A cheaper Xbox One without a Kinect wouldn't promote innovation

Mar 18, 2014 17:41 GMT  ·  By

Kinect Sports Rivals developer Rare has talked a bit about the much rumored Xbox One bundle without a Kinect sensor and emphasized that losing the sensor would be a shame, as the console would no longer push the boundaries of entertainment.

The Xbox One came out last year and, due to its higher price tag and a few other problems, it has been losing in terms of sales to Sony's PS4.

As such, quite a few reports have appeared, alongside predictions from industry analysts, that Microsoft will soon release a cheaper Xbox One package that no longer includes the new Kinect sensor.

As you can imagine, Kinect Sports Rivals developer Rare doesn't agree with these rumors, as losing the Kinect and the technologies and mechanics associated with it would hurt the Xbox One.

"20 years ago, I'd have a team that would be going crazy if they had this kind of technology, now we have it and people are like, well, I don't want it, I just want my controller and my screen. It would be a real shame if we lost items like that," Rare's Executive Producer Danny Isaac told GameSpot.

Isaac then mentioned that any sort of technology will have detractors and critics, especially in terms of gaming, where rivalries are already quite strong, but real gamers will try to have all platforms and experience as much as possible.

"There will always be people who don't like what you do. If you are a real gamer, you get everything. You want to see everything, you want to experience all these different innovations. I just like to experience games. There's always something somewhere, whether it's on PC, mobile, or main console, which broadens my horizons and makes me a better game maker."

Losing the Kinect would also hurt the prospects of innovation in the gaming industry, as Isaac mentioned just how important such things are in terms of entertainment overall, comparing gaming with movies.

"So we get this thing and then we get these naysayers who say 'well I don't want it, I just want to sit there with my headphones on and play first-person shooters.' Great, I get that. But come on guys, we're a highly creative industry, we really, really are."

"But I think movies are doing more than we are in some senses--when you look at things like Gravity and other stuff--and it's like, we've got to get out of that, and we've got to be doing something, new things or people are going to go and find their entertainment elsewhere."

As such, it seems that at least with Rare, the Kinect has a strong backing, so who knows what Microsoft will eventually decide in regards to the sensor and the Xbox One.