Kinect's Potential

Kinect is doing some sort of marketing strategy aimed at small children and grandmothers, which really is a bad idea because any small children and grandmothers who play games already have a Wii. Unfortunately all this does is give the impression that Motion Sensing Technology is for casual gamers.



But Kinect has plenty of applications for interesting gameplay. Here's an idea I had:

Imagine a game where, perhaps, you're a spy, or a soldier, or maybe just Joe Average. At some point you get captured or kidnapped. The bad guy, on your TV screen, points his gun at you, and orders you to put your hands above your head. You, living breathing you, must actually kneel and put your hands up or Bad Guy blows your brains out and you lose.

If Kinect can do everything they say it can, it should be able to tell the difference between arms up and arms down. The point would be to make you feel like you are the actual person on the screen. You yourself would be put into a position of vulnerability, so it feels like there's more at stake than if you were just lying on your couch eating potato chips.

Maybe at some point you get a chance to grab his gun, or run away, or otherwise escape. Maybe it could be like a quicktime event, but instead of pushing buttons you have to jump, or mimic opening a door. What Kinect should do is make gaming less a watching experience and more a doing experience. Kinect should be doing things that buttons, even waggle wands, can't do.

There's a lot of potential for this. I just hope they don't waste it all on Kinect Circus or Bobblehead Racers.