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Microsoft has a new studio in Vancouver, working on a AAA Kinect shooter

Alextended said:
So yeah implementation like in that FPS video can occur, but I don't think many will consider it an improvement or valuable addition over standard controls, as most tend to stick to the mouse and keyboard alone on PC too.

Perhaps, but the difference is in PC games that's an exotic extra feature, even if you can use a normal webcam for it (frankly, I don't use mine for anything, it just sits there doing nothing). In a Kinect game it will most likely be a standard and well advertised feature that pretty much every Kinect owner is going to want to at least try out. Whether they'll perceive it as a valuable addition will depend on the implementation and vary from person to person. But there's no reason why it couldn't be a valuable addition to some games.


Galvanise_ said:
While true, is it good enough for a fast paced online FPS?

Games will be designed around the hardware, as is always the case. If it won't work well in fast-paced online FPS games, then we won't see it used in many such titles.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Can't see this taking off. But good for them before MGS guts them like all internal studios eventually have done to them.
 

JaggedSac

Member
Alx said:
I'm still waiting to see what they will come up with, though. I hope that one day a developer will fullfill my child dream of playing Tron with real gestures : throwing the frisbee (I mean, data disk), using it as a shield etc. It would still be a "shooter" technically, but an interesting one. :)
Other possibilities would be throwing spears, or boomerangs.

A Kinect Tron game should have been a given from day one. Story about real world character getting sucked into a virtual world and plays games. Marketing would have been so easy.
 

TUROK

Member
I have a Kinect, yet I have yet to use it. It would be nice to have a good game to go along with it.
 
JaggedSac said:
A Kinect Tron game should have been a given from day one. Story about real world character getting sucked into a virtual world and plays games. Marketing would have been so easy.
Oh hell yeah. Disc battles and light cycles.
 

TheOddOne

Member
TheSeks said:
Can't see this taking off. But good for them before MGS guts them like all internal studios eventually have done to them.
Why was this comment necessary TheSeks? I mean I know your anti-Kinect, but why are you still poppin up in these threads? Seriosly if somebody pulled that in a Move thread, you'll be all over it. Its wrong in the Move thread and its wrong here.
 
TUROK said:
I have a Kinect, yet I have yet to use it. It would be nice to have a good game to go along with it.

That's your problem right there - you won't find a good game if you don't even try to play one. Give it a shot, you just might like it.
 

Atomski

Member
Vinterbird said:
Hybrid. Control your typical movement via a controller, do headtracking for leaning around corners, hand gestures to command squad around, voice commands for initiating a planned attack and the likes.

The possibilities are pretty cool if people would stop doing the imaginary guns and pew-pew joke.
They seriously need to get stuff like this in games so I would actually use my Kinect.
 

Linkified

Member
I'm guessing whatever this is will have the brand label 'better with kinect' would love to have a kinect' yet don't have the room in my room.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
REMEMBER CITADEL said:
Perhaps, but the difference is in PC games that's an exotic extra feature
Despite how easy it is obtain, yes, people don't seem to get so into it. Kinect can be described as such a feature to the 360 itself. You can even buy TrackIR from the likes of amazon and the price varies from less to more than the Kinect. People just don't seem to see the value beyond niche genres and in even more niche ways.
 
Mr_Zombie said:
So... how do you describe what "real games" are and how people playing those aforementioned titles differ from people "who actually want to play games"?

You know exactly what he means. You all do. Whether or not you agree with it is one thing but everyone always pretending like they have no clue what someone's talking about when they say that is highly annoying.

He's asking for games that pretty much either won't work on Kinect or would be 100000 times better on a controller. Games from "gamer" genres, not dance/fitness/casual stuff.
 
InaudibleWhispa said:
We'll have to wait and see. If it's Kinect only, everyone will be on the same level so it will depend on if it's actually frustrating to play or not, but I don't think Microsoft would release a game of this type unless they've figured out a way to get it to work well (at least for the Kinect audience; I think the majority of GAF will be dismissive regardless).


And with good reason.

I haven't seen anything to convince me these technologies are going to be worthy successors to mouse/keyboard and controller.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Ickman3400 said:
You know exactly what he means. You all do. Whether or not you agree with it is one thing but everyone always pretending like they have no clue what someone's talking about when they say that is highly annoying.
What's highly annoying is to keep making such silly distinctions based on one's particular tastes and desires and superiority complexes. Yes, people know what he means, and they're obviously calling him out for it by asking for descriptions that will further point out how silly the distinction is rather than seriously feign ignorance as you seem to think.
 
Linkified said:
I'm guessing whatever this is will have the brand label 'better with kinect' would love to have a kinect' yet don't have the room in my room.

You probably won't need as much room for some hybrid games because they won't need to see your whole body and you'll probably be playing them sitting down, not moving around.


Alextended said:
Despite how easy it is obtain, yes, people don't seem to get so into it. Kinect can be described as such a feature to the 360 itself. You can even buy TrackIR from the likes of amazon and the price varies from less to more than the Kinect. People just don't see a value beyond niche genres.

Kinect has a far stronger visibility than TrackIR or even normal webcams; it's a cool thing to have right now. It also doesn't seem to have a problem selling to both completely new people and existing Xbox 360 owners. The install base is already large, and it's only going to grow when all those games finally start appearing so I don't see any problem there. Kinect owners are hungry for new games, especially those offering something new in the console space. This should be able to find its audience easily, providing it's a quality experience.
 

Sydle

Member
MTMBStudios said:
b : an illegal or shady scheme or maneuver
I guess that really does fit the Kinect.

A comment like this doesn't help anyone here, including yourself. Explain what you mean by "real game" or just GTFO of the thread.
 

Mr_Zombie

Member
Ickman3400 said:
You know exactly what he means. You all do. Whether or not you agree with it is one thing but everyone always pretending like they have no clue what someone's talking about when they say that is highly annoying.

No, highly annoying are people who think that only games played by them and suited for them are "real games" and everything else is casual shit. Hence my question about his definition of "real game" and "real gamer".

Does Pong stop being a true game just because you use your palms or a motion controller instead of joystick? And why isn't a dance game "real game", yet no one questions driving games or shooting games? All of them require certain skills and all of them are just a simulation of real world activities., so what's the difference?

Should classic point & click adventures be called "casual games" from now on because most of them do not require manual skills at all and anyone can play them (even grandma)? Hell, lots of todays AAA titles hold gamer's hand through the entire game and are easy as fuck because developers want people to experience their high-budged interactive movies, and those games are still considered "real".

Making that stupid distinction makes absolutely no sense if you start to think about it. It's really depressing that, for example, a rail-shooter genre with gems like Virtua Cop and House of the Dead series, or even Killer 7, is now considered "causal" because some people like to think that "their" games are more "hardcore".
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
REMEMBER CITADEL said:
Kinect has a far stronger visibility than TrackIR or even normal webcams;
The same webcams that come built in with pretty much every laptop these days? I'm willing to bet way more people own a webcam than Kinect but I don't have numbers so don't quote me on that. It's just that they've been on sale from a ton of different companies for many many years for many many purposes. Yet no company has made substantial attempts to provide compelling software based around their capabilities, in any field, casual or otherwise.

Maybe many webcam owners don't even think of their potential outside video chat, but, I would think that if headtracking was so amazing for FPS most "hardcore" gamers would have been demanding support of such things from all the popular franchises on PC by now, resulting in extra availability and visibility of software and hardware tuned to that end.

TrackIR itself did try to get visibility in certain circles. It just didn't work so well. Perhaps because it didn't try to get visibility with Wii-like games but instead more niche products whose audiences seem to have by and large rejected it, resulting in that lesser visibility you observe, instead of have it explode as the next great thing for FPS or whatever genre, that everyone wants to have and use and only don't because of the extra costs (which aren't substantial) involved or something.

Anyway, yes, a Kinect FPS may find an audience. Of course, the same FPS might also find an audience outside the Kinect userbase for being a good game that happens to use Kinect. Liking that or any such single game doesn't mean people will also prefer this experience over standard controls for what it offers as a device. That's all I was discussing, what the device brings to the table, and that headtracking is nothing new, not if any game using that device can ever appeal to people.
 
Mr_Zombie said:
No, highly annoying are people who think that only games played by them and suited for them are "real games" and everything else is casual shit. Hence my question about his definition of "real game" and "real gamer".


No, you're still going about this the wrong way.

Evidence (i.e. most, if not all Wii, Ipad, Ipod, Kinect games) suggests that the input devices have a smaller degree of sophistication or complexity ultimately resulting in simpler games. (And yes, this bit is opinion ->) I don't care for them one bit.
 

TheOddOne

Member
Fallout-NL said:
No, you're still going about this the wrong way.

Evidence (i.e. most, if not all Wii, Ipad, Ipod, Kinect games) suggests that the input devices have a smaller degree of sophistication or complexity ultimately resulting in simpler games. (And yes, this bit is opinion ->) I don't care for them one bit.
No. What do you say about somebody who spends 100 hours on a Ipad game or a Wii game? So in what world does Mario Galaxy fit in?
 
TheOddOne said:
No. What do you say about somebody who spends 100 hours on a Ipad game or a Wii game? So in what world does Mario Galaxy fit in?

mario galaxy barely uses motion controls at all, and it's for fairly useless purposes. It uses traditional controls.
 
TheOddOne said:
No. What do you say about somebody who spends 100 hours on a Ipad game or a Wii game?

I'm not sure what you want me to say here.



So in what world does Mario Galaxy fit in?


One of the very few exceptions. Also a game that relied more on the Wiimote's buttons and analog stick than anything else.
 

[Nintex]

Member
Shiggy said:
Now that Microsoft Game Studios Twycross are busy with Kinect Sports, they really should try to find a new developer for that series.
Wouldn't it be Microsoft Game Studios Fazeley?
 

[Nintex]

Member
Shiggy said:
Are they doing anything apart from generic artwork and designs for Avatar-styled games?
Probably not. That reminds me poor Betteridge thought they were doing AAA games there. He must've been pushing pencils at that point and they simply forgot to fire him before opening the new studio.
 

Alx

Member
Fallout-NL said:
Evidence (i.e. most, if not all Wii, Ipad, Ipod, Kinect games) suggests that the input devices have a smaller degree of sophistication or complexity ultimately resulting in simpler games.

It depends on where you're looking for complexity and sophistication. With a different input system, you can create gameplays based on different rules.
Or would you say that this requires no skill ?
 

TheOddOne

Member
Fallout-NL said:
I'm not sure what you want me to say here.
You said that a game needs to have a certain sophistication or complexity to be considerd a hardcore game. I think thats wrong way to look at it, because at you can widen that category into sub-categories. Someone will always find something more hardcore then other and think the "dumbed" down version is wrong. Truth be told, the most streamlined hardcore games that people love could be considerd "dumbed" down expl. Mass Effect 2. The whole label of hardcore or casual is stupid. No game fits in either category, their just games.
 
It's weird that through brute first party force, kinect will be more supported in the shooter genre than Wii (where IR pointer controls worked wonderfully in every single shooting game that used them).

Even if this ends up miserable, at least they're trying, which is commendable.

Also I love the term "AAA".

I can't wait for next generation when we start talking about "AAAAAAA+++!!! WOULD BUY AGAIN" caliber games.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Evidence (i.e. most, if not all Wii, Ipad, Ipod, Kinect games) suggests that the input devices have a smaller degree of sophistication or complexity ultimately resulting in simpler games.
I somehow missed this gem. This can't be a real opinion. What exactly stops the Wii from having deeper experiences - which it has had from Nintendo (Galaxy, Xenoblade) third parties (Monster Hunter Tri) and ports (Call of Duty) - other than the willingness of the developers and publishers? The system itself has proven to be able to adopt pretty much any type of experience conveniently and intuitively, at least where its actual system specs, which aren't the subject here, don't stop it.

The same goes for iOS. As devices they're perfectly capable of rich experiences that feel right. Not every type of experience, touch controls aren't as versatile as what the Wii offers, but many of the hardcore PC experiences are completely point & click based, so they could also be improved with the multitouch capabilities. It's the market conditions that make publishers generally not put such experiences on them, but those market conditions are just, well, marketing powered and have little to do with the input method.

You misunderstand me. I'm discussing input/interface methods.
No, I don't, Wii has at least at times adopted "complex" games from systems with standard gamepads without losing absolutely anything in the process, with the examples I mentioned (and more, like RE4), at times added to the enjoyment, and that it hasn't done it more often has nothing to do with its control capabilities. You also stated the controls "result in simpler games" which is why I discussed deep, rich, engrossing experiences. By that I didn't mean to get obsessed with Angry Birds as you wanted to imply, I meant things like Baldur's Gate. Avadon is going to get an iOS release after all, and it's damn close in style. RPG, strategy, adventure, and other complex types of games that in fact can work better with touch or motion controls (not to mention FPS and such for the latter) than with a standard gamepad do exist, and you know it.
 
TheOddOne said:
You said that a game needs to have a certain sophistication or complexity to be considerd a hardcore game. I think thats wrong way to look at it, because at you can widen that category into sub-categories. Someone will always find something more hardcore then other and think the "dumbed" down version is wrong. Truth be told, the most streamlined hardcore games that people love could be considerd "dumbed" down expl. Mass Effect 2. The whole label of hardcore or casual is stupid. No game fits in either category, there just games.


Alx said:
It depends on where you're looking for complexity and sophistication. With a different input system, you can create gameplays based on different rules.
Or would you say that this requires no skill ?


It does require skill. But it's just remembering a pattern that's being tracked. Nothing dynamic about it. It's a game with no true agency.

@OddOne: I've never used the word 'hardcore', you did. You're right though that the debate is academic to a degree and applying labels is useless when you consider the breadth of the videogame medium. But I can say that the perceived dumbing down of Mass Effect 2 has nothing to do with the discussion here which is regarding input devices.




Alextended said:
I somehow missed this gem. This can't be a real opinion. What stops the Wii from having deeper experiences, which it has had both from Nintendo (Galaxy, Xenoblade) and from third parties (Monster Hunter) and from ports (Call of Duty) other than the willingness of the developers and publishers?

The same goes for iOS. As devices they're all perfectly capable of engrossing deep experiences that feel right with their interface. Many of the hardcore PC experiences are completely point & click based, which could also be improved with iOS devices' multitouch capabilities. It's the market conditions that make publishers not put such experiences on it, but those market conditions are just, well, marketing powered and have little to do with the device's capabilities.


You misunderstand me. I'm discussing input/interface methods. I'm not saying you can't have a 'deep experience' with Angry Birds, that's entirely up to whoever is playing that.
 

TheOddOne

Member
Fallout-NL said:
It does require skill. But it's just remembering a pattern that's being tracked. Nothing dynamic about it. It's a game with no true agency.

@OddOne: I've never used the word 'hardcore', you did. You're right though that the debate is academic to a degree and applying labels is useless when you consider the breadth of the videogame medium. But I can say that the perceived dumbing down of Mass Effect 2 has nothing to do with the discussion here which is regarding input devices.
Most controller based games are pattern recognition built, you might not notice it but its there. You can't have this discussion without mentioning hardcore and casual. That the input is different still doesn't disprove the point I was making. You get my point about not labeling games, but this also applies to games with another input/output.
 

Alx

Member
Fallout-NL said:
It does require skill. But it's just remembering a pattern that's being tracked. Nothing dynamic about it. It's a game with no true agency.

Well first it's more than remembering a pattern... most of the skill isn't in knowing/remembering what gesture you have to do, but in managing to pull it off with the right timing and precision. I'm not sure you could say that an ice skating performance is not "dynamic" for example, even if all the athlete does is his routine.
Anyway there's nothing wrong with being based on a pattern anyway, it doesn't remove depth or complexity, like I said it only changes the way it is implemented. In that game, you may not have the freedom of decision you would have in a 3D action game, but you have a much wider range of actions, compared to the few combinations of buttons from a gamepad.
 
MS finally opens up a new internal studio and what for, a pathetic kinect shooter.

My patience with MS is diminishing.
Wish they would just be outright and tell us they abandoned the core.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Huh. I've been interested in seeing what some devs will try to do with Kinect, but I'll be surprised if they manage to create a decent FPS with it. It would have to be on-rails and I can imagine it essentially being a lightgun shooter but you point your arms or your finger instead of a guncon. That doesn't sound very appealing. Of course, it could be a hybrid, but aside from head-tracking it wouldn't add much to the experience.

I'm more interested in Draco and the Suda games since they could (potentially) be something much more inventive and worthwhile.
 
Alx said:
Well first it's more than remembering a pattern... most of the skill isn't in knowing/remembering what gesture you have to do, but in managing to pull it off with the right timing and precision. I'm not sure you could say that an ice skating performance is not "dynamic" for example, even if all the athlete does is his routine.
Anyway there's nothing wrong with being based on a pattern anyway, it doesn't remove depth or complexity, like I said it only changes the way it is implemented. In that game, you may not have the freedom of decision you would have in a 3D action game, but you have a much wider range of actions, compared to the few combinations of buttons from a gamepad.

True, it's a choice at this point. You certainly can't wave your arms about in an online shooter. (Maybe someday).

...

But, and I'm sure most of you will agree, I would rather be doomed to play Counter-Strike forever than Dance Central. That sort of illustrates what I'm trying to get across here.
 
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