14 DAY TRIAL // One of the people who have worked on the development of the PlayStation Move motion tracking system from Sony has said that the newly announced lightsaber simulation title which Microsoft is working for the Kinect add on will not manage to deliver a good experience to players.
Anton Mikhailov, who is a software engineer at Sony Computer Entertainment of America and worked on Move development on the algorithms which link the Move to the PlayStation Eye, has stated “there's no way Kinect can do a good lightsaber game”.
Talking about a possible lightsaber game resulting from a collaboration between LucasArts and Sony he says that, “It'll be damn better than Kinect's.”
Mikhailov says that Kinect cannot measure up to what Move can deliver because it lacks an actual physical controller that can give gamers a sense of how and where he can move his lightsaber, creating a connection between his physical reality and the virtual space simulated on the screen.
He added, “I'm not in the product planning division so unfortunately I can't tell you much more about that. We can overlay objects over the controller in AR. You've seen that in Start the Party, and swords are a really popular one. The fidelity is certainly there to do all sorts of Star Wars kid-style action. You can very well do the lightsaber.”
The Kinect Star Wars video game is set to be delivered in time for Christmas of next year and Kudo Tsunoda, who is the leader of development for Kinect, says that it will offer an experience that cannot be replicated on any other system.
Both Move and Kinect have been selling pretty well so far this year but both devices currently appeal more to casual players and lack more hardcore appeal.
A well developed Star Wars lightsaber title would probably attract a significant number of players to the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360.