Should I KINECT with it or not?

"I see you looking at me, looking at you, looking at me… "

That’s the question I have right now.  Kinect is the new camera-slash-voice command-slash-controller-slash-thing-that-will-sit-on-top-your-TV-next-to-the-Wii-bar-slash-addition to the growing Xbox family.  The point of Kinect is to eliminate the use of controllers for some games and make it “easier” to navigate through the menus.  It promotes movement and  a short array of sport/activity games is available at release. MSRP is $149.99.

Why do you see Kinect everywhere you look?  Well, Microsoft is dumping a ton of money into Kinect and Windows 7 mobile advertising; word on the street is north of 500 million on each.  If you think that after 11/3/10 you won’t hear much about Kinect, you are mistaken.  Kinect marketing will be in shows like “Glee” and “Dancing with the Stars.”  It doesn’t stop there, there are cross promotions with Kellogg’s and Burger King, as well as buyouts of the front page of YouTube.  No matter where you are, Kinect will be looking for you.  I don’t know about you, but this kind of marketing makes me worried instead of getting me excited about a product.

Now, don’t get me wrong and think that I am against the new peripheral.  I am neutral at this moment, with a hint of annoying and a dash of bored.  You see… if you own an Xbox, you know that the new update came out, making it more “Kinect” friendly. What that meant to me, a non Kinect user, is that my premium themes look horrible and everything is flat looking.  On top of that the intense white square that shows when you push the guide button makes plasma owners nervous of burning in that image (most TV’s now a days have protection against that and most of us don’t stay long enough to cause damage, but that feeling in the pit of my stomach about burn-in still exists).  “Why make everything flat?”  I asked myself and a flash of images from Pax Prime, and Kinect videos rush into my head like a bad 80′s movie flashback.  “Wait a minute… the Kinect can’t do push and pull movements!”  Now, these are just my wild speculations, based on absolutely no proof whatsoever, except what I saw at PAX Prime and marketing videos about Kinect.  Every video I’ve seen show people moving side to side, even Wii Boxing seems to have a better response when you punch with a side movement than straight at the Kinect sensors.  I wonder if this is a bug, a limitation of the technology, or whether no one thought that playing tug of war, stabbing someone with a sword, or virtually pushing a button would be useful with the system. Most push/pull movements I’ve seen are in conjunction with side-to-side motion, or requires two hand movement as seen in some racing games videos, so it’s hard to really know whether the system does it or not.  If you watch the videos about selecting something on the screen, the Kinect takes a few seconds to register that selection.  If Kinect was capable of seeing push/pull easier, swiping side to side to select a movie and then “pushing” for that movie should be ideally be almost instant.  It’s even more user friendly in the end.  As it seems, you hold your hand up to signify that you have made your selection and wait until it sees that your hand has stopped, then you tell it “Xbox Play.”  The more I think about this and the more I keep wondering… is it the hardware or the software?

Another thing that worries me is the lack of “Coming Soon” games.  What companies do you know that are making future games for Kinect?  Remember “Project Milo?”  Peter Molyneux’s brain child (no pun intended), took E3 2009 by storm, yet we didn’t hear from Milo at the last E3 and rumor has it that it was canceled. The game that convinced me that Kinect was a force to be reckoned with is not going to happen.  Good news is: Molyneux might use it for a future game.  The sports game could be fun, but we all know what happened to the Wii for keeping it casual. Most gamers I know, their Wii sits unused collecting dust and very few play the sports games, if they turn the system on at all.  Mine gets played because of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Little King’s Story.

Does Kinect have potential? I believe so! Just imagine doing Forge in a Halo game where you don’t have to use the controller, but instead manipulate the ramps, spawn points and everything with your hands!!!  I don’t play Forge because 1) I hate turning into a Monitor and 2) it’s hard to control, which causes 3) I lose all patience with it. If I could use my hand, I would be more likely to play with it.  Just imagine a game like Knights of the Old Republic where you can speak the line you want to say, and in return the game recognizes the response and talks back to you.  Being able to use “The Force” as you hold your invisible light saber!  A game of Fable where you can actually whistle for your dog and pet him or play catch by doing hand motions?  SIGN ME UP!  Will gaming companies see Kinect’s promise and push it to its limit?  I sure hope so. Can Kinect’s current game line-up do that? Sadly, no.

"Im all alone, there's no one here besiiiide me!!!"

The “Jetsons/Minority Report” side of me aches for the possible use of computers with just my hands.  The idea of coming home and saying “Xbox On” *mumble*after I turn the TV on manually, turn the stereo on manually, make sure is in the right audio channel…manually *mumble* IT’S THRILLING!  But does it warrant a $150.00 purchase?  Kinect comes bundled with a game, but so does the Wii and it’s only $50 more for an entire system with a similar aim.

I would love to be able to try Kinect and put it to the test to see what it can and cannot do, but that might be my computer programming side that always goes, “Ok, it can do this, but what about that?” In the end, the decision of whether to Kinect or not with it was made for me.  I just don’t have the cash right now.  So I’m not really debating should I or should I not, will it be worth it?  I can’t do anything about it at this time.  Will I purchase it latter?  Perhaps.  I just fear the that Kinect will suffer from the same fate as my Xbox camera.  A fate that was caused by the huge lack of games that used the camera and sealed by the lack of any development for anything other than video chat.  Sadly, as my camera will be witness to this; it was not enough to keep it anywhere near the Xbox.  I hope Kinect does not suffer from the same fate.