Kudo: Kinect works with sitting, standing and "everything in between"
Kinect creative chief Kudo Tsunoda has told VG247 that sitting functionality "already works" with Kinect, claiming developers can create games played while seated right now.
Tsunoda's comments, made in Cologne at gamescom last week, come after an E3 rumour-flurry about the motion sensor's ability to "see" seated players.
"That's all stuff that already works with Kinect," said the exec.
"I think developers just try to tailor the type of experience they make for, 'What is the best thing for the user to be doing?' So, a game like Kinect Sports, where you're running down a track, obviously you're not going to be seated. You want to be standing up and doing that."
'Hey look. I invented standing up TV.'
Following an initial IGN claim after E3 that Kinect struggled with seated players, Microsoft Xbox production boss Aaron Greenberg commented to the contrary, saying the camera would work in any situation.
Tsunoda expanded, using Kinect's much-demoed dashboard functionality as proof Greenberg was on mark.
"Stuff on Xbox Live where you're watching movies, or listening to music, or watching TV: obviously, those are things that you want to be doing sitting down. I don't think anyone wants to be, 'Hey look. I invented standing up TV.' That's not really the most awesome thing, right? That's stuff that already works with Kinect.
"Sitting totally works, standing totally works. Developers can just build any kind of experience they want. If they want to do it sitting, great, they can do it sitting. If they want to do it standing, they can do it standing. Anything in between; it all works."
"It's not just standing and sitting."
Asked directly if developers could make games featuring sitting play "right now," Tsunoda said:
"Yeah. You can even see with what we showed at E3 with Kinectimals; the little girl could actually lie down on the ground to do stuff with her animals. It's not just standing and sitting. Anything from jumping, to standing, to sitting, to laying down on the ground: it all works."
Tsunoda and Greenberg's comments echo those made by Blitz's Andrew Oliver, who claimed at Develop in July that Kinect wouldn't work with players lying down by default, but it was possible to write bespoke detection code to recognise skeletal frames in differing positions.
While it appears that initial concerns about playing in various positions are to become a thing of the past, however, integration with traditional core content may be a little way out. Lionhead's Peter Molyneux dropped a not-so-subtle hint to VG247 in Germany last week that Fable III's promised Kinect features won't be included.
Fable III will hit the market on October 26 in the US and October 29 in the UK. You can listen to Kudo talking below.