So, if you listened to everything Microsoft said about Kinect compared to everything Sony said about PlayStation Move, you’d think they were radically different, diametrically opposing pieces of technology. But when we turn to an actual game developer, the story is much different.
Virtual Air Guitar Company is the developer of Kung Fu Live, a PS3 downloadable game that hits the PlayStation Store today. It says that, although the Kinect camera and PlayStation Eye are different, it really doesn’t change that much behind-the-scenes.
Kinect works by tracking key points all over your body, so it knows where your head, hands, arms, legs, and feet are. It then essentially builds a virtual skeleton of you and follows your movements.
“We’re doing a similar type of skeletal tracking and we are using a normal 2D camera, whereas Kinect has a depth camera, but the result is the same,” said the developer in an interview.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard a game maker unable to differentiate the two products. Fable designer Peter Molyeneaux and Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada have both done on record saying their companies look at Kinect and Move as nearly identical products.
Could it just be that for the last year, all this talk of new revolutionary ways to play, and completely new and improved technology, is nothing but a lot of marketing speak? What would Kevin Butler say?
