Gamers who consider their core hard have always thought of Kinect as just some gimmick Wii-successor that they'd never use because true gamers use analog sticks or fight pads or morse code or something. And maybe the first Kinect was like that. The Kinect 2 on Xbox One? Completely different. It's truly an extension of the controller without the constraints of a controller.

With Kinect, controlling the Xbox One is no longer limited by the number of static buttons on the controller. Imagine pointing at which enemy your AI partner should focus on. Or cycling immediately to your pistol or grenade with a quick hand gesture. Or motioning your troop to stop with a halt. Or cornering a turn in a driving game by leaning. Or calling for timeout in Madden like you would call for timeout in real life (okay, maybe that's a gimmick). And that's just what I thought of in 30 seconds. If you gave real game developers time? They'd blow away all the useless tricks we made fun of on the 360. We can't judge Kinect today without wondering it will do for us tomorrow.

So don't think of Kinect on the Xbox One as a Kinect you'd never use. And don't think of the Xbox One controller as the only way of controlling things. That's just needlessly limiting your view. They could stay different. They could become interchangeable. But they won't exist without each other anymore. A Kinect is now a part of every Xbox controller. Is that really worse than slapping a trackpad onto every controller?

I worry we've all been focusing on Xbone too much lately, so quick reminder: the PS4 share button is bloody stupid and I hope Sony explodes

E3 2013 is in full swing, and – against all odds – it’s actually featured a few rather interesting developments. But there’s also been a lot of blah. And some bleh. And a whole, whole lot of yadda yadda yadda. I’m at the show, and I’ll have heaps more for you soon. For now, though, let’s start with the cream of the crop, the nextest of the future-gens.

roryok says:

this whole post seems like a big whinge.