Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has said the release of Microsoft’s Kinect and the Sony PlayStation Move does not mean that gaming peripherals are over.
Speaking to Edge, Kotick noted that the two new motion-based controllers won’t completely cover all the bases for peripherals.
“If the fantasy is to unleash your inner rock star, you need a guitar, or you need a mic, or a DJ booth,” says Kotick.
“Kinect and Move are superb for dance games – we don’t need to make a dance pad if you have Kinect.
“So as long as we think a peripheral is going to deliver something that’s compelling and interesting and innovative we’ll support it,” said Kotick.
Kotick cited the Tony Hawk series as an example of this and revealed that Activision is producing new peripherals which will be released next year.
“For 10 iterations of Tony Hawk, you weren’t really skateboarding, it was… thumbing,” said Kotick.
“When we finally figured out how to build a skateboard – I think we probably could have done a better job on the first game, but I think we’ve nailed it on Shred – that experience, you just can’t duplicate it.
“To me, that’s moving the medium forward, and physical interfacing, I think, is a really important part of the future.”
“So, yes, we’re going to keep making physical interface products if we think that’s going to enhance the experience – and we have some really cool ones for next year,” he said.
Kotick was impressed with what could be done with both the Move and the Kinect, along with the potential of 3D, but felt that the Kinect is priced too highly.
“I think that 3D is super-compelling,” he said.
“The push has come from film but, personally, I find that live action in 3D is disruptive to the storytelling. But games in 3D are incredible.
And when you see bullets whizzing past your ear, or imagine you’re playing Guitar Hero over the internet and your bass player is right next to you, that’s a really great enhancement of a game experience.
I think 3D was made for video games, and I’m very excited about that. With Kinect… I love it as an idea, but [Microsoft has] got to get the price down,” said Kotick.
