I can't really think of any game - except of those party-thingies - where motion
control as it is done there, is necessary. Actually, i can't even think of a case
where it would be useful.
And that is because IMO, detecting the current "pose" of the player is about the
least important kind of input i can think of. I am very interested in new kinds
of interfaces, but the aspect which these "controllers" address just doesn't
matter much.
Let me explain this with some examples:
I've seen the videos from the "remote impact - shadow boxing over a distance"-guys
highly fascinated. I really want one of those things and someone to fight against.
Can those current motion gadgets do that? Well, the remote impact case is perhaps
the closest match for them i can think of. And yet, they cannot do it. They can
capture the current position and outline of players, but well - you provide no
surface to hit against - you don't want to punch the screen, do you? And as i
said, this is the closest case i can make for those controllers.
Next, we have games that would benefit from breaking free of the limited 4 axes
of traditional input controllers, and allow highly complex input intuitively.
Perhaps the best example for this, would be a swordfighting game, where the
sword actually follows your own hand movements.
Problem is: For this, you don't need something like kinect. This could be done
much cheaper with an input controller that just senses tilt and stuff. But okay,
let's give those new gadgets a chance: Can they do that? I doubt it. I strongly
doubt that they have the necessary accuracy for such a thing - unless that is,
you equip the player with a staff or something to help with the analization, but
if we already do that... uhm, you see where this is going, right?
What else do we have, hmm. Stuff like lightguns? Could work, but seems a bit
overkill to use kinect for that. In fact, a wiimote can already do that, and could
even do headtracking if used backwards (too bad nintendo banned devs from using
this amazing capability).
Did i miss something? Not? Well, thats my point: Controllers that can deal with
lots of input-axes intuitively may be useful. Controllers that allow the machine
to know your position and direction relative to the screen would be useful. But
all this can already be done with something like the wiimote (though, some of
those features are currently forbidden by nintendo).
So, controllers with more interesting capabilities - fine. Something like kinect?
Completely unnecessary and annoying except for those fitness and dance games.
Most of the motion controls are good but in terms of what they can do the kinect is better. It tracks better then the wiimote or move but it will be a long time before anyone figures out how to do anything inivative with it. Now the move should rule the market till then except for one major problem, you have to reset it everytime you play a new game. Once they fix that kinect will have a true fight on its hand but till then its only foe is the wii.