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SvennoJ on 17 March 2012
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UltimateUnknown said:
SvennoJ said:
UltimateUnknown said:
Carl2291 said:
UltimateUnknown said:

I don't see why it has to be built-in. It could just be a separate unit that comes in the box, like the Wii's infra red sensor.

Wouldn't that essentially be the standard 360 Kinect bundle?


Similar to it, and as I said I don't see the problem with that. No one complained when the Wii shipped with the infra red sensor, the kinect 2.0 might be a bit bigger but its nothing to cry to mommy about. Plus as long as MS are fine with development costs, it should be all good. I would love to see kinect in the box for next gen, so developers would take the device as part of the entire control scheme rather than just an optional peripheral.

Think about it, Xbox 720 with the classic controller for physical controls, built in HD touch screen for touch-screen controls and Kinect 2.0 for very accurate motion and voice controls. Developers could go absolutely ape/bat-**** crazy with the console and we could see some very VERY innovative games. Well at least a man can dream.

Although that seems good on paper, in a world where 3rd party exclusives have became a rarity developers are probably not going to go crazy at all. The WiiU will have a year head start guaranteed, and the extra price tag on all that tech will slow down the adoption of the 720. So even though every 720 will have kinect this time, it will still maybe only be a third of your total possible audience.

But maybe MS doesn't care about that, they have been opening a lot of new studios after all. Maybe they want to go the Nintendo route and go heavy first party on the 720 and think it will be the next Wii. Will people still be as crazy about Kinect for a higher price in 2013 though? Move isn't doing all that well as Wii 2.0

Well I can only imagine those first party studios will be there to demostrate to 3rd parties what could be done with the new and improved tech and control schemes. And really developers like to see new control schemes, it gives them more options and they have better incentive to make something innovative that could go big and differentiate them from the crowd. But what developers truly want nowadays is to be able to port their games between platforms, and I can see that being a possibility with WiiU's tablet and 720's HD touchscreen. Plus I imagine 720 will have motion controls closer to 1:1 built in, so developers will know that whatever they make WILL be used by everyone who buys the game, so they don't need to make alternate control schemes.

With any new console, you will see a slow adoption and hence 3rd parties will make games closer to current gen towards the beginning. But as some time passes, we will start to see first parties roll out some cool games with the new tech and then the onslaught of awesome quality 3rd party titles harnessing the raw power of the new consoles.

That didn't really happen with the wii though.
And yes porting will be big, but between WiiU's tablet and 720's rumored HD touchscreen? First of all I think there is a very small chance that will be included as standard. And second the performance gap between WiiU and 720 would probably prevent that as well, or at least will not lead to games that can compete with big budget titles. I don't see any Wii+ / Move shared games either.
And ofcourse developers are used to publish on pc, xbox and ps. Only one of those will have the extras.

Next to that I think Kinect 2.0 will be held back at first by Kinect 1.0. Why make your game kinect 2.0 compatible only when there is a 25mil userbase out there that could use it too. The first kinect 2.0 games will just run a bit better, new ideas will come a lot later.

In the end Kinect / Move / Wii+ is all still very risky. Unfortunately the biggest most reliable user base still is the 12 to 24 year old crowd that don't care all that much for alternate control schemes, or paying extra for a standard included kinect.