“By taking the controller out of the equation, Microsoft has solved a problem that didn’t exist.”
Tom Chick, Fidgit
One question nags at me about the-technology-formerly-known-as-Natal: what’s it for?
Have people really been hanging out for a breakthrough in motion-controlled gameplay? I don’t think so. I think core gamers and the wider market alike are politely disinterested – in the legal sense, of “not having the mind or feelings engaged”. They may yet be convinced, but they’re not clamouring for this.
So what, right? Nobody knew they wanted a Wii until Nintendo told them. And this is, pretty clearly, an attempt to improve on the Wii. Microsoft is doing what Microsoft has always done best: take someone else’s successful idea and build on it.
But the idea they’ve chosen to build on here is motion control, and motion control alone didn’t make the Wii popular. Arguably, it wasn’t even the primary factor; just a means to an end. The Wii was popular because it made games accessible. It was cheap, friendly, obvious and not in the least intimidating. Motion control allowed Wii games to be self-explanatory: people could watch someone play Wii Sports for a split second and say, “Oh, that’s tennis!”, without ever seeing the screen.
I don’t know what people will make of Kinect. I suspect they’ll find it a little bit intimidating, a little bit scary and weird. Look at the sensor bar: it’s black. It looks expensive and technological. It stares back at you with a trinity of baleful eyes. And seeing it in use is like witnessing a demonic possession. How is any of that friendly and accessible?
There’s a line in marketing: “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” The sizzle, the hype, the idea is what gives products like the Wii momentum. Microsoft is trying to copy Nintendo’s success by copying its technology, and it can now justifiably say, “We’re better, see?” But the Wii was designed to sizzle, and Kinect doesn’t seem to have been designed for anything in particular. Microsoft has just cooked a better steak.
That’s not to be discounted: on the face of it, Kinect does seem to be a better technology than the Wii. But the people who really care about that, who digest the bullet-point details of the product and consider its benefits, are the enthusiasts: core gamers. And they’re showing few signs that they want this. To them, it’s the solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. They like their twelve-button controllers and twin thumbsticks, and they don’t see why they should give them up.
“I just do not want motion controls.”
Leigh Alexander, Twitter
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Tags: Confusion, E3, kinect, marketing
Here’s some timely anecdotal evidence: I’m currently in the uni library and I couldn’t help but overhear a group of students right this very minute talking about how the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are soon going to be “like the Wii. There’s going to be a PlayStation Wii”. And subsequently questioning what the point of that is.
More personally, the Kinect sensor bar not only looks expensive and technological, but its baleful stare also resembles a three-eyed HAL 9000: “I can’t let you play that, Dave.”
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mathias Poulsen, RedKingsDream. RedKingsDream said: New post: The doubtful promise of Kinect (http://bit.ly/a447dL) [...]
My main concern with motion control is the idea of being more immersed by not having a controller. To me, that is like saying a book is easier to read if it doesn’t have any words. Sure, there are books you can have without words, but it is also an incredibly limited subset. And it is the same with motion control. Sure, there are probably going to be some impressive looking games, like that Eden one I forget the full name of, but they are not going to be any more immersive than any controller-requiring game. Just more frustrating.
Besides, using your body is still using a controller. The only true “controller-less” games are movies.
Personally, I’m sick of ‘immersion’ being held up as the benchmark for quality. I don’t want to be immersed in Irreversible, Happiness, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Brokeback Mountain, or Boys Don’t Cry.
On the flip side, who ever cared about being immersed in Tetris?
Great article, Fraser. Because I appreciate your work, I just want to comment on incorrect word usage because it distracted me. “Disinterested,” even with your explanation, is still used incorrectly in this article. You meant “uninterested,” and the dictionary chimes in this way:
“A common source of confusion is the difference between disinterested and uninterested. Disinterested means ‘not having a personal interest, impartial’: : a juror must be disinterested in the case being tried. Uninterested means ‘not interested, indifferent’: : on the other hand, a juror must not be uninterested.”
So, the “interest” in DISinterested refers to something like a stakeholder’s interest in a company’s success, and UNinterested’s “interest” is like having one’s attention seized.
Anyway, that’s my message for the day. Sorry to detract from the game discussion.
Thanks for the tip, Bart. I went back to the dictionary to check the quote I had used for the distinctive meaning of disinterested – “not having the mind or feelings engaged” – and found the same definition listed for both disinterested and uninterested. Oops!
You’re right: I meant that people seem uninterested in Kinect, although without the implication that they’re actively bored by the idea.
Thanks for the contribution.