Whether or not you own a Nintendo Wii, you’ve probably seen the commercials. Or know someone who owns one, and have experienced the gameplay for yourself. With that in mind, we all know that Nintendo intended for people to get off the couch and actually interact with their games on a whole “new” level. Sure, there’s some commercials out there that show plenty of folks sitting on their couch, tilting their Wii remotes all over the place, but with accessories like Wii Fit and what not, we all know where Nintendo was going with this. (And subsequently, yes, Sony’s Move is positioned in much the same way.) But, what about Microsoft’s Kinect?
From what we’ve seen of Kinect, Microsoft’s upcoming motion-based gaming peripheral, there’s a lot going on. Kicking, leaning, slapping the air, and whatever else game developers can think of to include in their titles. But, what about sitting on the couch? We know that that’s not Microsoft’s main goal, but obviously you’re not going to want to stand on your feet for all that long, playing your favorite running game (…), so we expect to still use Kinect while we’re taking a rest. And, sure enough, Microsoft has confirmed that the Kinect software fully supports folks as they sit on their favorite chair or couch, or whatever else they might be sitting on.
But, there’s a catch. (Isn’t there always?) It is going to be up to the game developers out there, apparently, whether or not a specific game, and not Kinect itself, supports you sitting on your rump to play that particular title. Basically, the experience has to be developed with sitting in mind. So, it sounds like you won’t be able to cheat (or sit) your way through those Kinect Adventures segments, after all.
So, are there experiences out there right now that are designed with sitting in mind? Sure there are. Navigating through the Xbox 360’s Dashboard, or example, is perfectly suited for you to take a break. Also, making your way through ESPN, Zune, and Video apps is also plenty capable of having you sit through the experience. Truth be told, we are perfectly happy with this result. The idea of playing Kinect while sitting on the couch, at least for most of the games they’ve shown so far (outside of Kinectimals) require you to actually stand up and be involved to truly enjoy it, so we’re glad that it’s going to be up to developers on how we interact with our titles.
Via: SlashGear
Published on July 8,2010
