Rare: Kinect voice utilization is "magic" will be "more front and centre"

I'm not sure what it is about getting a job working on Kinect that makes you forget all gaming history prior to 2005. It's almost as if once you get the job, they hit you with one of those Mystery Men mind-eraser tools before sending you out to pontificate upon the hardware to the world.

Or maybe it's just the usual PR Marketing spin.  Rare studio manager Scott Henson is the latest to bring us this conundrum while talking to MCV. “We’re going to make using your voice much more front and centre – we’ve just scratched the surface on that. The ability to say ‘Xbox Pause’ and it pauses is just the beginning. It’s magic, but it should be just like having a conversation moving forward.

“We’ll continue to advance and continue to make it better for both your body and your voice. I would say we’ve only scratched 10 per cent of the possibilities of what we can do with Kinect.”

There is a lot of that to pick apart, the least of which is that Motion control real isn't a new idea at all, and voice integration has been part of Sony console tech since the PS2. To expand upon that might be interesting but I can't shake the feeling that not only is it a bad idea to have people jumping around and yelling, there really isn't so much one can do with voice other than give voice commands to video characters who will, only sometimes, understand what you are saying.

I can see little kids liking it though, and having an online pet that learns and responds to their name is probably where they are going with this.  Are you ready for Kinectamals 2: Voice Edition?

[Source: MCV via CVG]