Xbox 360 'technicalities' holding back Kinect from full potential
Developer reveals that USB connection restricts Kinect, had to find alternative methods for upcoming game.
Kinect's a powerful piece of kit, but because of the Xbox 360's "technicalities", developers aren't able to make use of its full potential, according to comments made by Blitz Games founder Phillip Oliver.
"The Kinect camera is quite a high res camera," said Oliver talking to GamesIndustry.biz, "so we actually asked (Microsoft) that we have access to the higher res picture.
"But they can't give the full resolution picture, at the full framerate, because of the USB 2.0 connection.
"It's just the technicalities of the Xbox."
According to Oliver, the full resolution picture would have come in handy for the studio's next upcoming Kinect game Yoostar, which has the player acting out a selection of famous movie scenes.
But instead of scrapping the project because of technical limitations, Microsoft offered Blitz a solution.
"So what we said was, we just need to access a section, a piece of the image and bring that through in a higher resolution," continued Oliver. "Effectively a digital zoom. Which they gave us. That's an excellent feature.
"So now you don't even have to get into frame yourself. The camera can select the right bit of the high res picture and zoom in itself."
Solution or not, we can't help but wonder what other Kinect features may have been restricted because of the USB 2.0 connection. And we also have to ask why - we have an HD webcam set up here via USB 2.0, after all..
Oliver does expect Kinect to be a huge success though.
"I think it's a genius idea," he continued.
"I would say, because I think it to be true, that Kinect will be tremendously successful and it will show the future of what's required next, which hopefully will be a console which is using the same principles as Kinect."
Blitz' first Kinect game, The Biggest Loser, is available to buy now. Yoostar launches in February next year.
Xbox 360's controller-free motion sensing device Kinect is available to buy now for £129.99.
http://www.gamerzines.com/xbox-360/news/xbox-360-technicalities-kinect.html