You don’t need a lot of imagination to guess how the guys over at sarcasticgamer.com talked about Kinect before they had the opportunity to try it themselves. Read on to get a glimpse of what they thought of Kinect, and I’ll throw in a couple of my thoughts on Kinect as well.

Question is: Could a presentation of Kinect Sports by the developer (Rare) at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival change the mind of Yamster, the sarcastic gamer in this plot?

Casual and Hardcore gamers

Yamster describes that Kinect has a casual starting line-up, and this is completely in line with the interview of Bashers.nl with the Dutch Microsoft Executive. This executive, and Yamster see that Microsoft is going straight for what we would usually call the “casual” market of gamers with Kinect, because it’s untapped for them at this point. More serious gamers already get their Microsoft fix and are guaranteed to play Modern Warfare 2, Forza III and Gears of War – everyone else is a potential new customer for Microsoft to reel in. Hardcore gamers are not too convinced about the casual line-up, and they shouldn’t necessarily be according to sarcastic gamer.

One of the, at first sight, casual games is Kinect Sports. After prototyping various ideas the sports title was chosen to be the one this time.  It seems like a no-brainer and it’s hard to imagine that such a standard title would succeed for the current Xbox audience, but it may help get the casuals on board for Kinect (as they are familiar with Wii Sports already). Although Rare is used to develop software for the launch of new hardware, they still have some convincing to do with Kinect Sports. Luckily for the serious gamer, the game is full of lovely details and surprises.

Kinect Sports Surprises

For example, when you’re doing javelin you first have to pick up your shaft by rising left or right hand, it’s that easy! Later you’ll notice that on the other part of the stadium different competitions are going on and finally when the spear hits the ground, the referee comes to the field and measures the distance. Same is for 100 meter sprint- while standing at staring line and warming up, you can move your hands and waive to the crowd, no weird button combos to memorize, just raise your hands. The crowd responds, and encourages your every move!

At the risk of sounding clichéd, it’s fun out of the box.

- A Sarcastic Gamer

Another surprising feature was that Bowling in Kinect Sports supports overarm throws. And if you want to throw left handed instead of right, just use your left hand and Kinect knows what you’re doing (without going through numerous menus to adjust the settings, that is). Rare told everyone in the room that there are a lot of these things that you would not expect in Kinect Sports: they make the game.

“Xbox Kinect might just win over the hardcore” special

While we might grumble at watching Kinect on a video feed on the internet, seeing it in person and trying it for yourself is a completely different story.

Concluding Remarks

Finaly, Yamster at sarcasticgamer.com, comes to the same conclusion as I: there is obvious plenty potential with Kinect. It’s surprising how such an standard title can tie you that much in, just because it feels so easy and natural to interact with.

The potential for Kinect is untapped as of yet since it is, of course, a brand new technology that people haven’t quite grasped yet as a device capable of things beyond what its launch titles show.

And with Rare commenting that they had still developed methods of controlling hard core like games like FPS (First Person Shooter) without the need for a controller, we are eager to see what types of games  the 2nd wave will bring us. In the meanwhile give Kinect a chance and try it yourself before you draw your conclusion based on the casuality of the starting line up. Do you consider yourself a serious gamer, and have you been won over by Kinect‘s charm?

Earlier today we showed a video of hardcore gamers and their experience with Kinect – check it out!

Thanks, SarcasticGamer.com