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

Q: You've talked about how Xbox Live has evolved. Do you see Kinect coming out with stuff that we don't know about at the moment but that will improve what's already there?

Kudo Tsunoda: I think that's exactly right. It's funny, because I think there's stuff that, just like you work on any project there's stuff that you learn along the way that you think, 'OK, well as we're updating this these are the things that we're going to want to do'. But then I think, also, there's a bunch of stuff (where) I don't even know that we want to do it yet and that we're going to learn as we go on and just continually add new features and new things to the platform that just give people different kinds of experiences and give developers more tools to make games.


Q: Is there anything in particular you'd like to see it do? Not that it can do, but that you'd like to see it do?

Kudo Tsunoda: I think at least with the sensor we're doing an awesome job with the 3D being able to track bodies and things like that. Even right now we have - and this isn't so much a technology thing but an experience thing - we've got the ability to detect things like fingers and stuff like that closer up to the sensor and just getting better design implementation that allows you to interact in a more granular way.


Q: You're obviously focused on the launch titles, but the Xbox has these big games like Gears of War, Fable, things like that. Which of those would you like to see embrace Kinect and come out with an offshoot with perhaps a controller/Kinect experience? Any particular game you'd like to see do that?

Kudo Tsunoda: I think there are things that you don't get. You just look at the awesome creative people that are on games like Halo and Gears. I'd never be so presumptuous as to say 'somebody should put Kinect into this' or 'somebody should put Kinect into that', but I will say that when I first came to Microsoft I was on Gears of War 2, I super-love that game, it's one of my favourite games of all time, and just from a personal standpoint - and I'm not saying anything about what they're creating or anything like that - I just think that would be an awesome game to see some Kinect stuff in, and it's such a talented team down at Epic that I'm sure they could do something great with it.


Q: Ideally, how would you like the community to embrace it? More than just 'it's pretty cool technology', how would you like people to come away thinking about it?

Kudo Tsunoda: I'll tell you man, this is the most fun thing for me with Kinect and why I love coming to shows like Gamescom. It's just really fun watching people play. People get such a cool happy look on their face and they're so excited getting in and playing the game.

Out of everything, to be honest, I don't know if you know but this whole videogames industry is a profit-making scheme. People are trying to make money off this. To me, I just think the fun part is my whole life I've been playing games and your whole life you're always playing stuff and you're thinking 'why isn't this like this', or 'why couldn't this be more fun' or whatever, and now it's just getting stuff into consumers' hands and getting the happy reaction. The cool thing is a lot of Kinect launch titles have this feature we call 'Show Off and Share', where the sensor will take pictures of you and videos of you playing the game and then you can post them up to Facebook or on the Internet or email them to people, and that's the stuff I really look forward to. Just seeing all those reaction shots of people playing and the looks on their faces because they're enjoying Kinect.

That's why I got into games in the first place, I want to provide that kind of fun for people. I think that'll be a super-awesome thing. Even coming here and going down to the pods they have, or we did the play day yesterday, just seeing people getting in and having a good time. I think that's a super-awesome thing any time you're making a game.