I know you hate Kinect, like many of the "gamer" community too absorbed into the current scheme to wish for any form of addition. But when my Father, who was an avid gamer until he had a stroke, could finally play a few simple games again no matter how paralysed he was on one side, it was instantly redeemed as a gaming device for me. Where before I would have to get a rubber band to press down the trigger on the Dreamcast controller and later Xbox 360 controller, to help him play a racing game (Full throttle or NOTHING! That's the way to live your life
), he could now play on his own again.
I do however admit that besides Kinect Sports and the Gunstringer, there are very few games that actually use it well. Outside of a few skilled teams it seems that the previous Kinect had some serious issues with resolution and input lag that only some first party developers could truly cope with. On PC, and on my university, we did use Kinect for various research projects. It is a very cheap 3D scanner and on PC you can push up the resolution because of a better USB connection. Homebrew and Research has faired very well with that, creating some really interesting stuff that can be used for gaming.
If MS learned from this with Kinect 2.0, they would be able to provide a better API to third party developers. So that the lag is far less and the resolution higher, thus faults in detection far lower as well. I know that this wasn't just an "API" problem, but also a bandwidth problem of the USB connection. It was however an API problem that the skeleton tracking was extremely lagging and prone to faults. For this reason many had to go to the low resolution raw image instead. The problem is that a developer like Rare, a pushing force behind the Kinect, knows the device very well and just switches to the raw images and makes their own API. Third parties do not have the time for it/wish to do that, and work with MS her own api's finding it very slow with Kinect 1.0 it made for some really poor gaming.
However, if MS learned from this, than they should release some nice titles themselves soon showing off what can be done. Keep in mind that I do not wish to replace the controller but to make it an addition. Something people in the "Gaming" community often seem to forget. They make it into an "exclusive or" rather than an "Inclusive or"
. Both values can be true
.
That is just my humble ideas regardingt he matter, this generation I will not be buying an XbOne or PS4. Their fanboys, especially the latter, have really ruined my idea of both machines. It is a bit like why I refuse to buy Apple, I have an old HP Touchsmart touch screen tablet hybrid. I use this for drawing and writing formulae on. The amount of times some NITWIT! from Apple comes to me complaining that it is an old big machine. That I should buy a MacBook Pro and if I need the touch-screen so bad... an iPad.. bugs the crap out of me. They are competently deaf for my arguments, as I need a PEN to draw and thus the Wacom Digitizer is a welcome addition. I do not want to draw with my fingers or use a low resolution Pen.
And lately Sony Fanboys and Xbox Fanboys have really been pushing that buzz of annoyance level, even overtaking the Apple Fanboy these days. So I'm a stubborn Northern European.. I then don't get either.
.
I just wanted to share my story a bit of a positive note with Kinect and that it can be a big addition to gaming. Especially for those that have a handicap or in otherways (Heavily autistic children for instance, without the intelligence to compensate) limited to play a game. It always strikes me as very harsh and selfish, when I see people rant about Kinect in the most cruel of fashions on a site like NeoGaf. Plus.. I suppose I like playing devils advocate
.