Kinect is for games we cant even imagine

It’s something of a chicken and egg thing”. That’s the challenge that Microsoft faces with the Kinect motion camera, according to EA’s European senior VP Jens Uwe Intat.

Specifically, the exec thinks that relying on conversation of existing IP and game types to push the appeal of Kinect is a mistake. Instead, developers need to throw and the text books and think again about how to build titles for hardware that doesn’t include a controller.

At the end of the day, this is something of a chicken and egg thing,” he told MCV. If you have a machine that is very high spec, connected with an important online aspect, you’re automatically going to attract the people who are more keen on technology. To then open up that space and say ‘hey, now we actually make games that are easier to play’.

I think it’ll take quite a while for our developers to fully understand and embrace all the things Kinect can actually do. I think right now a lot of the thinking right now is very limited, where we’re trying to translate a racer or shooter on the Kinect platform – but that’s not all that Kinect is going to be about. Kinect is about games that we can’t even imagine today.

I would expect in all the games where you use a device – be it a gun, a steering wheel or whatever – I’m not sure those are going to be the core strength. You can play them with Kinect, but the real strength will actually come to bear with stuff where you only use your body. Dancing and fitness are excellent example, because those are things where you would prefer not to have any devices in your hand. Strategy might even work well – while today you can to use a mouse and push buttons, I can easily see you intuitively with your body orchestrating a game.

And that new way to look at how you would, for example, orchestrate and direct a football team is going to open completely new ways to play those games and, again, get new audiences into gaming.”

To read MCV’s recent interview with Jens Uwe Intat, click here.