High-profile game makers uninterested in Kinect and Move

Sony spokescomic Kevin Butler wants you to laugh at the mere thought of Wii’s “inferior” motion controls. Microsoft wants you to think that driving a go-kart with your hands is cool. But those are marketing guys. They HAVE to like it. What about the people who make games? What do they think? Some of the biggest names in games are giving the Move and Kinect a resounding “meh.”

Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada, who respected Microsoft enough to screw over Sony fanboys when by dropping Final Fantasy XIII’s PS3 exclusivity, is not showing so much respect to the Kinect. In a recent interview withVenture Beat, Wada said that while he thinks the Kinect is “interesting,” then followed with: “I would say it is no different from just the Wii.”

So, Sony fanboys, go ahead and begin the pointing and snickering. Oh wait, don’t go too far with that, because another one of the biggest figures in the industry, Fable creator Peter Molyneux, has made the same comments about the Move. He toldUGO, “I know Sony and Nintendo would argue that [the Move and the Wii] are different, but they kind of seem the same.”

So what does all this mean? Well, in spite of the fact that the people behind such hotly anticipated titles as Brunswick Pro Bowling say Move is"mouthwatering,” and that Kinect guy Kudo Tsunoda isso coolthat you kind of wanna buy anything from him, there may not be a cataclysmic shift in gaming like Microsoft and Sony are promising.

In the end, if people as high-profile as Wada and Molyneux are going on record as saying they don’t see any big different with the new motion controls, there’s probably not going to be a killer app for the Move or Kinect any time soon. After all, the two most warmly-received Kinect games at E3 were a dancing game and the spiritual sequel to a nine year-old rail shooter – not exactly blazing a new trail there. Could it just be that for the last year, all this talk of new revolutionary ways to play, and completely new and improved technology, is nothing but a lot of marketing speak? What would Kevin Butler say?

Jul 12, 2010