Kinect Sports Rivals: free updates will continue over time in response to fan feedback
Kinect Sports Rivals reviews dropped yesterday, signalling a middling reaction to the Xbox One's first-party Kinect-only debut. In a new interview, Rare has stressed that the game will grow thanks to free updated dictated by the community.
You can also check out my final Kinect Sports Rivals impressions to see what I thought. It's better than the first few games, but the Kinect concept still needs a bit of work.
Speaking with OXM, Rare studio head Craig Duncan said of post-launch updates, "The Pre-season trial was a nice little dry run of this, of how we can run it as a campaign. And it's really interesting because we leave quite a lot of open threads in the product, which I think people might perceive as 'oh it has a middle, but it doesn't have an end'.
"And the middle is really where we're going to let you create a Champion, level up and play these sports, we're going to introduce these teams and let you play for these teams, and really what our service will enable us to do is keep feeding the community and whatever's popular - so if team challenges are really popular, we can keep feeding more of those in, and if that gets really good engagement, that's something we'll invest more in and spend more time with.
"We'll keep adding things as free updates as we see how the community engages, and just see what we can do to make the game feel even better, because a day one user is very different from somebody who buys the game in June or July or August, and it allows us to keep feeding the franchise and allow it to evolve over time."
Executive producer Danny Isaac added, "Now we have this opportunity to keep nurturing it and enjoying it as it grows and I think our consumers they want that. You look at the mobile phone space - I think the platform is doing great. Obviously you used to do the Spring update, the Autumn update, now it's like - [if something needs changing], change it!
"I think, as I look at the industry as a whole I think people are battling for ecosystems now - your Apple and your Google and your Sony and your Microsoft, and it's more than just the box, it's the platform. And I think Microsoft are in a unique position as we have the best services in the world. We can harness that power and that energy and build that into our entertainment designs on the Xbox One - we'll be unstoppable.
"So yes we have plans, but its really important for us to listen to what our consumers say but also look at what they do, and the only thing that I know about my plan right now is that it's not right, and it'll be right by listening and seeing what people are doing."
We'll have details of new Kinect Sports Rivals updates as they drop. Stay tuned.