Some people who look on the Kinect think it would be a better gaming device with some sort of handheld controller. That, as it turns out, is exactly what Rare creative director George Andreas thought when he first saw it
“We went over to see Kinect, called Project Natal back then. Really early hardware, held together with sticky tape,” recalled Andreas. “We were amazed by the potential, but what we had seen didn’t realize that potential, and it wasn’t until the flight home when were chatting that it sank in.”
“We were absolutely adamant that we needed a button, something with haptic feedback, that would initiate an action. It took a long time – we threw some prototypes together and then we saw you didn’t need one, he added. “We were very vocal to Kudo [Tsunoda, Kinect lead] at the time, and Peter Molyneux was as well, that you needed something in your hand.”
However, he eventually warmed to the design: “You end up falling back on the [gamepad] control scheme. It’s a crutch really.
Source: CVG
