Rare sticking with Kinect for its new project
More evidence suggests it's for the next Xbox.
Microsoft-owned developer Rare is sticking with motion sensor Kinect for its next, unannounced project.
A job ad for a principle network services engineer, spotted by OXM, says “Rare is continuing to push the boundaries of the Kinect hardware with our exciting new project”.
Then, there's loads of talk about the cloud and “ambitious” Cloud Services “in our future titles”. These cloud services will support gameplay, data sharing and title instrumentation. The person hired will “contribute to the long-term cloud services strategy at Rare to ensure we will be able to provide players with the services they expect from future titles”.
Now, onto another job ad at Rare, this time for a gameplay engineer.
“There's always a place here for the very best talent to help shape the future,” reads the pitch. “If you'd like to be part of a pioneering team dedicated to the next jaw-dropping, never-been-done-before Rare project, why not come and join us?”
Never-been-done-before Rare project suggests whatever game this is on about is not a new Kinect Sports.
Then, a hint that it will be for the next Xbox: “During prototyping you will occasionally be working with extremely early prototype hardware co-developed with teams located off-site. You will need to showcase possibilities to inspire our designers, quickly iterating even when the underlying platform may be unstable or rapidly changing.”
Back in May a job spec called for a Rare product manager to help create "multiple AAA future console releases". The listing said the candidate would ideally have experience in the action/adventure or FPS genres.
"Whilst continual development of their core releases will be maintained, the successful candidate will be joining at a time where the studio is looking to move into new areas and develop new IPs for future platforms," it read. "You will have a successful history of releasing exceptional AAA games and these will ideally be in the Action/Adventure or FPS genre but this is not essential."
Rare has in recent years focused on Kinect Sports, but over the years has released a number of Xbox games for owner Microsoft, including Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
Most believe the studio is working on a new Kinect Sports game for the next Xbox, which will no doubt make use of the new and improved Kinect 2.