Molyneux: Kinect critics expected "way too much, far too soon"
The man behind Fable: The Journey, Peter Molyneux, has said we're only now beginning to see what Kinect can really do.
"It’s just like any piece of new technology or invention, whether it’s a bike, a motorcar, or a flying machine. We as human beings just expect way too much, far too soon," Molyneux told GameInformer.
"We expect the first wave of titles to be the most amazing, incredible things. We don’t think deeply enough about what actually can happen in the second and third wave of titles.
"Now the second wave is just coming, and we’re starting to realize that it’s very deep, it’s very refined, we really can look at the way you move and that’s what I love celebrating."
The veteran developer said it's easy, as a designer, to approach Kinect in the wrong way.
"The first thing you do is, you tend to be a bit lazy. You think 'How am I gonna get Kinect to do this, which is so easy to do on a controller?'" he said.
"That’s completely the wrong way to think. What Kinect is is a very analog experience, and what it enables you to do is deal with just how different human beings are. In Fable: The Journey, if I used Kinect and it forced you to sit a certain way and forced you to throw a certain way and forced you to emote in a certain way, I think that would be the worst thing I could do.
"The best thing I can do is celebrate how different you are and how analog you are and how the imprecision is actually a huge benefit."
Molyneux complimented Nintendo on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which he feels takes the right approach the Wii's controls.
"I think that’s the same thing, is that they’re celebrating the good things about motion controls and not focusing on the bad. I’m really, really enjoying that game," he said.
Speaking to VG247, Molyneux defused belief that Kinect's limitations led to the shelving of Lionhead's first Kinect project, Milo, saying its unusual genre was the real problem.
The full interview through the link above is worth a read; Molyneux talks about Syndicate, threatens to beat up the Bethesda team and praises an iPad game for having a horse.
Molyneux left Lionhead and Microsoft earlier this month for a new venture called 22 Cans. He remains a creative consultant on Fable: The Journey, a Kinect exclusive.