Dont judge Kinect on its launch software

Microsoft’s European head of Game Studios Peter Molyneux has urged people not to judge Kinect by its early software and instead wait until developers have had the chance to truly get to grips with the device.

We can do core games with it, we can do totally immersive games,” Molyneux told Joystiq. It enables us designers to do unique experiences that have never been touched before but that takes us time, it really does.

When we transitioned from the PC to the console with Fable, it took us five years to do that. And that’s just going from a mouse to a controller. And this is like going from a controller to nothing. I’m sure that’s going to happen. And I’m fighting for that to happen with Milo and whatever we do with Fable in the future. It just takes time.

I’m not saying this as a Microsoft person, I’m talking purely as a designer—I really truly believe that something like Kinect, changing that input device, could make us leap forward in the form of entertainment we make.”

Molyneux added that it’s this process that has to date prevented him from announcing a concrete intention to publish Milo on Xbox 360.

And this is one of the reasons why I’m absolutely vehement about not giving a release date for Milo,” he added. Because as soon as I give that release date, then I’m on this express train and it’s gotta get finished. And it requires so much artistry and balancing and tweaking and polishing.

However, when asked about launch titles such as Kinect Adventures the best compliment Molyneux could conjure was to claim that they’re pretty good”.

To be a launch title is very, very hard,” he explained. Actually, I’ve played a hell of a lot of Sports. And it’s pretty good. And [Kinect] Adventures is pretty good. Considering the amount of time [they’ve had to develop the games], I think they’re pretty good experiences.

I think anybody that gets Kinect that and buys those titles, they’re not gonna be disappointed. But they should really, really be excited by what comes next. Because that’s what I judge Kinect on, is what the next step is.”