Eurogamer

Kinect will aid local tournament play with fighting game Killer Instinct, Microsoft has said.

At the Evo 2013 fighting game tournament in Las Vegas, Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Isgreen (via IGN) said Xbox One, which must be connected to Kinect to work, will smooth out the process of setting up tournaments both online and offline.

Killer Instinct will use Kinect to automatically detect who's playing and load their settings - even during a match, Isgreen explained.

"We want to have features to set up tournaments with your friends," he said.

"Say there are eight of you and you just start sitting down. I know a lot of people are like, ah, the Kinect camera in the room, I'm scared! But the coolness of being able to sit down, the controller pairs itself to you when you pick it up. It knows your buttons. It knows how you like to play. It knows what characters you want to play.

"You can just say Start, and go. It knows who you are in the tournament bracket, so it will just automatically do the matches correctly."

He added: "If you have a character you love, it might primary select that character already. Your buttons are already configured based on you picking up that controller. It knows it's you, so it can do the leaderboards correctly. All that's possible on Xbox One - mid-fight, too.

"So, here, you play, you give me your controller, it reconfigures it to me.

The new and improved Kinect is more accurate than the version for Xbox 360, and it can recognise players and automatically load their profiles.

Isgreen said Kinect will directly benefit fighting game enthusiasts, who enjoy hosting tournaments, often without access to an internet connection.

"There are a lot of neat features we can start to do that you can't do right now," Isgreen said. "We can't do that without having those kind of things built into the box. That's one of the reasons we've kept them in. There is a lot of really cool stuff coming for it. Those are the kind of features we want to uphold for tournaments, online or offline. It's going to be a big push for us."

Microsoft has partnered with Twitch for game streaming on Xbox One, and Isgreen hinted that this, in combination with the ability to swap quickly between apps while playing games, will be incorporated into Killer Instinct.

Killer Instinct, developed by Double Helix, is a downloadable launch title due out this November. Four characters have been confirmed: Jago, Sabre Wulf, Glacius and Chief Thunder.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-17-kinect-will-benefit-killer-instinct-tournament-play-on-xbox-one

So instead menus you can use voice commands to navigate... cool.

Any news about Acarde Controllers support?

sigh.

Co-sigh

Why? Its a cool feature and it doesnt distract from this being a gamepad only game.

Its the little subtle things and little convienences that can really set the X1 apart and make it an improvement over current gen.

Don't act like a grumpy senior whenever change comes along :P

And if for some reason the camera malfunctions, the game resets to the home screen...in the middle of a fight. Not saying this is very likely to happen, but it's a big, long tournament, matches get spoiled all the time by faulty controllers, faulty wiring, etc. The camera is just another liability thrown in the mix.

But what conveniences? Not having to select a profile from a list? Picking your character manually?
If profiles didn't exist, then I would say 'holy shit that's awesome', but unfortunately they already do...and in fact some games aren't even programmed for profiles. Then what? Does the kinect come with internal software that transcends the game programming? Does it save your profile for upload on the go? Can it recognize me at home, and then when I go to a tournament the new console will know me? No. You'll still have to set up your control.

It's like, MS has all this potential ability, and doesn't even know what they're doing with it. You know what's cool? The cloud knowing my profile for a specific fighting game anywhere I go. That's cool. That's "never been done". But what do they think is "innovative"? automatically selected profiles. wowzers. It's like I'm really in the minority report, guise

Change starts somewhere. And I see this as nice if you frequently go over a friends house. I won't recognize you the first time, but it will the next time, and thats cool.

Just seems like Nintendo and MS are trying to do new things. PS4 just seems more of the same, and playing it dead safe. For some reason, gamers are terrified of change, but thats another matter.

Like MS conference shutting down all the Kinect ready consoles lol.

I agree voice commands is not a thing you can use in a tournament with the opponent mic on... but yet a cool feature... not a that will change anything but cool.

I read and my comment stand.