively) inexpensive add-ons like the Lightsaber, Nerf bats, pistols, etc, etc. Kinect is controlerless. There is nothing to hold when you're mowing down baddies with an AK-47. It's just you and your finger (bang, bang), unless you want to assemble a closet full of improvised props.

The simple fact is that these optional controlers, peripherals, add-ons (whatever you want to call them) NEVER succeed. The only one that has a real good chance of doing so is Move. Kinect has a big WOW factor, but very limited real uses. Kinect's best chance would have been if Microsoft had waited and made it the standard controler for the next generation of Xbox. Then everyone would have had to develop for it and everyone would have owned one.