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Rare on Kinect Sports

Nick Burton on how Rare got involved with Kinect and why you should give it a try.

Eurogamer Peter Molyneux's said the cool Kinect stuff will come later, stuff that will twig with core gamers more than the current launch line-up. Will core gamers more immediately get that stuff? Will it be more familiar?
Nick Burton

Yes. Well of course that's what we're going to do. If you were going to launch Kinect, which is truly about getting more people playing because it's about removing controller barriers - I'm not taking the PR line with that. That's something I really believe because we saw this early on. But you're going to launch with those kind of products. But it doesn't stop you, and game developers going, 'Hang on a minute.'

Take bowling for instance. First-person view. We've got head-tracking in there. As soon as you pick the bowling ball up you go into your Avatar's head, if you like. And you're moving around, the camera's tracking what your head's doing. Imagine what kind of games you could do with that that aren't necessarily bowling?

Camera control without having to consciously control it? At the moment when you play Halo you have to control the camera with a thumb stick. What if you didn't? What if you're shouting grenade? You're not going to find the grenade button. The grenade button's still there, but...

And that's just off the top of my head. That's one thing we were talking about just a few weeks ago. We were going, 'Oh it would be so cool to augment first-person shooters with this kind of thing.'

But then there's this big stack of other mental ideas that are out there that everything from the very small children all the way up to hardest of hardcore. It's just because they're not the kind of things there, they're not the classic first-person shooter, hardcore racing game, on launch day, then I think people are saying, 'Oh, it's not for us.'

But go and try it and try it in your own home.

Digital Foundry and EGTV take on Kinect.
EurogamerBut gamers will say, 'If I say grenade, how quickly will a grenade come out? If I move my head, how quickly does the camera turn? Will it be as quick as using the controller? Am I going to be as competitive as I would be if I'm using a controller?'
Nick Burton

That depends entirely on the developer and what they would do with that and that particular kind of game. And also when you're playing online or playing together and you're matchmaking those games.

If you were doing, say, the grenade versus a button grenade, well you'd probably matchmake people who were using voice together and people who were using buttons together. You'd give them the option.

As far as the head-tracking's concerned, that's just as fast, if not faster, than doing it with the joystick, because you've not got to subconsciously think about moving your thumb. We've evolved over millions of years to automatically look at something.

You sit there on the sofa, you're into it and you're playing a game, [jerks head to the side] you do those kind of things. What if that had a real reaction and that's actually your subconscious movement? The potential is to be quicker.

Eurogamer Is it simply the case that it will take people time to wrap their heads around Kinect?
Nick Burton

The way to think about it, I think, for the discoverability, you're playing the kind of games you play as a hardcore gamer where you're discovering something because it's hidden somewhere or you unlock a new story arc or whatever. With this you're discovering something because you realise you can run a different way or hold your body in a different way, or you can do that funny pose, or, oh, if I tweak my elbow in as I'm bowling I get a better spin. It's that kind of discover-ability.

Now, your gran is not going to find that. You watch the Live leaderboards when these things come out. There will be people... We'll be there going, 'How the hell have they gone that fast?' or 'How have they got that big score?' That will be the hardcore doing that.

Kinect Sports will be released along with Kinect on 10th November.

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