At E3 2009, Microsoft took to the stage with what they promised to be the future of gaming: Kinect. At that time, the mysterious device was said to be a true bridge between the digital and physical worlds; where gamers could throw away their clunky controllers and use their own body as the controller instead. Journalists and gamers alike were instantly dazed at the emphatic beauty that Kinect had to offer, the attraction of immersing yourself in a world which you could physically interact with was intoxicating for most and when this was coupled with the promise of many exciting games for all types of gamers, most of us blindly established Kinect as the next step in gaming evolution.
Five months after its explosive reveal, Kinect hit the shop shelves for a whopping $150; a price tag that left many of us reluctant to buy it. Regardless of its meaty price tag, Kinect sold a highly impressive eight million units within its first two months of release, which was not only a record for a Microsoft peripheral device, but a record for any consumer electronic device! Thinks were looking good...
The hype-train was quickly derailed only a few months down the line however; sales dropped, most third party developers expressed minimal interest in implementing the device into their game and the games that were out for it were thoroughly disappointing for the core gaming crowd. With Kinect out of favor and essentially out-casted by the majority of gamers, we quickly seen its price plummet along with its compatible game prices, but this effort was in vain. So where exactly did it go wrong?
You have to look at the lack of third-party support as the culprit for its downfall, but what should be pointed out is that before its reveal, Microsoft should of actually established commendable third-party support instead of blindly promising it. With the realization that many major outside developers were bluntly not interested in Kinect, Microsoft's fall back plan seem to be to pump out copious amounts of first-party titles such as Kinectimals and Kinect Sports, which are both admittedly entertaining - if you have the mental capacity of a 10 year old. They are for all intensive purposes, children/family games which both stir up little interest for the bulk of Xbox 360 gamers.
As time has progressed, Kinect exclusive titles have developed to the stage where they're reasonably attractive for those of us who're looking to buy the occasional game for when a few friends or family come over, but they're notably void of any real excitement and immersion and they're most certainly not the next step in gaming evolution as they only appeal to the family market. Now, the link between the 'hardcore' gamers and Kinect is obviously not going to happen in the foreseeable future, so Microsoft and other developers have wisely began to focus on the target market of families, which is understandable. What must be scrutinized however is the fact that they're only really appealing to the children in families by offering a host of games that present minimal effort to both make, and to play. The proposition of making these games require a considerable degree of intelligence is obviously ludicrous to these developers who aim to please the kids(no, not that in 'that' way), but what about us adults who also want to have some fun with these alleged family titles? Whilst all these games appeal to mostly children, not many of them are able to bring the child out in us adults, which is what we want with these games. If developers and more importantly Microsoft want to see their Kinect titles on the XBL charts, a median must be found for the aforementioned problem and with it, we'd maybe see mom's and dad's having more of an incentive to buy more Kinect-exclusive titles.
Unfortunately the future of Kinect looks even more grim than its present. The upcoming titles offer little incentive to support the device, instead we're left to face to bleak disappointment of the third installment of Dance Central and Just Dance 4 - apparently they really want us to dance, who knew? On the terms of third party support, for the most part, Kinect is becoming a microphone. Games like Splinter Cell: Blacklist will allow players to use their Kinect device to shout out and attract enemies over before introducing them to Sam Fishers deadly blade and whilst this seems pretty cool, you've got to ask yourself: Why can't I just use my $20 microphone instead? When all the dust has settled, Kinect essential looks like it's going backwards instead of forwards, which is worrying considering it's unlimited potential (in the right hands).
It's no secret to the online world that Kinect offers a range of impressive possibilities; most of which were exploited by users who hacked their device. Now the word hacker has became taboo in recent times due to the media, but when you drown out all the nonsense and focus on what these people are doing, you can really open your eyes to the fact that these people have the means to innovate the future of Kinect. Post-release, we seen a banquet of amazing uses for Kinect, such as shadow puppets that you could draw and bring to life, and optical camouflage - which got fans of The Predator films riled up! Microsoft smartly recognized that it would foolish to let this level of creativity slip due to possible bad-blood between them and the hackers who (in some eyes) defiled their device and done better with it than Microsoft could ever of imagined, and with this realization, they announced that they'd allow the hackers to continue their creative work and open up more doors for them. With that announcement, many hackers and coders took to the stage and dreamed up even more innovative ideas that would hopefully be one day implemented onto Xbox Live, only to be told that this would probably never happen as they're "unable to launch them on XBL" - presumably due to security reasons. With the prospect of their creations never reaching the masses, many aspiring hackers-turned-developers pulled out of their Kinect explorations. You can't help looking back and thinking that in hindsight, that decision killed Kinect's potential of being the next step in gaming, as it seems that Microsoft have deflated their hopes for the once coveted peripheral device.
In the end we can all speculate at what Kinect could of and should of been, but it ultimately falls down to Microsoft's initial promise: It's the future. Well, we're yet to see any real official signs of that; the gaming community did show a spark of genius that was quickly diminished by Microsoft's brute attitude to their hardware and software being tampered with, and the possibility of any real innovative ideas or revolutionary games coming to the device seem slim. The question no longer seems to be "Will it be the future?", but " Does it have a future?".
http://www.fraggednation.com/articles/Kinect-A-Broken-Promise-502
