This Kinect Basketball Game Could Be a Living Room Catastrophe
Microsoft's Kinect system has had of casualties [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105089-Father-Kinects-With-An-Elbow-to-the-Face] both inanimate and alive, and this was just when you were merely waving your arms around wildly.
Majesco, publisher of the Cooking Mama and Zumba Fitness games, is looking to up the ante this winter with NBA Baller Beats, a sports/rhythm title that will be the first game to have the Kinect recognize and track an object beyond the player's own body. Yes, that's right - instead of merely pretending to be dribbling a basketball via a series of awkward bodily mimes, players will be actually playing around with a real, physical basketball in their gaming rooms.
The game itself actually sounds kind of interesting, to be fair. Players will be tasked to bounce the ball to the beat of the music, following a motion chart a la Dance Central, while performing on-court skills like shot fakes crossovers, and between-the-legs dribbles. So it sounds like on some level it could actually be used to practice or improve one's b-ball talent.
I just can't get over how monumentally bad the idea is to be asking basketball neophytes to be playing with their basketball in an enclosed indoor space with at least three pieces of sensitive electronic technology nearby.
(Joystiq [http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/story/2012-04-23/NBA-player-beats-video-game/54514042/1])
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Majesco's NBA Baller Beats will have players using a real basketball in their living room. Microsoft's Kinect system has had of casualties [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105089-Father-Kinects-With-An-Elbow-to-the-Face] both inanimate and alive, and this was just when you were merely waving your arms around wildly.
Majesco, publisher of the Cooking Mama and Zumba Fitness games, is looking to up the ante this winter with NBA Baller Beats, a sports/rhythm title that will be the first game to have the Kinect recognize and track an object beyond the player's own body. Yes, that's right - instead of merely pretending to be dribbling a basketball via a series of awkward bodily mimes, players will be actually playing around with a real, physical basketball in their gaming rooms.
The game itself actually sounds kind of interesting, to be fair. Players will be tasked to bounce the ball to the beat of the music, following a motion chart a la Dance Central, while performing on-court skills like shot fakes crossovers, and between-the-legs dribbles. So it sounds like on some level it could actually be used to practice or improve one's b-ball talent.
I just can't get over how monumentally bad the idea is to be asking basketball neophytes to be playing with their basketball in an enclosed indoor space with at least three pieces of sensitive electronic technology nearby.
(Joystiq [http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/story/2012-04-23/NBA-player-beats-video-game/54514042/1])
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