While many children, young and old, will be unwrapping various doodads and thingamajigs today, one thing a great number of gamers will be unwrapping is Microsoft’s Kinect. Microsoft’s answer to the motion control question has certainly been a popular commodity these past few months and will surely continue that trend through the holiday season.
With only a handful of interesting titles to boast at the moment, gamers might find themselves wondering what Kinect has in store for the future - and luckily Microsoft has provided a very exciting response.
Speaking with Xbox World 360, Microsoft’s UK Director of Xbox and Entertainment, Stephen McGill, said that beyond just delivering some exciting games, Microsoft has some big plans for Kinect owners.
McGill elaborates by saying:
Xbox Live has always been known for its massive updates that sometimes completely overhaul the entire experience, the most recent one accommodating Kinect’s motion sensors, and therefore it stands to reason that the company would begin to expand upon that foundation in order to blow gamers’ minds.
“It’s also about great entertainment and that’s another key factor for us. We were the first company - and the best company, I think - to offer regular updates to our service so you don’t have to keep on buying new bits of hardware. Every few months we’ve been doing new services such as introducing movies and music so we continue to evolve.”
What these updates could entail is anyone’s guess, as the early ones introduced voice control and controller-less navigation, but perhaps something a little more responsive is in the cards. Whatever Microsoft intends to do to keep Kinect a hot commodity well into next year’s Holiday season, don’t expect them to forget about the top tier titles of 2011 - but don’t expect them to place anything above Kinect either. McGill states:
Ultimately, it’s within Microsoft’s best interest to keep Kinect going with both exciting games and regular updates, especially considering their blasé attitude towards a next gen console. If Kinect really is their version of a “next gen console,” then it wouldn’t be surprising to see the types of regular patches/updates/fixes that Xbox Live was receiving early in its infancy. It certainly could help to justify the price tags doesn’t it?
“As for the future, we’ve got a brilliant line-up for 2011 but it’s ultimately all about Kinect. Kinect is going to blow people’s minds. They’re [already] buying it, but we’ve got a line-up of Kinect games that will blow people away.”
Would you be interested in picking up Kinect after hearing that Microsoft’s got some ideas in the oven that are going to blow your mind? Would you rather they keep their focus on games and put Kinect second?
Source: Xbox World 360 [via CVG]
