Interviews// Gamescom 2010: Kudo Tsunoda on Kinect - PART 2

Q: Do you think there's more to be had out of Kinect than is in the launch titles? Do you think there are bigger experiences - you know, like Gears of War - that test the power of it?

Kudo Tsunoda: I think for sure, and I think that's just the way developers are with any new technology. The first round that you go with things, I think we're implementing a lot of cool stuff, but still I think developers - the better they learn the technology, the more variety in the way they implement it. Also, as we get feedback from developers the more we're going to evolve the platform and the features that we're going to have.

And you can see we've had demos of everything like scanning real-world objects into a digital world. We haven't really incorporated it into any of the launch experiences, but as a total feature of Kinect that I think's going to be really cool as far as personalising things that you're able to do (goes).

Things are a lot more to do with the character development, kind of like we talked about before. And those are just really things that are getting heard about from the first wave of experiences. But again, just like we talked about, I think the technology's going to evolve over time, we're going to add new features over time, and certainly even as you go forward with next-gen consoles and get more advanced with this technology, just totally new things will be possible.


Q: There have been some rumours online about a Windows Phone 7 tie-in. Is that something you're looking at?

Kudo Tsunoda: So, we're very focused on the Xbox launch right now and we're talking about our launch titles. But yeah, I think that's all stuff you could integrate into a multitude of devices, whether it's phones or PCs or anything that involves any kind of input - I just think it's so much easier naturally using your voice or using gestures. That's all stuff you could work into phones as well if you wanted to. If you worked in a company that did stuff like that, maybe something like that would be possible...


Q: Kinect's always shown off on high-up, wall-mounted TVs. Will it have any problems with different set-ups?

Kudo Tsunoda: No. You can move the sensor around anywhere you want. So, if you have a lower TV and you want to put it on top of the TV, that's fine. You can put it below the TV, that's fine. Anywhere you want to move it near the centre of the TV, that's totally fine with Kinect. Most of the reason is that when we go out and show stuff, you go to shows like this, if you go into the Halo room or the Fable room, everyone's on wall-mounted TVs, that's just the way they set up demos at conventions. That really has nothing to do with Kinect.

We do, obviously, a lot of testing in a lot of different types of housing environments. We've done a lot of stuff in North America, a bunch of stuff in Europe, a bunch of stuff in Japan, just to make sure that everybody's entertainment system configurations and living room configurations all work.

There's such cool stuff - you know there's a motor in the sensor? So, if you're playing up closer the sensor will tilt to get you into the perfect play space for you. If you're further away it'll totally align itself to where you're playing. There's things in so the sensor can see you in 3D. Games like Kinect Adventures will dynamically change how the game plays based on whether you're very close to the sensor or whether you're far away. So, it's like if you're going to stand up here [moves right up to a display screen] you can totally play this close to the sensor and it will change the game parameters and how the game plays. If you're playing back here [moves further away] it will change the way the game plays to fit that kind of space as well.

I think it's the great thing about the sensor being able to see everything in 3D like it does no matter where you're putting the sensor or how your living room is set up, the sensor and the technology can adapt to how you want to play.