While I agree that MS wanted to change how we consumed media I don't think it's fair to ay that gaming wasn't really a part of their plans. No one said you have to displace the controller, but it would be kind of nice to see voice or motion controls used to enhance that experience. Like I've mentioned before, I would have loved to have used voice commands to bark out on-the-fly line changes in NHL while being able to keep my fingers on the other key gameplay buttons. You could use stuff like that for just about any sports game when calling out plays and such, or when telling AI teammates what to do in a tactical shooter.wco81 wrote:If you look at the history of different controllers, none of them had staying power to displace the control pad.
We've had power gloves, the Wii wand, the WiiU tablet and so on. The Wii had some limited success but the fad wore off.
By the time the X1 and Kinect2 were introduced, the Wii and the Kinect1 had been around 5 years, so this notion that there would be some radical new gameplay mechanics to come because Kinect2 was an evolutionary improvement over the Kinect1 was dubious to begin with.
All MS could show were tech demos and dance games. The developers weren't inspired nor interested. The big games were selling millions of copies without having to support motion controls. The smaller developers would have to spend more money and limit their potential market in order to support the Kinect2.
Meanwhile, the Kinect2 like all other motion control schemes couldn't even match the performance of control pads because of the latency.
No matter how much they tried to claim that the K2 was about game innovation, the truth was that they hoped it would revolutionize non-gaming UI, the TV control and such, the way multitouch revolutionized phones and mobile devices. That was the home run they were swinging for, not redefining gaming but reaching the non-gaming audience and redefining how they consume media.
Now all they can do is try to salvage the brand and probably watch others try to bring new UI to the living room.
Here's yet another article making the same points mentioned in the Forbes article I linked to above. This one is a little more scathing. http://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-death- ... -all-lose/