As we all know, Kinect motion controls did not get much of a good reception when it came to their use in video games. We've seen the faked E3 demos where someone was obviously trying to motion synch to a recorded video. We've seen the mocking coming from such hilariously stupid stuff as this:
But is the feature now mostly dead, at least for gaming?
Because while it is in the Xbox One, I haven't heard much in regards to any actual games that use it. A few tech demos or scientific experiments. Maybe some feature stuff. But games wise, it's mostly been forgotten about, hasn't it?
It is generally used for children's games, not unlike the Playstation Camera. A LOT of Sesame Street games come out for the Kinect, for example. Kinectimals would be another good example.
I can't say I know enough to talk about its future in gaming, but I can say it's being used successfully elsewhere. Someone at my college actually is using a Kinect system alongside a program she made to record and write down dance moves…apparently there's a dance 'score' not dissimilar to a musical score that dancers read to know what to do, and she's been working with Kinect to do a live record and transcribe of dances. It's still a work in progress, but it was quite impressive how well the Kinect did at her demonstration at the end of the school year…wasn't perfect, but on the whole it did a good job.
We had a friend who brought over their 360 with Kinect and the sports game for it. While I admit we did have fun with it, I think a lot of that was more the fun of playing games with friends then in interacting with the Kinect, honestly. We spent a great deal of time calibrating it when it decided to lose contact with us, and a lot of times the motion sensors just did not like reading certain motions. I can't imagine it for any real game, at least not anything you were playing for more then "shits and giggles".
I would be much more inclined to get something like this for 'motion' sensing: Omni. I'm far more interested in the idea of games tracking your movements in conjunction with VR headsets then I am just flailing about in front of a television. I'd feel less silly this way!
I just remember trying it with some dancing game and jumping on a raft in another game. It was fun, but I agree that it is more for simple things than full games give the inaccuracy it still has to interpret your movements correctly.
The Kinect should never have been released for anything other than Kinect Adventures and games such as UFC Training. I find it has no sole purpose in any other games. Don't get me wrong, I've tried to use it on many, but always find myself going back to the controller as it's much easier to use and requires less movement, which in fact, a lot of people rather over having to move a lot. In my opinion, it's brilliant for a training and/or exercising add-on, not for gaming.
I know a lot of young kids enjoy it, but the kinect itself really isn't popular with older folks or the hardcore gamers. A shame but it is something that flopped.
I personally love kinect. I just don't see it working with any other games than dancing and fitness games. And some simple games like fruit ninja. Think they should steer clear from shooters and games like that. Fighting games might work as well, haven't tried. Anything that is more complicated than that does not work.
