by Paul on Aug 23rd, 2013

Fantastic news, courtesy of Official Xbox Magazine. In a conversation they had with Rare’s Simon Woodroffe at the Gamescom show over in Germany, Simon revealed that since development has moved onto Xbox One, the directive handed down from Microsoft that Rare had to be a Kinect-only studio looks to have been lifted.

Rare’s newest title, Kinect Sports Rivals, is still controlled by Kinect for the majority but things such as menu selection are done with the controller. This change in focus was explained by Simon in a behind-closed-doors interview with OXM; “When we launched Kinect obviously there was a big focus on ‘everything must be Kinect’. Now it’s in the box, use it where it make sense, don’t where it doesn’t. It can be used in some really – not gimmicky ways, which is what I think you’ll see a fair amount of – but ways that actually really enhance the game. We’ve got some ideas for how to use it in the right way.”

What’s really great news for us Rare fans is that this approach of ‘Kinect some of the time, not all of the time’ is something that Rare want to take forward on future titles. When OXM asked whether this could lead to a new Perfect Dark, Simon replied, “Maybe! We’ve got an idea for that. It would be controller plus Kinect. We’ve got ideas for most older Rare IP, you won’t be surprised to hear. There’s quite a lot of desire to do that, and Viva Pinata, Conker… Banjo’s very popular internally, a lot of people want to do stuff with Banjo.”

I don’t know about you but reading that made my day. Such great news and if Rare keep on making encouraging noises like this I may have to eat my words and backtrack on my earlier stance of not buying an Xbox One. Head on over to OXM’s article for the full interview.

Categories: News