14 DAY TRIAL // The creator of the Fable franchise and creative director of Microsoft Game Studios Europe, Peter Molyneux, likened the innovation factor brought forth by the Kinect motion and voice sensor to the one of the mouse peripheral released for the old Amiga console.
Microsoft released the Kinect last year and, since then, has sold a record-breaking amount of units, and is now being turned into an integral part of the entertainment services offered by the company, alongside the Xbox 360 console.
But while the device is no doubt a sales success, breakthrough games for it have yet to appear, most of the current ones relying just on simple gimmicks or mechanics already seen with the Nintendo Wii.
According to Peter Molyneux, who is currently working on the Fable: The Journey, exclusively for the Kinect, it's going to take some time before developers really get to know the device and start making experiences that use it to its full capabilities, while likening it and the Xbox 360 to the mouse and the old Amiga console.
"You know what? This is exactly like the mid-80s when we got the Amiga and we started playing with a mouse," he told Xbox World 360 magazine, via CVG.
"I can remember everyone writing about how the mouse is the worst thing for gaming and it took a little while for the development community to start exploring and experiment with it. But out of that exploration and experimentation came Wolfenstein and Doom and real-time strategy games," he added. "Before that we were all doing stuff with a joystick."
Developers need time, according to Molyneux, before a breakthrough game will be made for the Kinect, but, until then, he understands some of the skepticism from hardcore gamers who still don't think that the Kinect is a must-have addition to their Xbox 360.
"I think that any invention as big as Kinect just takes a while for us to get our teeth into," he said. "I agree with the skepticism from core gamers because there is no example yet of anything which is as dramatic or as exciting [as a game on a controller] or even an experience that lasts more than 15 minutes. When you get past the idiosyncrasies which every control mechanism has, Kinect is a wonderful device to innovate on."
Things are getting better, as Microsoft emphasized that the Kinect is becoming more and more accurate in its detection, so fidelity in games is going to increase from now on, raising the levels of quality as a result.