The initial reveal of Kinect’s launch lineup certainly wasn’t very impressive. While the games themselves were all but party games and minigames compilations, all very clearly Wii titles knock offs, they didn’t excel in the visual and graphical departments either. This has led many to speculate that the Kinect possibly uses up quite a lot of the 360’s power, leaving decreased space for graphic processing.
However, as per Ubisoft, this myth is bunk- Microsoft’s controller less motion sensing peripheral uses up less than 1% of the Xbox 360’s total power, says Ubi’s resident Kinect expert, Frederic Blais.
Speaking to Xbox World 360 Magazine, Blais said, “[The rumour that Kinect taxes the Xbox 360’s processor is] not true at all. I don’t really know how much I can talk about it but it’s less than 1%, or something like that.
“[The power requirements of Kinect are] so low we could apply Kinect to an action game and still put the same kind of action on screen.”
To that end, actually, Blais says that top of the line shooters are certainly possible on the Kinect. Whereas Microsoft themselves haven’t demonstrated any such offering in their first party lineup, Blais says it’s something Ubi’s closely looking at.
“I think that technology’s really cool when it’s faster than a controller, or you do something that you can’t do with a controller. These are the rules of Kinect design,” he said.
“Think about a hardcore game like Rainbow Six where you’re doing hand signs and stuff like that. It would be cool; it would be more immersive. We’ll have to see if hardcore gamers will be ready for that.”