Honestly? I haven't made up my mind. I should wander upstairs to the Dead Space team and see if they got one to play with (I think they're the only ones in the building doing 360 development right now).

The bottom line is this: It doesn't really matter how awesome the tech is, it all comes down to the games. If the games are lame or gimmicky (think Wii Sports) then no one will care. Personally, I want to check out the SDK. If the tools are good and the SDK is easy enough to integrate & use, I think chances are good that this thing could take off. It certainly has potential, but then again, the Sony eye toy thing did too.

Either way, I plan to chat them up at GDC in March. They've certainly made me curious.

-Rez

The only thing I'm wondering about is walking. This doesn't apply to all games perhaps, but a fair bit of them: Adventure, RPGs, FPS etc.

Although having to stand up and move your legs all the time while walking in rpgs would probably be good exercise, I think they need some kind of navigation controller. Maybe they'd have to put warnings on games like Oblivion: "You must be this fit to play".

Is adventure/rpg gaming without controllers really a viable option? In that respect I think PS3 Move is a better option.

My thoughts are, "Sweet jesus, no, not another peripheral hanging around my sitting room". I love the Wii but I have 2 remotes, 2 nunchunks, 2 classis controllers, a mario kart wheel and a guitar along with it.

Thats the main reason why i'm holding off on move and kinect for a while. The games have to kill for them because im falling over crap here in my living room every day as it is!

@MrMike
Thank god i packed away the PS2 and eye toy in the attic!

My personal thoughts, as someone who has never posted here before :), are that the Kinect sounds like an amazing piece of hardware that can be used to complement existing control schemes, and overall improve some of the more annoying things to do with controllers. I've always thought that as long as it's not used as some sort of device for gimmicky-"Stand on a skateboard to play Tony Hawk" games, it will be good.

For example, take a typical action-RPG type game, you could use Kinect for all the looting and inventory management type stuff, and use the controller for everything else. Typical controller control scheme for killing monsters and what not, but when you want to loot, or equip items, or whatever, you just gesture at the screen, do your thing, and then return your hand to the controller when you're done.

Basically I think they should stop trying to use things like the Kinect to reinvent the wheel, and instead try to build on it.

Yeah. Sounds like the way to go for rpgs. Maybe some gestures for spells like they did in Arx Fatalis.

Microsoft has also allowed the creation of open source drivers, so we can even use this for pc. Drivers are pretty basic and unstable right now, but sounds kinda cool. Might just try it out sometime.

Personally, I don't really know what to make of Kinect. The technology is cool, but the question that comes to mind is can they develop any games without just making it a gimmick? If it's possible to use the 360 controller in combination with Kinect, you might be able to resolve some of the issues, but then that presents another issue: what is the point of Kinect if you just use the controller? Somehow, 360 developers needs to find an application for Kinect that doesn't require you to run around the living room like an idiot just to play a game like Fable or some other gimmick like it. On the other hand, from an economic standpoint, it wins. I forgot what the numbers were exactly, but I did the calculations, and it is cheaper to get a new 360 and Kinect than it is to get a Wii with 3 more remotes and nunchuk controllers and four MotionPlus attachments (for the extra accuracy that the Wii claimed to have from the beginning), which is cheaper than getting a new PS3 with four Move controllers and four Move navigation attachments. But just because it's the least expensive technology doesn't mean it's the best. It's also difficult to make a decision because the only motion tracking technology of the three I've used is the Wii, so I can't make a judgment on anything. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if developers jump ship to Kinect and see if we get anything other than crapware.

I think a pass/fail is difficult for Kinect because it's almost certainly going to continue to exist in one form or another. Even if the current push were to "fail" I'm sure the tech would still be integrated or leveraged for further projects.

Certainly right now Kinect feels to me like a novelty. Any input method should be used as a means to an ends, but the intro games are being made solely to showcase kinect; which probably won't result in anything great. Once the novelty wears off you might see some really cool, nuanced uses. For example a fps that only tracks your head so you can pivot your view around without changing the direction your char is pointing. When the motion capture comes prebuilt with the systems you might see it leveraged much better because it will be a lot easier for a developer to use it where its useful without having to plan the whole game around it.

One thing I heard the giantbomb guys point out was that a big issue with kinect is fatigue. There's no easy way to stop the tracking (at present) like you can rest a controller or stop pushing buttons.

Im With gandalf i love games like fable the tech is nice but i dont feel like running around trying to play fable and strugglling to florish my blade in the direction i want and directing magic could be a problem as thats one of my favorite games the only way ill ever stop playing my controller games is if the bring out the holo deck shown on startrek id never come out of that room haha but overall its a great system addon i really would only recommend it if you have friends over or family to play it with other wise doing all the movements and junk make it kinda lonely its meant for multiple people (i think) but id rate it Scale 1-10 (3) alone (10) with others

Since there was a bit of discussion of using kinect through through an RPG standpoint, heres an interesting video of playing World of Warcraft via kinect
youtube.com/watch?v=62wj8eJ0FHw&feature=related

@ bidaum. Agree, I have a hard time believing non casuals would be willing to fight the fatigue.

Personally, I doubt I'll ever buy one but I hope it sells like hotcakes, I'm loving the step into this direction.

Personally, I think Kinect is another step towards the death of video games.

It's going to lead to the equivalent of "reality TV" for the games industry.

I fear that "casual" games, like most of the current Wii library, are so much cheaper to make than, say Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, etc. Eventually, everyone will just make those, and there will be fewer and fewer "real" games left. Why spend $100 million on the next Grand Theft Auto, when you can just make a party game for $1 million or less, and pretty much get guaranteed profit.

That's my fear anyway, but I hope I'm wrong.

(Of course, the XBox 360 is 5 years old, and it looks like it may be another 5 before it has a true successor. Seems like processing power just doesn't matter to their future plans...)

I have all the systems and kinect and move. I love them both. Move has better games at this point however I am sure that Kinect will be better or at least as good once better games come out.

If by laughable you're referring to the Disneyland game and the on-rails Fable then yes. I think Kinect is huge, and trying to implement it like it is the Sony EyeToy is just a waste. They way Ghost Recon Future Soldier has implemented it is just fantastic. I can see myself spending hours taking apart and building the guns over and over. Mass Effect 3 is doing a good job also implementing it with the voice stuff. Using Kinect as a means of aiming and movement (in FPS) is just silly, but as a new controller with new applications, it is amazing.

The coolest stuff I've seen with the Kinect so far was all at Maker's Faire. People are hacking it and using it as a sensor device for their robots.

I agree with jmoak3 (and my original statement) that it has a lot of potential but no one's really tapped into it yet. I'm interested to see what they show off at GDC next year. I'm hoping it'll be at the next level by then.

-Rez

I think Kinect/Move/Wii/whatever control schemes need to ask "Can I do this quicker with a controller?" If the answer is yes, throw it out or make it a back up option. As cool as some of the E3 demos were, other than issuing voice commands in ME3 (hardly something that requires a Kinect), I don't think I saw anything that couldn't be done as effectively or even better with a controller. In my mind, the whole point of a controller is acting the interface between your mind and the game. I want the device that screws up that connection the least, and something that tends to lack precision in these things where precision is needed is a step back. Also just a particular gripe to Super Mario Galaxy using the shake motion to trigger the spin-jump-attack move. Sometimes it would refuse to trigger, and more often it would trigger accidentally and get me killed.

I don't agree. Could Wii Tennis or Wii Bowling have been "quicker with a controller?" Certainly. Would it have been more fun with a controller? No.

I was shocked at how much more fun (and easier to play) Metroid Prime 3 was on the Wii than the prior Metroids were.

Of course, when I got a 360 I basically stopped playing my Wii except for Ghostbusters, and more recently Metroid Other M.

Of course, in online multiplayer gaming, "quicker with a controller" may be better.

Sorry, I should have clarified. My main gripe was with trying to shoe horn in motion controls, etc. where they don't belong. Something like Wii Sports which is specifically a tech demo for motion controls wouldn't make much sense with a controller. For games with a high skill/difficulty cap (as in not really casual games), that's where my question comes in to play. A lot of these announcements seem to be: "Remember when you used to play shooters with a keyboard/mouse/controller and you could accurately shoot stuff? Well guess what, we replaced it with motion controls that aren't very precise, but will auto-lock on, and just generally be frustrating!" and that feels like a step back to me.

Not impressed with games for Kinect so far, but that doesn't mean Kinects at fault. Maybe if they came out with a game like Kinect Porno, where you and your partner can do it like the stars, I might invest in one. Just kidding.