Microsoft may have put themselves at a serious disadvantage in the gaming world with their decision to produce their Kinect motion-sensing game add-on with no handheld control component. That’s the opinion that Dr. Richard Marks, designer of Sony’s newly launched PlayStation Move, has expressed in an interview with Edge Magazine this week.
Marks reveals that he and the rest of his design team explored the idea of making the Move a camera-only component, but that the functionality was too limited and did not have all of the capabilities they desired.
“The reason we wanted to have something in your hand is because they’re so many more experiences which are enabled when you do,” Marks said. “You can use it for selection; you can use it to shoot with. It feels good when you swing something.”
When asked about Microsoft’s choice for their Kinect design, Marks was very quick to point out the device’s shortcomings.
“Buttons are irreplaceable as an input device,” he replied. “Too many buttons are overwhelming, but one single action button is very powerful feeling. For core games you really do need a set of buttons to quickly choose things. Trying to replace buttons with gestures doesn’t work very well.”
Apparently, Kinect game developers from Rare thought the same thing – until they experienced some of the later demos for the controller, that is.
"We were absolutely adamant that we needed a button, something with haptic feedback that would initiate an action. It took a long time - we threw some prototypes together and then we saw you didn't need one,” Rare creative director George Andreas told Edge earlier this month.
Of course, the real test for Microsoft is whether Xbox 360 owners will be able to learn to embrace the button-free Kinect style, and that’s something that we won’t know until the November release date.
