Rumor: Microsoft Developing AAA Shooter for Kinect

[Scott Bullock]

Rumor: Microsoft Developing AAA Shooter for Kinect

If a recent resume posting is anything to go by, it looks like the Kinect might finally be going hardcore.

Sean Woods, the Art Director of the Vancouver Branch of Microsoft Game Studios, has a very interesting little statement tucked away in his resume. "Our studio strategy," it says, "now focuses on developing a core AAA shooter experience using Kinect."

It looks like all that talk about website [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105258-Microsoft-Announcing-Hardcore-Kinect-Titles-Next-Year] that it is "Dedicated to making games for 'core' gamers." Core games, you say? "Our mission is to push the limits of proven and unexplored game development and show the world what's possible on Microsoft's game consoles." Core games on unexplored Microsoft game consoles? It sounds like if anyone was developing a Kinect shooter, it would be these guys.

No official word from Microsoft has been released as of yet, but considering the push to get some titles hardcore gamers can appreciate on the Kinect (with games like Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor and Codename D coming out this year), it wouldn't be crazy to think we might soon be getting an official announcement out of MGS Vancouver.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27550727&postcount=1]



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[Woodsey]

So Kinect is the least suited to a shooter, but also has the potential to try doing something new... and they're making a shooter?

 

[gussy1z]

i hope you dont have to put your hands into the shape of a gun to shoot, then shout every time you want to shoot or something.... man that would suck.

 

[ZeZZZZevy]

I always imagined the Steel Battalion kinect game having a really interesting way to control, like you're in a cockpit pulling invisible levers and such.

Then again, these ideas always sound interesting on paper, in practice is a very different story.

 

[vrbtny]

I'm..... actually kinda looking forward to this..... anyone else?

 

[le picklez]

Kinect + shooter = hardcore?

Call me crazy, but I think that we may see our new halo title coming up...

 

[manythings]

So Kinect is the least suited to a shooter, but also has the potential to try doing something new... and they're making a shooter?

Should that picture gnaw at me so much?

OT: YAWN! Wake me up when the next insane kinect hack comes out.

 

[Woodsey]

So Kinect is the least suited to a shooter, but also has the potential to try doing something new... and they're making a shooter?

Should that picture gnaw at me so much?

Gnaw at you? As in irritate? xD I don't think so.

I was in tears of laughter the first time I saw it.

 

[Therumancer]

I'm kind of unimpressed, especially seeing as the shooter fans are not really the "core" or "hardcore" crowd, they are ever-increasingly a sub-set of the casual crowd. Where shooters were at one time cutting edge, and pretty hardcore, right now it's very much the stuff of the quintessential "frat boy" crowd, something where anyone can sit down and play them, and overpowered weapons like various shotguns and the infamous "noob tube" (not to mention the whole sniper issue and quickscoping) have done a lot to draw an increasingly lower human denominator into this type of game... a type of game which can also be developed pretty rapidly out of toolkits compared to other generes.

I don't think the shooters are really going to be giving Kinect a whole new audience, so much as providing something else for the current audience to do. I think the industry with it's "shooters are hardcore" attitude is part of the problem and shows how it really doesn't "get it".

Now, do not misunderstand this, some shooters CAN be hardcore games and attract and appeal to hardcore gamers. This is not always the case though. What's more most of the franchises that have sold TONS of copies in the genere do so by being largely for the more casual shooter crowd, as opposed to the more hardcore military sim crowd and so on.


To go after a hardcore gaming audience, they would need to create far deeper gaming experiences than what we're seeing now.

A good example of what an actual hardcore game might be like would be say developing a version of "Demons Souls" with the combat directed by the motion controllers, sort of like the current "fighting games" and "sports gladiator" things we're looking at now, but also involving character advancement, gear, traps, and a substnatial explorable world... along with fairly unforgiving difficulty and a punishing "figuring it out, one death at a time" mentality.

Such a game is easy to envision, and we've seen all the pieces of it that you'd need through an array of other titles. The problem is that it would require a fairly substantial amount of design/development work compared to other titles, and would also by it's very nature be something only people into gaming VERY seriously would get into given the investment of time, and the learning curve, compared to say shooting a few guys in death matches on your lunch break. This means it wouldn't sell as many copies as a casual title like a shooter or family sports game, even it it would wind up making a profit.

The issue is that the hardcore gaming demographic is outnumbered by the casuals in all their forms, and it's not about whether a profit can be made catering to a hardcore demographic, but the comparitive profit that can be made off of producing products for a casual audience.

That's my thoughts at any rate.

 

[Ben Legend]

How... how is possible? How do you move and shoot at the same time?

AAA Shooter = Time Crisis clone. (Probably)

 

[gussy1z]

Microsoft please make an RTS instead

 

[mjc0961]

i hope you dont have to put your hands into the shape of a gun to shoot, then shout every time you want to shoot or something.... man that would suck.

Plus, it would prove this magnificent son of a ***** right. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0puP8nrIU8&t=49s] But since it's KB, it wouldn't be too upsetting.

Nah but he's right. Killzone 3 was way better with Move, and between that and and PC, I had some real trouble re-adjusting to dual-joysticks when I got a copy of Halo: Reach. And I really have no fucking clue how they're going to pull this off on Kinect. Should be fun to watch though.

 

[manythings]

So Kinect is the least suited to a shooter, but also has the potential to try doing something new... and they're making a shooter?

Should that picture gnaw at me so much?

Gnaw at you? As in irritate? xD I don't think so.

I was in tears of laughter the first time I saw it.

It doesn't make me mad... it just... it's like some kind of encrypted message from another universe. It's just so odd.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Ok, this has made me wonder... what the hell even is a AAA shooter, or a AAA anything (minus batteries, I get those)? Is it some mega rich company making it that makes it AAA or is it just a tag like "hardcore" in front of "gamer" for an ego/profit boost?

 

[Woodsey]

So Kinect is the least suited to a shooter, but also has the potential to try doing something new... and they're making a shooter?

Should that picture gnaw at me so much?

Gnaw at you? As in irritate? xD I don't think so.

I was in tears of laughter the first time I saw it.

It doesn't make me mad... it just... it's like some kind of encrypted message from another universe. It's just so odd.

The more I think about how bizarre it is, the harder I laugh. Especially when you consider how determined he looks, despite wearing the mask.