The non-standard game interfaces discussion thread (move, voice, vitality, etc.)

I don't expect they have them now, but will once the contest is over. The contest doesn't start till August 12 & ends September 10. I wouldn't expect delivery until at least 6 weeks after that. That would put it within 2 weeks of launch.

Tommy McClain

 

They normaly set up a big kiosk in my mall during christimas. So I'm hoping they come with the kinect. We are one of the bigger ones.

 

Would the easiest thing to for phasing in bundles and clearing out a bunch of the people who are otherwise unsold on Kinect if they want to make bundles of the interface a significant proportion of Q4 sales be to introduce lower cost variants and flood the market with those before Kinect releases?

Say June/July is the release of the 250GB Xbox 360 S

August/Sept/Oct introduce the price of the Arcade at $150 reduce the price of the 250GB by $50.

November/Dec introduce new bundles at $199 and $299 respectively whilst leaving the $149 Arcade on the market as a low point of entry?

That way people who believe they are uninterested in Kinect can opt out by choosing one of the cheaper consoles without it and it leaves the permament option open for someone to buy the Arcade console and an external HDD and make themselves a cheaper 120 or 250GB console. One can assume the core could figure out how to install an Xbox 360 HDD, can't you?

 

I suppose sony and Nintendo's response would be,
"CAN DO MULTIPLAYER WITH MORE THAN JUST 2 PEOPLE." Given the nature of Kinect's target, people who'll be ahppy to stand to play their party games, I feel that's probably its biggest limitation at the moment. Has anyone seen figures for Wii use and 3+ player gaming? Is it actually an issue, or is >2 player gaming too niche to worry about?

 

The mean is 2.57 with just under 2.0 being the average number of adults in a household. I don't think it'll be that much of a limitation personally.

http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2003/tabAVG1.pdf

 

Family size is not a fully accurate representation of what's important for this target market, as for 'Party' games, you generally don't limit yourself to your 'core' family. There's going to be friends over, relatives, etc.

It's going to be very hard to find space enough where the camera can track four people at once, even if Kinect's driver supported it. You'd need to have four people standing next to each other within the view of the camera with enough space to move all limbs without hitting each other.

I think four player games are going to work better for games that don't use your whole body. Usually when you see Wii commercials for four players all sitting very closely packed on a single couch.

 

There's a lot of turn-taking for party games, though. There's a number of Wii games you can play with only a single Wiimote, by passing it around.

 

That's my thinking too. As I understand it, Wii is broken out when people come round and everyone has a go, so the size of the group playing the console could be anything. My question is when a group come together and are looking to console-game, are they generally playing 2 player games and taking turns, or do they prefer more players? *IF* the latter, Kinect won't have the same party appeal, but if people are happy spectating and taking turns, then 2 player won't be a concern.

 

It'll depend on the game. Anything that has a 'board game' function/appeal, will be more popular with 4 players at once. Buzz came with four controllers for instance, and almost always when we play that they're all in use. But a dance game benefits greatly from some people being able to rest and watch the others.

 

I am wondering if the minimum distance requirement for Kinect is increased with more than one player?

 

Apparently rumble isn't at all important as it wassome years ago (when sixaxis didn't have rumble)...

Kind of comical when you remember how important having rumble was for MS back then

 

for 4 players on move your looking at $230 ish correct ? We also know that some games wont be possible because the bluetooth in the ps3 is limited to 8 devices , one of them being the ps3. So you can have up to 7 controllers / head sets being used. So games that require two remotes or a want plus the nav unit wont be possible with more than 3 players.

 

I'm not fully surprised that you of all people think that casual 4 player party gaming would involve more than 4 wii-motes (or in this case Move's). So no, I don't think there are going to be four player games out there that don't at the very least support both a 1 Move and a 2 Move controller configuration per player (I think it is even mandated to be so by Sony for 2 player games, though I don't know if that still stands and/or if there will be exceptions maybe for 2 player co-op shooters for instance).

And yes, of course four players is still going to be expensive, but that's always been the same for the Wii. It's the same now, as one Move controller costs the same as one dualshock (at least over here it does). But as far as we know right now, Move with two controllers and the camera is going to set you back the same as two player Kinect gaming. So there is no price advantage there. Then going from there it is possible to invest more money into 3 or 4 player gaming yes, but you'll find that probably the majority of four player party games are played combining controllers from two systems/households. (Perhaps Microsoft could consider allowing you to connect two Kinects to one 360)

That's not to say that the situation is hopeless for Kinect 4 player gaming of course - Kinect can switch between two players pretty quickly, so there's a few things it could solve there. Four player tennis though is going to be tough.

 

I think (actually I'm sure) all Sports Champions titles can use either one or two Moves, at least for those that need it (table tennis is probably just one controller always as probably the discus game, but archery can be done with one or two Moves, the latter mode being more realistic, same for Beach Volleyball). No navigation controllers/dualshocks coming into the picture there. As far as I know though the navigation controller doesn't have any motion sensing, not even the stuff that is present in the dualshock.

 

how the heck do you come up with $230 for 4 players? A 4 player game will only require 1 move controller per person.

 

$50 per move controller is $200 correct for 4 people ? Plus eye toy is $30. So $230

 

It's a good thing you don't have to buy em all at once though, that makes a huge difference.

 

Or even buy them all yourself - if I was going to have a four player Move session at a mate's house I'd take my controller rather than expect him to buy 4, much as I take a standard controller now.