Its 1989, I'm quite young and impressionable and New Kids On The Block are number 1. I notice an ad, flickering provocatively on the TV, it's a new piece of technology that promises to revolutionize the way I play games.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Fast forward to the early 90s, I'm a little older and a little wiser, another ad catches my attention. This time promising to prolong the life of my console by adding a new input medium.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Philips CD-i
Nintendo 64DD
Sega 32X
Virtual Boy
3DO
All of these had one thing in common... failure. Also for the people who were deceived by the flashy ads and false promises it meant wasted time and money. It was so easy to buy into the hype, so easy to believe that it would be different next time.
Another choice presently looms over our heads like a dark cloud of uncertainty threatening a shower of disappointment, its name, Kinect. Now before your inner fanboy gets all riled up and attempts an immature comment fueled with rage and spite aimed to flame either myself or the PS Move, know this. This blog is my opinion and is aimed squarely at Kinect, Move or Sony is not considered here and as such retaliation aimed at these or a personal attack will be considered futile and juvenile.
Now that's out of the way let me explain why I think Kinect will join this long list of failures. Let’s start with the promises Microsoft have made over the last year or so.
Object Scanning - So far there has been no evidence of this feature in any of the software announced for Kinect.
* Minority report menus - This has been watered down to a tidy but clunky interface, which looks set to add seconds, if not minutes to everything you want to do.
* More than 2 players - In the conceptual trailer for Kinect you can clearly see a family of four playing a Buzz style game sadly no such multiplayer fun back here in reality.
* Finally one of my favorites and who better to deliver it then Peter Molyneux, fully responsive and intelligent AI. It's almost laughable that people believe this will be possible on a video game console when it's still not possible on super computers in the hands of computer science geniuses around the world.
Now let's deal with the reality of Kinect as it has been displayed in its entire circus splendor. The reality is a novel experience but one that will leave any serious gamer with an incredibly bitter taste. I know, I know Kinect is for the casuals but that’s not the point of this blog. My point is that with the obvious limitation of the hardware there is no viable way to create a gaming experience that would satisfy the regular gamer without admitting a small (or large, glaring) concession to their main selling slogan "controller free gaming". The fact is buttons are needed and until Microsoft admits this fact there will never be a 'hardcore' game for Kinect. If you're asking what are the limitations I mentioned earlier then you might just have been spun up in the hype and have already weaved an elaborate web inside your mind to justify a purchase of the camera peripheral. While in all honestly there are good reasons to buy Kinect, if you have small children for example, however there are just as many reasons to buy either of the competing motion control devices and they may or may not cost you as much money.
I'm a firm believer that the 'core' gamers determine the success/failure of any given gaming device and if Microsoft can't convince them then they won't in turn convince their 'casual' friends and relations. That said Kinect is getting so much hype and expensive marketing from Microsoft that it may just fool enough people to keep it afloat until they realize their mistake of not including buttons. Until then though the smart 'core' gamer shold avoid a costly case of history repeating itself.
The Outerhaven writes: As the hours count down until Resident Evil Requiem launches, check out these tips and tricks to guide you through the first few hours of the zombie apocalypse.
Don't be surprised if Resident Evil Requiem is the best game of 2026.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Dragon Pearl of Destruction gets an April 2026 release for all major consoles and PC in April 2026.
The day Mtv showed kinect my Aunt and cousins came over and where talking about it, so i told them it was all staged and you could see it in the video. I went to youtube and showed them, they said it wasn't like that on mtv and i told them it was most likely edited because MS payed the big bucks to have it on their channel. Not that i need to say this but after they seen that i showed them another new motion based product....guess which one they want to get now.
In all honesty i really don't see move doing that much better than Kinect with the casuals unless Sony bundle it with a Ps3 for $300, the smart thing they are doing though is getting hardcore games out because they know that most of the 38 million ps3 owners enjoy those types of games and might want to try out motion controls with them.
Peripherals on consoles fail almost all of the time; the only ones that have moderate success are Joysticks, driving controllers, keypads, guns, and mics.
Things like new controller options (rob the robot, for example), drive add-ons and the like that enhances the power of the console or have you play it in a different way usually fails because it comes late in the console's development cycle, plus peripherals rarely get full support. Eyetoy PS2 didn't, Eyetoy PS3 nor Live Vision are currently getting full games support, and Kinect or Move likely won't.
That has been my biggest gripe with kinect, microsoft as usual has overhyped and underdelivered and the media is out of MS' hands... Patthetic.
I see the hate has spread from the first page and forum to the blog section. I'm not overwhelmed by it either but why not at least let the damn thing get released before we sentence it to eternal failure? Just a thought.
you may be right...then again you may be wrong we will see in time