Rare: Kinect lag "not an issue"

Is lag a problem for Kinect? Not according to Rare, the studio tasked with producing one of its flagship launch titles, Kinect Sports.

Speaking to Eurogamer in LA this week, Nick Burton, exec producer of technology and communications for the Britsoft veteran, claimed earlier problems had been overcome. "Lag is not an issue," he said. "As with any prototype stuff, of course it was in the past. That's to be expected.

"Where we're at now, not at all. Yes, we've done a lot work to make sure it wasn't a problem, but when you've got something that's copying what you're doing you can't have a lot of lag."

Burton said lag for Kinetic Sports is set at 150ms which, as Digital Foundry smarty-pants Richard Leadbetter pointed out, does not include TV lag.

Lag is more evident in some titles than others at E3 this week and, since some degree of it is unavoidable, the onus will be on developers to work around it to ensure acceptable response times.

Meanwhile, the studio was also keen to dispel the belief - amplified by the recent rebranding - it was now focusing exclusively on casual games.

"It's been the focus for the past couple of years, but we're going to do all kinds of stuff," Burton said. "Obviously the rebrand for us was more about we wanted to freshen up the image - it was just time for a chance. We've done it before, we'll probably do it again.

"We are continually looking at what the next thing's going to be. It might be casual, it might be core, we've had such an eclectic mix over the years and we'll continue to do that."

He added: "It's not always going to be as casual as [Kinect Sports]; this is just something we got really excited about."

Burton refused, however, to be drawn on the studio's other projects, stating: "This is the only Rare game you're seeing at the moment."

While Kinect Sports can be seen as filling the 'Wii Sports' role in the initial Kinect line-up, Burton said the experience on offer is far more advanced.

"There's so much more data, so much more fidelity, so many more things you can do," he said. "Kinect's not just about tracking - there's voice recognition, identity, so many things. It's more than the sum of its parts. I've been involved for a couple of years and even now we're like, "Wow, there's all these things we could do!"