Kinect engineer investigating "natural conversation"

Rare's David Quinn, one of the most respected engineers working with Microsoft's Kinect peripheral, has said better speech recognition is the next evolution for the device.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Quinn said Rare had already started highlighting voice recognition in its work with the controller.

"We pushed speech pretty hard in [Kinect] Sports 2, but it was also a very say-what-you-see approach; in golf, you change clubs [by saying] 'four iron', kind of thing," he said.

"What I'd like to see and what we're investigating now is a more natural conversation way of talking to the Kinect, so you can say, 'Hey, caddy, give me a five iron,' or 'Hey, caddy, what should I use now?'"

Quinn nominated BioWare's Mass Effect 3 as a good example of how other developers are using voice recognition.

"I think is an excellent use of speech. You can use speech in Kinect in a more core title, and it really demonstrated that. I think from here on in you'll see a lot of speech in core games," he predicted.

Quinn turned his focus to voice recognition having already explored improved solutions to Kinect's skeleton tracking system and 3D depth sensor.