Rare built prototype button controls for Kinect

Microsoft's UK studio Rare originally made prototype button controllers for Kinect, as it struggled with the early concept of peripheral-free motion control.

According to Nick Burton, development director for Kinect at Rare, it wasn't until the first successful game prototypes began drawing a crowd in-house that it dawned on the team that there were multiple ways to interact without holding moulded plastic.

"I remember those first few weeks of us having the tech in November 2008, we were going 'but you've got to have a button!' To the extent that we built little buttons that you could hold in your hands, just to try it," he said in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

"The acid test turned out to be a couple of prototypes we worked out quickly. We weren't thinking about sports, these were just ideas we were chucking around for three or four days at a time. We had a little goal kick game that was to test accuracy of avatars and it worked well because we could place a virtual ball in front of the player. And at the same time as that, we realised that kicking doesn't involve a button, there doesn't have to be a button press.

"That was the shared moment where we realised we don't need buttons," he added. "At that point it really evolved for us. It turns out there are lot of ways to interact, it's just a case of finding the right way to do it for your product. It was interesting at that time to go from the assumption that we've got to have buttons to the realisation we don't need them."

Although it took a while for the game designers at Microsoft to throw out old conventions, Burton believes gamers will warm to Kinect much quicker, as the launch titles are built around instinctive actions.

"Once you say to somebody, 'that's you on the screen,' they realise it does what you do. If you show them a table tennis table and ball coming to them - even if it's a wireframe - they naturally move to hit it.

"It's in-built life experience. I think we've lowered the barrier because once a user sees himself on the screen having an effect in the world, it clicks. Sports is a no-brainer. You don't have to tell anyone how to play football."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ols-for-kinect