Cheers! I’ve recently bought a Wii set, and it is a really great system. PS2 graphics aside, it really gives you a different kind of fun from the PS3. And it is really enjoyable to play a game with the whole family, even adding a few relatives would be fine. A good choice to buy it so far, well so far that is.

The thing is, I have been wondering if my choice over Kinect had been a right one. Recently I saw a Kinect demonstration at IMM. People were playing table tennis (GO WII SPORTS RESORT!) with their bare hands. The funny thing was, their hands were shaped like a bats. This may look normal to everybody, but if you change your vantage point you would see something different. This controllerless technology isn’t really that controllerless after all. An irony hidden well between the lines.

Of course, this is very natural. Since time immemorial, people have had been using tools to do various things, from cooking to writing to even personal pleasure. It has been wired in our systems to use tools for majority of the tasks that we do. So essentially what the Kinect does is it detects the “controller” that our hands are trying to imitate. That is where the limitation of Kinect lies, at least that is what I believe.

Just think about it. While it would be easy to detect equipment like tennis rackets and baseball bats, the challenge would be at objects that have more detail. Take rifles and pistols for example. I am not a technical expert, but I believe that the minute action of one pulling an imaginary trigger would be pretty difficult for the Kinect to detect. This means that shooting games might be out for Kinect. According to Gamespot, shooting games account for 38% of the Last 12 Months Top 50 PC games. It also accounts for 40% and 52% for All Time Top 50 games for PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. That is one hell of a market that Kinect might be missing out on.

Onto the next lucrative market – Role Playing Games. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft series have been great hits, among other free to play MMORPG games like Maplestory and Dragonica. Even single player RPGs like Dragon Age: Origins and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are now all time classics. But imagining RPG games on the Kinect seems to be a little tough. While melee weapons like swords and staffs might be possible, the tricky part lies with ranged weapons. Bows and guns have the same problem highlighted earlier, and it is puzzling as to how one will control a mage. Perhaps a wave of the hand will cast frost bolt.

With so many barriers of entry for the Kinect into the top 2 markets, it really seems to have a tough time ahead. Right now my eyes are on PS3 move.

Recently, I have been wanting to purchase a new console.  I already have a PS3, so what I am comparing is basically the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox. Before I knew that Kinect was coming out, I was actually bent on Wii. I even have the picture of a Wii on my dreamchart. My estimated buying period would be around Feb 2011 and now the problem arises – Wii or Kinect?

Review of Kinect bby TechFast

I believe most people would choose Kinect on instinct. It has more potential, games could be more fun and seems to overwhelm Wii in almost every way. However, Kinect has just came out in the market. So the games for it could be quite limited, and it would seem that way for quite some time. The majority of the games resemble Wii in many ways, like MotionSports, Your Shape Fitness Evolved and Brunswick Pro Bowling. Basically it is the Nintendo Wii being released all over again, just that now it seems cooler and is cooler.

Personally I am quite a hardcore platform gamer, and the games that are released for Kinect currently does not attract me at all. If I were indeed looking for a platform for me to play games with my family, I would choose Wii over Kinect. Wii allows up to four players, while Kinect looks like it only has the capability of supporting two right now. Furthermore Wii is much cheaper than a Kinect set now, assuming that you do not have a Kinect Ready Xbox 360 at home. If you are a casual gamer wanting to spend more time with your family through a console, you would probably not want to spend SGD$400 more on a console that you would not make full use of.

Even as a serious gamer, Wii catches my attention despite its similarity to Kinect. Games like Call of Duty and GoldenEye 007 really have a different feel when you play it with motion sensor controllers, while Monster Hunter Tri is really enjoyable if you had played the Playstation Portable versions. Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime 3 come to mind too, along with Tatsunoko vs Capcom. On top of all these there exist the family-friendly Wii games, making the Nintendo Wii a console that satisfy almost everyone.

However, assuming that you do not already have a Kinect Ready Xbox 360 at home, spending the extra SGD$400 might be worth it. That is because you not only have a Kinect, you have a Xbox 360 too. You get to play games that PS3 doesnt have, like the Halo series as well as the Gears of War series. Furthermore I have a PS3 Slim edition, meaning that I cannot play PS2 games. For older games that are PS2 only, they tend to be on Xbox 360 too. So getting the Kinect Ready Xbox 360 is equivalent to getting a newly-born Wii, PS2 and Xbox 360 together.

With all these said, I certainly am not trying to undermine the ability of Kinect to grow. Honestly speaking, its potential is frightening. Imagine Marvel vs Capcom and Tekken on Kinect. Or the next Call of Duty series. A new Mirror Edge, anybody? One wonders how far the Kinect would bring us, but all these takes time, and it would be an estimate of 1-2 years at least. Till then, I think I would decide on Wii for now.

EDITOR’S NOTE

To placate all you PS fans out there, PS Move is defintely a strong contender against Wii. The higher accuracy of PS Move over Wii had won some developer over. For example, Harmonix, creator of the new Dance Central for Kinect, is considering porting the game over to PS Move but not Wii due to the lack of tracking data provided by Wii’s system. Finally, the motion controller battle has begin with now all three major gaming company having their own version of motion controller in the market. Who can move the gamers?

For those who think that Kinect is a new and innovative product, think again after watching the video below:

And why isn’t Sony pushing for controller-less system? This video below explains it.

Hear the truth about Kinect and Playstation Move by a guru in the video below: