An Interview With a Real Live Kinect Owner

Alright, so last week it was decided that I would not be getting a Kinect, at least not any time soon, but I’m curious to see what “the folks” have to say, other than professional critics, and since I won’t be getting it myself to review, I decided to do the next best thing. I only know one other person who bought it at launch, my cousin, so I decided to ask him a few questions about how he likes it so far. I would put him in the “hardcore gamer” category, as he’s not like, a pro, but he has racked up a 60K Gamerscore, so he knows his stuff.

Below I’ve posted what he had to say about the system, but I want to hear from YOU as well if you’ve played and/or bought Kinect so far. Love it? Hate it? Let me know.

Where did you buy it?

I bought it at Gamestop, I traded in a few games to lower the cost.

What about it do you like so far? Dislike?

The tracking on the device is surprisingly accurate with very little noticeable lag. Kinect Sports table tennis is the best game so far, it’s very responsive. I wish there were more options for voice recognition, hopefully they will add more commands in the near future. Space can be kind of an issue with multiplayer, but I can play Kinect Sports in my room with only around 5.5 feet of room from the TV. Not as much of a problem as I thought it would be. For 1 player that is at least, I have to move it out to a larger room for multiplayer.

What games do you own/have you played?

I own Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports. Kinectimals looks interesting but I can’t see myself ever playing it and im not really interested in the workout games. At this point I only really trust first party Kinect games, 3rd party support is pretty weak as I expected.

What other titles currently released or announced are you interested in?

Child of Eden looks awesome as do a few of the recently announced games from Japan. I’ve got to reserve judgment on those for now because there really hasn’t been enough details released on them.

What’s a title you would like to see for the system that would really get you pumped for it?

Halo or Gears of War voice command integration with a controller would really get me pumped as far as hardcore games. By that i mean communicating with sophisticated AI by voice command. Gears or Halo squad command would be awesome. Casual games like a tennis game would get me pumped, I love tennis.

What’s the first bit of functionality Microsoft should add in an update?

First Microsoft should add Netflix support for Kinect. They should also add more flexible voice commands and work out some of the tracking kinks in early games. It’s never too distracting but something that can be fixed so things are more polished. Every once in a while in Kinect Sports your arm might freak out on screen or something like that, has happened a couple times but it’s rare (ha, pun).

Will it still be fun a month from now? Or is it like when you played Wii Sports hardcore for a week when it came out, but not really again after that?

I can see there being a lull until a few more games start to trickle out, though I don’t see myself getting sick of table tennis as a casual pick up and play for a while. Luckily I have Halo, Fable 3, and Brutal Legend to keep me entertained on the video game front if the novelty does wear off. I don’t think Kinect replaces controllers, it’s just a nice companion to regular gaming.

Will there be a sharp divide in the future between casual game systems like this and “actual” games that don’t rely on motion controls? Or will the two converge and this really is “the future of gaming”?

If motion gaming develops a way to immerse me into a first person shooter, then I think it will start to integrate with hardcore gaming. I kind of doubt that will happen, but Kinect with its voice recognition has a lot of potential to immerse players in future games, controller or not. If the big 3 don’t come up with a miracle I doubt that motion gaming alone will be the future of video games. For the genres that matter, such as shooting and RPG games, I don’t see motion gaming taking over. In the next couple years it will be interesting to see if the video game industry is creative enough to immerse people or if party and sports games will remain the limit for motion gaming. It’s really up to them, though I have my doubts, the videogame industry is still about making money first and foremost…

Alright, that’s what he had to say, what about any of you guys? Similar or different experiences?