Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360 has had a great reception and has hit the 1 million worldwide sales milestone already, but it seems that the ‘hardcore’ amongst gamers aren’t exactly happy with this new focus from Microsoft. It’s not too surprising that they think this way however, with the current launch titles all very much aimed at the casual gamer with a very wii-esque feel and a focus on family/party games with nothing to cater for the ‘hardcore’ at this moment in time.
This trend could be broken however, after a rumour has emerged that the Epic Games third-person cover and shoot game series Gears of War could be coming to Kinect. The rumour seems to have emerged from the upcoming Video Game Awards event where it is expected Microsoft will announce some big action games for the Kinect, in a potentially futile hope to convert the ‘hardcore’ gamer and one of the games which could do that would be a Gears of War game. However, it seems that any chance of this applying to Gears of War 3 is not going to happen after a recent tweet from Epic Games’ lead designer Cliff Bleszinski that simply said, “No Kinect in Gears of War 3”.
At the moment the idea is open to speculation. Whether a new ‘hardcore’ game would be Kinect exclusive, or have the option of using the motion-capturing peripheral over a controller. With the latter option however, I’m sure the ‘hardcore’ would never use the Kinect if it was only an option over a controller. Especially considering the device’s price tag and the reliability of a controller over the Kinect.
Although it would of course be a good thing for the Kinect games to go beyond the casual, it would probably take a large selection of titles and a lot of convincing that the Kinect can trump a controller before the true ‘hardcore’ gamer can be turned to the device.
Via: Gadget Venue, Softpedia
2 thoughts on “Can Kinect Cater For The Hardcore?”
I sold my nintendo Wii on their to pay towards the kinect.
The Kinect is fantastic when any new games come out for a new console of accessorie they are not the best, give it time and the kinect will be great, im sure we will see the hardcore comes using the kinect unit aswel
Maybe game developers should be looking at creating a NEW style of hardcore games that utilise kinect to its fullest potential, instead of rewriting established titles that have been firmly embedded into the use of a controller. That way it will surely have a bigger impact in encouraging the so called “hardcore gamer” into kinect. one title that is attempting to do such a thing is the so called Child of eden, which I am looking forward to.