OXMUK
The rumour-worm has turned full circle. The cycle is complete. Not to be left out of the fun, Microsoft is now ruminating on the make-up of Xbox 720, reportedly code-named Durango. Or at least, product manager Glenn Gregory is.
We spoke to Gregory at a Kinect Star Wars event yesterday, shortly before humiliating ourselves in front of Princess Leia, and in accordance with modern interview law, the conversation eventually came round to next generation consoles.
In case you skipped the story, Gregoryreckons "there are a lot of capabilities in [Kinect] that people haven't used yet" (the next twelve months will apparently be "really interesting"). Would it help if Microsoft built Kinect into the next Xbox? Surely developers would have more incentive to wrangle with the hardware then?
"Yeah, I think so. There are a lot of 360 owners out there right now who don't have a Kinect, but there are a lot that do have Kinect. We'd love to have everyone on 360 incorporating it, but we don't know what they're going to do with the next console.
"I think it's about making as much of the core technology available to everybody who's engaging with the platform. A game like Mass Effect for example, if you knew that everyone who played that game has the same capabilities as Kinect owners then we'd see a lot more of the Kinect integration."
Gregory's words echo those of Alan Willard, Epic's senior technical artist and designer, who told us last year that built-in Kinect would lead to more "intelligent" games. "Once we know that we can rely on it, we can integrate it into the game at a much deeper level."
Your thoughts? According to one report, the next generation Xbox will arrive in two flavours- one, a "Kinect-themed gaming portal" with minimal storage capabilities, and two, a fully-featured hardcore machine.
http://www.oxm.co.uk/39803/microsoft-xbox-720-with-built-in-kinect-is-a-good-idea/
