Anton P. Nym said:
You have to wonder about all the nay-sayers here... I mean, if they were remotely close to a typical population sample the Wii would've tanked and there wouldn't be an Xbox 360 or PS3. I met their earlier generation while they were pooh-poohing those new-fangled pointing devices, what're they called, some sort of rodent nickname or something... oh, yes, the "mouse", which they assured me would never amount to much because serious computer users used keyboards.*
I'm not saying that Kinect is the next mouse... I am saying that the nay-sayers tend to follow the conventional wisdom and therefor miss the big changes.
I'll wait and see what happens before making any big pronouncements, myself.
-- Steve
* They also tended to be command-line interface die-hards equally opposed to MacOS and Windows 3.1. On that I agreed with 'em... which shows I can screw up big too.
a mouse required an extra 5 inches of space on your desk and you could still use a keyboard alongside it; i can see your point, but occasionally, in fact most of the time, innovations like these really do go nowhere. a mouse added to and streamlined the PC experience; kinect cant be used alongside anything else, it doesnt contribute to PC gaming, its a solitary and independent medium for it; one that starkly contrasts with the very appeal of PC gaming and the desires of its demographic. PC gamers are very much nothing like the typical population, and the wii and Xbox would have never seen the light of day if we had our way.
change is only good when its for the better. at best, kinect for PC (or kinect at all) is change for its own sake; at worst, its the harbinger of a major shift in what kind of games we can generally expect to be released. PC, for people like me, is the last remaining bastion of games that require more than 3 buttons to play; thats the appeal, the keyboard and mouse ARE PC gaming, the depth of control that all these buttons bring that a console controller simply cant replicate. kinect is not like the Minority Report interface, or leading to it, its a technological dead end that while impressive, has no worthwhile reason to be on the PC.