Thu, Mar 31, 2011 | 03:34 BST
Rare has only tapped 15% of Kinect’s potential
Speaking at the London’s Institute for Contemporary Arts yesterday, Rare’s Nick Burton said the Kinect Sports developer had only utilised “10 to 15 percent” of the camera controller’s power.
CVG reports Burton described Kinect’s potential as “virtually limitless”.
The incubation software director enthused on the device’s layered infra red sensing, body point tracking and voice recognition, and said future Rare titles would utilise more of the camera’s functions, such as online connectivity.
Burton also commented that the Rare team is quite enthusiastic about Kinect hacks, and regularly tries them out in the office.
Burton’s comments suggested Rare has a different approach to Kinect than many creators, stating the the studio was determined to “make it conform to the player’s control, rather than the other way round”, and that porting core titles like Halo to the device might not work – but a specially designed game in the franchise could.
Kinect Sports was Rare’s most recent release. The Microsoft-owned developer is known for Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Banjo Kazooie.
Thanks, D’toid.
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Posted in: Development, Kinect, Microsoft, Xbox 360
Tags: Nick Burton, rare
14 comments
#1
G1GAHURTZ
31/03/11, 3:40 am
Surely they can squeeze another 26.14% of potential out within the next 18 months if they really go for it…
#2
DeathJynx
31/03/11, 6:16 am
Didn’t Rare used to be a nintendo studio?
#3
Zurtech
31/03/11, 7:45 am
The headline could also read “MS has only tapped 15% of Rare’s potential” too and be right.
#4
Gekidami
31/03/11, 7:52 am
^ Nah, Rare ‘tapped out’ ages ago.
#5
Zurtech
31/03/11, 8:04 am
@4
I’ve still got 10-15% potential hope left they’ll make a proper game… sometime. -_^
#6
DrDamn
31/03/11, 9:30 am
@2
Errr, where have you been?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/article_46707
23 September, 2002
#7
DeathJynx
31/03/11, 10:10 am
Well, in 2002 I didn’t really care who made what. I must say though. Rare made about 80% of my all time favorite nintendo games and I have despised all their x box titles…
Thank you for the link though. Explains a lot to me as far as franchise history goes. Perfect dark makes me so sad…
#8
Shonak
31/03/11, 10:21 am
@5: Haha, I am with you on this one.
#9
DocCylon
31/03/11, 12:43 pm
Ah Rare, such wasted talent these days.
#10
Cygnar
31/03/11, 5:40 pm
If memory serves, Kinect does not contain an on-board processor. If there’s no processor to use, Rare isn’t really placing any ‘stress’ on the sensor to begin with. That makes the “10 to 15 percent” pull quote sound meaningless to me. The ‘potential’ of a camera sensor is even more unmeasurable than the ‘potential’ of a group of SPUs.
If Rare means that they only used 10 to 15 percent of the sensor’s functions, then shame on Rare. If the functions they’re talking about are available to anyone, they are available to an in-house developer like Rare; in which case Rare is now only telling us about how great Kinect is, instead of showing us.
I can’t play Rare’s hype. Maybe they should learn a thing or two from Peter Molly and start acting instead of talking.
#11
theevilaires
31/03/11, 5:53 pm
Dammit Cygar I’m about to start a campaign for the office of 2012 for you man. You’re like a polite version of me. You kill the softly and with those manners we could win presidency
“I can’t play Rare’s hype. Maybe they should learn a thing or two from Peter Molly and start acting instead of talking”.
^ VG247 POTY 2011 ladies and gentlemen!
#12
Ireland Michael
31/03/11, 6:04 pm
@10 Well said Cygnar.
Bogus claims are bogus. Rare hasn’t walked the walk in years, frankly.
#13
lexph3re
31/03/11, 6:14 pm
Yeah cyngar is a beast. Not much to disagree with this guy
#14
DeathJynx
31/03/11, 6:21 pm
All this is really making me miss being a kid… hearing that amazing soundtrack and then the Rare symbol popping up when playing all the donkey kong titles I loved so much. Hell, on starfox 64, my record start to finish was 32 minutes with no lives lost. Also love how they gave me an expansion card with donkey kong 64 so I could play it and perfect dark with no limitations. Man did I love that yellow cartridge…