Sony: Kinect is ‘Limited’; Ubisoft: Kinect is the ‘Future’

Hey, I always wanted to do that. Two contradictory quotes in the headline FTW!

Anyway, in what should come as a surprise to no one, Sony have apparently stated that Microsoft’s upcoming controller-less motion sensing peripheral, the Kinect, is limited, and thus, its future may not be as bright as Microsoft would have you believe.

Now, in Sony’s defence, they also said that the Eyetoy was equally limited, possibly more. However, in doing so, they very slyly likened what Microsoft touts as ‘innovative’ to technology that’s almost a decade old now.

Dr Richard Marks, who has designed the Eyetoy, and now the Move, had this to say:

“I think it depends if you believe that controller-less is necessarily better which I don’t believe,” he said.

“I created the technology for EyeToy which we made a controller-less device and it was really neat and it enabled new things but it is not the end-all, be-all in control, we entered limits with that and I think without a controller you run into limits of what you can enable. You can do things like track the whole body, you can have dancing and exercise but a lot of the core gameplay ideas that we want to see happen and want to enable just weren’t possible with only a camera. We would have done that, we look at as much as we could do with just a camera but it wasn’t the right choice we felt.”

So obviously, the Move is better. Yeah.

Anyway, French publisher Ubisoft disagrees. Speaking to Xbox World 360 magazine, Ubi’s resident Kinect expert Frederic Blais said, “I think [the future is] all about having no controller in your hands. The Wii was obviously the first step in that direction – a controller that looks like a remote control – but I think the future is about having a complete hands-free solution for the living room.

“At Microsoft’s conference they showed us how it could control movies and music and be used to chat to people all around the world. That’s where I’m seeing it utilised going forward – fitness, dance, entertainment, communication – all without anything in your hands.”

So Kinect is not only limited, it is also the future. Apprently, then, the future is limited. Gotcha, guys.