Ideas for next Gen Controllers

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Wushu Panda

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Kyle Meadows said:
Wow, that's funny. I tell its a gimmick, and you got all butt hurt dude. Get over yourself. I didn't say anything offensive. Those links were long because they were Google links. That how Google images work. I do know what E3 is. I dare say I watch it quite a bit more than you. Its still a gimmick. A game is designed to played either with a controller, or a keyboard mouse setup. Do you realize the cost and extended development time required to incorporated full motion control into a game, nonetheless connect? A lot. It reduces profits buy a large margin. You want to call me a noob too? Cute, buddy. Its funny. Look, I really don't want to think that you're an Xbox fanboy, so please tell me you aren't. But you need to realize if its tagged on, its a gimmick. The Wii is a gimmick. The Move is a gimmick. The Kinect is a gimmick. They aren't the future-- their experiments that will be incorporated into the future. Now, you honestly think I wouldn't take into account the twisting motion being done accidentally? Its called a prototype, even your precious Kinect had one. It was called playing outside. If you want to come in here and tell me that my idea I wanted to share with other is a bad idea, then say so. Tell me its a bad idea, and offer something constructive. If not, leave.
Exactly what do you know about profit margins? Do you even know a ballpark number that would cost Xbox to make a game compatible with Kinect? Or was "a lot" the figure you came up with from your expert calculations? A game is not necessarily designed to be used just with mouse or controller, there are already plenty of games made for the sole purpose of the Kinect that cannot be played with either aforementioned control.

Yea, I am calling you a noob. A noob would call entire platforms and integrated facial recognition a gimmick while they sit there and get all wet over their idea to add a spinning dial onto controllers. You have a pretty odd definition of gimmick.

I did say it was a bad idea. I told you that all platforms are largely leaning towards motion technology. Controllers have pretty much reached their peak, and turning them into a Bop-It, isn't going to fly over well with hardcore gamers. And if you think your controller would actually be anything but a non-selling third party accessory...then I'm not the one who should get over themselves.
 

Yellowbeard

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Wushu Panda said:
You're missing the entire point. They aren't gimmicks, Xbox has been working to develop serious games compatible with Kinect. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was revealed at E3 (you do know what E3 is right?) to be fully playable using the Kinect.
What, the same E3 that showed off that Kinect Star Wars game that was like Jedi Knight II running at 1/4 speed AND a rail-shooter? Yeah that was real impressive.

Wushu Panda said:
You know all those fun Sci Fi movies that show people interacting in virtual worlds using nothing more than vocal commands and body movement? Not a gimmick noob, its the future.
Lol. This just makes me think of the bit from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Zaphod Beeblebrox is watching the news and has to keep perfectly still in his chair for fear of accidentally changing the channel. Having said that, this is literally the only desirable use of motion control I can think of.

Wushu Panda said:
It doesn't make for that much convenience, the damn controllers have more buttons than they ever did in gaming history...and you want to add ANOTHER?
Hey man, my controller's got 104 buttons and it doesn't cause me any trouble.

bluegate said:
Doesn't matter what company, although some are already doing this, make your future controllers with an INTERNAL BATTERY.
Yeah, hooray for planned obsolescence, SCREW being able to use the controller once it's past its 1-5 year design life! I know I sure wish my N64 controllers had proprietary, non-replaceable, non-serviceable batteries!

Kyle Meadows said:
ravensheart18 said:
I miss the old fighter-pilot type controllers.
Can you post an image link for that? It sounds interesting.
What, you've never seen a joystick before?

Arkley said:
And let's not ignore its potential for a revival of the space-combat or mech warfare sim. How great would it be to be able to look out of the cockpit on the TV screen, and have your targeting computer, power readings and radar in your hands?
All that stuff is supposed to be in your HUD. Look at Freespace 2, absolutely everything you need is in the HUD.

Arkley said:
It's easy to dismiss this huge controller as Nintendo's latest gimmick, and hey - maybe all it'll ever be used for is gimmicky stuff, who knows. But its potential is enormous. It is the future of gaming, and gaming would be a lot better off if we realise it quickly.
I don't understand how needing to look down at your hands constantly to check another display is any kind of advantage at all. Pretty much everything you mentioned sounds like a big step backward, not into the future. You wouldn't make a keyboard into a flat, textureless mat so you have to stare at your hands if you wan't to have any ideas what keys your hitting...oh wait, idiots already make those. Why did I expect any different.
 

Arkley

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Yellowbeard said:
All that stuff is supposed to be in your HUD. Look at Freespace 2, absolutely everything you need is in the HUD.
Removal of the HUD typically facilitates greater immersion. Removing the HUD from the main screen in info-heavy games such as space combat sims not only means a lot less clutter on the screen where the action is, but also that even more info can be given, or the HUD elements can be shown greater detail without obscuring the aforementioned action.

Yellowbeard said:
I don't understand how needing to look down at your hands constantly to check another display is any kind of advantage at all. Pretty much everything you mentioned sounds like a big step backward, not into the future. You wouldn't make a keyboard into a flat, textureless mat so you have to stare at your hands if you wan't to have any ideas what keys your hitting...oh wait, idiots already make those. Why did I expect any different.
Taking a quick look down at your hands to view some info/your inventory/issue squad commands/use abilities is a lot less intrusive than pausing the entire game a dozen times a minute. Additionally, I already mentioned that another advantage of the touch screen could be customizable icon positioning - it's not exactly difficult to remember where you've placed the important icons. Even if they're not customisable, it's not exactly difficult to remember where things are, and even if you can't - as I mentioned earlier - a brief glance downwards is much less intrusive than pausing the entire game.
 

Mr. Omega

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From what I assume is the double-posting of this thread:

I actually think the WiiU has the right idea. WiiPlus motion controls, the standard four-button/dual-analog/four shoulder button layout in this gen and a touchscreen. Reports from people who actually have held it said that it's pretty good to hold. I just wish the thing was a little more pleasant to look at.

They key with this set-up, however, is that devs need to show restraint. Just because motion controls are there doesn't mean you need to shoehorn it in. If it works fine with the standard control layout, stick with it. If having a touchscreen would genuinely benefit the experience of the game, use it.
 

Yellowbeard

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Arkley said:
Removal of the HUD typically facilitates greater immersion. Removing the HUD from the main screen in info-heavy games such as space combat sims not only means a lot less clutter on the screen where the action is, but also that even more info can be given, or the HUD elements can be shown greater detail without obscuring the aforementioned action.
But for immersion in a space combat sim why wouldn't you expect a HUD? I wouldn't expect to pilot a combat spaceship without one because I can't exactly avert my eyes to check my afterburner reserves in mid-manoeuvre. Modern fighter jets have HUDs, combat helicopters have HUDs, Again, Freespace 2 is my golden example, with an customizable translucent HUD overlaid over an unobstructed field of vision. No auxiliary screens needed, but even if it did I'd rather have them as overlays. For more information or greater detail I'd rather use my big, high resolution main screen than a small one in my hands. How can a HUD obsure action where focusing your eyes somewhere completely different won't? Why do you think they're even putting HUDs in cars these days?

If anything's going to break my immersion it's looking away from the screen and reminding myself that I'm not actually in a cockpit...man I really want to play Freespace 2 again.

Obviously you can do whatever works for you, but I see everything as completely the opposite.

Arkley said:
Taking a quick look down at your hands to view some info/your inventory/issue squad commands/use abilities is a lot less intrusive than pausing the entire game a dozen times a minute. Additionally, I already mentioned that another advantage of the touch screen could be customizable icon positioning - it's not exactly difficult to remember where you've placed the important icons. Even if they're not customisable, it's not exactly difficult to remember where things are, and even if you can't - as I mentioned earlier - a brief glance downwards is much less intrusive than pausing the entire game.
Could be a matter of taste, but if I'm switching my attention from one screen to another I find it a hell of a lot faster and less disorienting to do it virtually on my main display and keep my eyes pointed in the same place. Touch and muscle memory with programmable controls (yeah, I'm a keyboard purist) is a lot faster than having to look first if when time is actually of the essence Besides, the main display is invariably bigger and of higher quality (or at least it should be).
 

Dyllbert

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Actually, the keyboard and the mouse are the best way to play almost every game (excluding platformers maybe, and racing for sure).
 

Yellowbeard

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Dyllbert said:
Actually, the keyboard and the mouse are the best way to play almost every game (excluding platformers maybe, and racing for sure).
Platformers are great on a keyboard. The first PC game I ever played was a platformer, and lots since, up to Prince of Persia.

Driving and flying are total bullshit with a keyboard, though, which is why we have so many awesome joysticks, wheels and pedals available.

Did I mention PC gaming is awesome?
 

Kyle Meadows

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ravensheart18 said:
Kyle Meadows said:
ravensheart18 said:
I miss the old fighter-pilot type controllers. Hand movement for direction and/or speed, trigger button(s) for firing/activating, Thumb buttons up top for additional activation butttons.

Yeah, I'm old, I know, but I still think they were better controllers, and it left your left hand open for another gamepad controller and/or keyboard interaction (depending on platform of course)
Can you post an image link for that? It sounds interesting.
Sadly I haven't seen many since Atari went under. They were popular after that as a specialized controller in PC based flight sims for a while, but those seem to have disappeard to. There is a picture of one using the Atari standard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joystick

To me it was very intuitive. It still works for fighter pilots/aircraft today, even with all their fancy toys. I'm not sure why the current standard controller is so popular.
I like how insanely bad ass that is. If t could be simplified and then, like you said, have a second extension for the other hand, it would be beastly. Of course, this would require both be secured properly.
 

everythingbeeps

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Controllers are fine. It ain't broke, don't fix it. That twisting thing of yours will cause more problems than it fixes.

If you want more buttons, that's one thing. I don't think we need more, but I'm sure they could find a place for one or two more. But adding some stupid new gimmicky way of interacting with a controller...we don't need that. Motion controls are already threatening to ruin video games as it is.
 

Kyle Meadows

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Wushu Panda said:
Kyle Meadows said:
Wow, that's funny. I tell its a gimmick, and you got all butt hurt dude. Get over yourself. I didn't say anything offensive. Those links were long because they were Google links. That how Google images work. I do know what E3 is. I dare say I watch it quite a bit more than you. Its still a gimmick. A game is designed to played either with a controller, or a keyboard mouse setup. Do you realize the cost and extended development time required to incorporated full motion control into a game, nonetheless connect? A lot. It reduces profits buy a large margin. You want to call me a noob too? Cute, buddy. Its funny. Look, I really don't want to think that you're an Xbox fanboy, so please tell me you aren't. But you need to realize if its tagged on, its a gimmick. The Wii is a gimmick. The Move is a gimmick. The Kinect is a gimmick. They aren't the future-- their experiments that will be incorporated into the future. Now, you honestly think I wouldn't take into account the twisting motion being done accidentally? Its called a prototype, even your precious Kinect had one. It was called playing outside. If you want to come in here and tell me that my idea I wanted to share with other is a bad idea, then say so. Tell me its a bad idea, and offer something constructive. If not, leave.
Exactly what do you know about profit margins? Do you even know a ballpark number that would cost Xbox to make a game compatible with Kinect? Or was "a lot" the figure you came up with from your expert calculations? A game is not necessarily designed to be used just with mouse or controller, there are already plenty of games made for the sole purpose of the Kinect that cannot be played with either aforementioned control.

Yea, I am calling you a noob. A noob would call entire platforms and integrated facial recognition a gimmick while they sit there and get all wet over their idea to add a spinning dial onto controllers. You have a pretty odd definition of gimmick.

I did say it was a bad idea. I told you that all platforms are largely leaning towards motion technology. Controllers have pretty much reached their peak, and turning them into a Bop-It, isn't going to fly over well with hardcore gamers. And if you think your controller would actually be anything but a non-selling third party accessory...then I'm not the one who should get over themselves.
What really funny here is that you start of by trying to use my language to discredit me. Yes, I said 'a lot.' Big deal. What's dumb is your apparent assumption that it takes no money to add an extensive layer of coding to react in the exact way a control would by precisely detect human movement. This requires first that programmers spend days get the lines perfect, so that bugs and glitches are minimal. Of course, they need human feed back, so then they hire beta testers. These beta testers sometimes need weeks to locate all the bugs, and then they send error reports and fix them, and then retest, retest, and retest. This takes hours. Hours cost money. And all of that on top of developing the core game to work on two different platforms. Fun fact: They cut Future Soldier from the PC. They said because 95% would pirate the game. This implies that they can't afford that profit loss from porting it from consoles. Why is that? Certainly if they hadn't put all those man hours into testing and retesting the Kinect, they may have had incentive to do the PC version. And on top of that, the time and money spent on Kinect, even if it was never going to PC, could have been spent refining other aspects of the game and even adding extra content.
And I really didn't even want to dignify your second paragraph with a response, but here it goes: we've already had facial recognition software. If had it back into the early 2000s. This is fact. And yeah, I can gimmicks gimmicks. How many hard core games are on the Wii? Other than exclusives, not many. How long did it take the first Modern Warfare to hit the Wii? They re-encoded the whole game to Wii motion controls. The games that came out on PS3 have Move 'support.' The ones that were entirely move based did not do well over all. And while Kinect sold well last Christmas, there is a sharp decline in units sold this year. That's a gimmick. A controller you twist to pause to free up buttons on it for maximization? Much less of a gimmick.
And you want to talk about hardcore gamers? They hate motion controls. At least, the majority does. Ask an actual hardcore gamer how he feels about the Wii. If he has one, its for the exclusives or entertaining party games. You think they'd be bothered by having more buttons for combos, or more buttons to shoot people with, or buttons to perform actions with? You must think they're fine with standing up and and making movements to get their gun. A lot of us DON'T want that. Ergo, a gimmick. Gamers are always looking for ways to squeeze more from an experience. not all of them want a new one. So I suggest a twist-able controller-- and suddenly I'm wet over it by calling your precious Kinect a gimmick. Even my friends that love the Kinect say its a gimmick.
 

Dyllbert

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Yellowbeard said:
Dyllbert said:
Actually, the keyboard and the mouse are the best way to play almost every game (excluding platformers maybe, and racing for sure).
Platformers are great on a keyboard. The first PC game I ever played was a platformer, and lots since, up to Prince of Persia.

Driving and flying are total bullshit with a keyboard, though, which is why we have so many awesome joysticks, wheels and pedals available.

Did I mention PC gaming is awesome?
I did say platformers (MAYBE). And yes there are lots of great joysticks, etc... I just declined to mention them. And yes PC gaming is awesome, and the best, forever.
 

Joccaren

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Wushu Panda said:
Joccaren said:
The whole Sci-Fi thing is that, Sci-Fi. Yes, we are bringing some of those ideas into reality, but they don't function the way they do in Sci-Fi (You don't see people in Sci-Fi madly waving there arms about trying to get it to recognise they are moving, or take the correct command), and it will be cheaper to go out and do the real thing for a long time yet. Want a FPS with you as the controller? Play Paintball or Laser Skirmish. Racing game with you as the controller? Over here the local racing tracks will let you have a drive around for a small fee. Sure, you don't get the same areas as you will in games, but RL is far more immersive than any Motion controller will ever be, especially within our life span.

As to how would you sell a controller, the same way you sell a gaming mouse over a normal mouse: More responsive, faster reacting, easy adjustments that you don't have to learn actions for, you don't have to put as much effort into carrying out actions as you would otherwise, ect. There is always things that controllers with more buttons will do better. With the current technology, imagine playing an RPG and getting your character to cast the right spell. It would be horrid.

In present time, Motion Controls are a gimmick used to earn money of the 'Wow, I've seen this in Sci-Fi' mindset. If it is developed enough, it may transcend that and become a reasonable form of controller, but currently it is inferior in almost every way to conventional controllers, and I doubt the companies are doing it to push forward technology. They are run by bank checks, not well wishes for a Sci-Fi future.
They dont function like they do in SciFi...yet. The Tech JUST came out, it needs time to grow. And if I want a FPS with me as the controller i dont play paintball, i use real guns and go hunting.
Of course they don't function like they do in Sci-Fi, as that is Sci-Fi. Quite often there is some misunderstood science behind their 'innovations', and the differing arrays of motion controls in Sci-Fi provide a number of possibilities, most if not all of which I do not see working. The technology on the whole carries a lot of barriers that will take a lot of money to overcome. That money will come in part from the company, in researching ways to make it work, and in part from the customer - paying for that research and the numerous components they will need to have a properly interactive motion control system. In addition, so long as we use cameras, things like lighting and other motions in the room will be a problem. You can work towards fixing them, but problems with them will continue to pop up.
And if you want a battle experience against intelligent opponents, you will play Paintball or Laser Tag as shooting people with guns is generally frowned upon, except in war (But going out and getting a reasonable risk of death on some battlefield is not exactly appealing...)

You cant compare gaming mice to platform controllers. The mouse is only half a controller, you use a kayboard with a hundred additional buttons. How would a switch that opens up menus going to make it "less effort" into executing actions? And why would a switch that opens up menus allow your character in an RPG make them cast the right spell? When in all the RPGs Ive ever played...already do that. You arent selling something thats more responsive or faster reacting, or going to revolutionize controllers. Youre selling an annoyingly placed 'Select' button. A function that will easily break or interfere with the players hands when trying to hit another button.
You can compare anything to anything, you just don't compare them the same way. The comparison is how do mice and keyboard sell, when console controls are that much more comfortable (For some), has fewer buttons to worry about, and is without the 'problems' that a controller would apparently have over motion controls.
And why would a quick flick of a finger be considered less effort than waving an arm? Think about it. A quick flick of a finger, an entire arm movement.
Why is pressing one button, or flicking one switch (Not necessarily menus, though usually thanks to the lack of buttons on a controller) be better and more accurate for getting your character to cast a spell than waving your arms about or shouting in a specific way? Recognition. With the controller, it only has to recognise you pushed that button/buttons. With motion controls, there is, with today's technology, a pretty reasonable chance that it will think you have made a different motion, or said a different thing, causing you to potentially cast the wrong spell. That is something that would not make anyone doing a high level boss fight that requires a specific type of spell to kill happy, as they would have lost all of their progress because the game glitched.
The only way that hitting 'select' on a controller is going to interfere with hitting any other button is if you have clumsy fingers. I rarely - about twice a year - use controllers, yet every time I do I have no problems hitting the button I want to. When I use motion controls and voice recognition, it almost always picks up the wrong thing. Part of this is technological limitations that will be expensive for the consumer to overcome, and part of it is the differing nature of each individual human. I won't make a gesture exactly the same as you do. It will be similar, but with a few things that my body will do that your's will not, that we did differently whilst learning the motion. These things come to the forefront in motion controls, where the movement detections have to be generic enough that everyone's individual style of performing them will be recognised correctly, yet not so generic that it becomes easy to mistake one motion for another, or take any motion as a specific one. If such a perfect fit line between the two exists, we have not hit it yet, and likely will not for a fair amount of time.
That is the advantage controllers have over motion controls: There is less effort in moving a finger as opposed to an arm, and they are less prone to picking up the wrong command. They are things I do not see them losing to motion controls any time soon.

No one pushes technology for the sake of technology, unfortunately. There is always a main motive, but the progression of technology is a large bi-product.
Yet what happens with this and next generation motion controls when not enough people use them to satisfy the companies making them? They cease to be developed, and that technology grinds to a halt until some indie developer manages to get it working many years down the track. That is a strong possibility for motion controls with the large number of gimmicky games out at the moment. Companies are making some 'true' games motion controlled, but a great many people have been lost after that initial lot of gimmicks and shovel ware.
 

Gmans uncle

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DONT POST IT.... DONT POST IT!!!... NOOOOO I CANT RESISSSSSTTTT!!!!!

Yeah, I have no bloody idea. probably something with touch screens :p
 

gideonkain

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The controller has come along way, the left analog is superior to WASD for movement...it's true, an analog stick can have a thousand different forward velocities a keyboard has 2.

In a lot of PC games, the Left Shift is dedicated to Run which can be accomplished by simply applying more pressure to a analog stick.

The Right Analog stick is a joke when compared to the Mouse: auto aiming systems, curving bullets, the fact that Uncharted 3's gun play got brow beaten into submission.

With this in mind, the best next gen console would have a "left side" with a Analog and a clicky D-Pad and the "righ tside" would have to emulate a mouse.

Would a trackball work in a controller? In it's current incarnation, No.
But if it had some resistance I could see it being very effective
 

Conor Hildebrandt

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Kyle Meadows said:
So, I was playing Skyrim on my PS3. As many of you who own it know, the circle button opens the menu. Well, perhaps it is only because my controller is damaged beyond repair, but I noticed that if I twist it the right way on the right side the menu opens. So then, I had a thought: What if this could be incorporated into a next gen controller? Think guys: to open the menu no longer takes a button. Merely twist either side of the controller. That means every button can be used for an action, thus optimizing the players experience. What do you think? And do you guys have any other ideas?
This already exists my friend, it's called the Razer Hydra. I use this for Skyrim right now and the it's nice for navigating menus because you can just hold the left bumper then tilt your hand to go to whichever menu you need (Tilt up for level up, right for inventory, left for magic and down for map) and there are several other gestures for various actions such as jumping, crouching and sheathing your weapons. It's still early in development and most games you have to use the beta control schemes that sixense releases themselves but when they finally update it so you can update control schemes on the fly it's going to be the best controller for most games out there. It's hard to believe a motion controller can rival a mouse in precision but the hydra honest;y does.
 

ThePuzzldPirate

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I like that controllers as they are, just somehow split them in two halves have have them work wireless. If the Wii showed me anything, not having the controller scrunched in front of your body is amazingly comfortable.
 

Wushu Panda

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Kyle Meadows said:
What really funny here is that you start of by trying to use my language to discredit me. Yes, I said 'a lot.' Big deal. What's dumb is your apparent assumption that it takes no money to add an extensive layer of coding to react in the exact way a control would by precisely detect human movement. This requires first that programmers spend days get the lines perfect, so that bugs and glitches are minimal. Of course, they need human feed back, so then they hire beta testers. These beta testers sometimes need weeks to locate all the bugs, and then they send error reports and fix them, and then retest, retest, and retest. This takes hours. Hours cost money. And all of that on top of developing the core game to work on two different platforms. Fun fact: They cut Future Soldier from the PC. They said because 95% would pirate the game. This implies that they can't afford that profit loss from porting it from consoles. Why is that? Certainly if they hadn't put all those man hours into testing and retesting the Kinect, they may have had incentive to do the PC version. And on top of that, the time and money spent on Kinect, even if it was never going to PC, could have been spent refining other aspects of the game and even adding extra content.
I don't have to rely on your poor language skills to discredit you, however, if you cannot even proof read a forum post how do you expect to proofread schematics on your "prototype"?

When did I ever assume it takes no money to encode a game for Kinect? You try and use words like "cute" towards me as if you think you're coy. Yet you find yourself in a discussion, attempt to make a decent argument for your case, and instead of quoting actual figures to support your side... you simply state, "a lot". Like some 5 year old trying to describe how many jelly beans are in the jar. You seem to have general knowledge of how a game is created, but nothing more you couldn't of learned from checking out Wikipedia. I'm sure it does cost "a lot" of money, but where is your data that proves coding for the Kinect costs the company a tremendous amount more past the INITIAL coding cost?

I see you also do not know the difference between 'imply' and 'in my opinion'. Let me show you a real implication:
Fun Fact: 1 out of 5000 inventions have successful product launches. Black Enterprise, June 1, 1999.
This implies your little invention will fail.
And I really didn't even want to dignify your second paragraph with a response, but here it goes: we've already had facial recognition software. If had it back into the early 2000s. This is fact. And yeah, I can gimmicks gimmicks. How many hard core games are on the Wii? Other than exclusives, not many. How long did it take the first Modern Warfare to hit the Wii? They re-encoded the whole game to Wii motion controls. The games that came out on PS3 have Move 'support.' The ones that were entirely move based did not do well over all. And while Kinect sold well last Christmas, there is a sharp decline in units sold this year. That's a gimmick. A controller you twist to pause to free up buttons on it for maximization? Much less of a gimmick.
Yes we had facial recognition software back then. The first tablet PC was created by Microsoft in 2002 and wasn't really accpect until Steve Jobs brainwashed everyone into thinking he did in 2010. Im sorry, when someone states the obvious but not actually relevant I feel I have too as well.

Sold well last Christmas is an understatement. It sold 8 million units in the first 60 days on the market and shipped 10 million units by March 9, 2011. It won the Guiness World Record for "fastest selling consumer electronics device". [link]http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-As-Fastest-Selling-Consumer-Electronics-Device/blog/3376939/7691.html[/link]
This implies most people already have one and have not needed to buy a second. As for the gimmick statement, Kinect won T3's "Gadget of the Year" and "Gaming Gadget of the Year", additionally Popular Mechanics ranked it #2 in "The 10 Most Innovative Tech Products of 2011". So forgive me if I'm having a hard time drooling over something that spins to bring up menus...
And you want to talk about hardcore gamers? They hate motion controls. At least, the majority does. Ask an actual hardcore gamer how he feels about the Wii. If he has one, its for the exclusives or entertaining party games. You think they'd be bothered by having more buttons for combos, or more buttons to shoot people with, or buttons to perform actions with? You must think they're fine with standing up and and making movements to get their gun. A lot of us DON'T want that. Ergo, a gimmick. Gamers are always looking for ways to squeeze more from an experience. not all of them want a new one. So I suggest a twist-able controller-- and suddenly I'm wet over it by calling your precious Kinect a gimmick. Even my friends that love the Kinect say its a gimmick.
I know you "hardcore" gamer types. You're right, you dont like anything actually innovative or new. Probably because your intellect cannot handle the pressure of acceptance. Let me take this time to address your comment on CoD MW and Wii. I used to love the CoD series, but its gone downhill. It's become the Madden of FPS. Every single year a new one comes that looks exactly the same as the previous...and every year people act like a miracle happened. Im tired of cookie cutter games and it sickens me they do so well. Why did Nintendo take so long to accept CoD? Because they like to push the limits of their devices. Instead of making extra buttons to bring up menus, they developed 3D technology in a handheld device that doesn't even require glasses. Nintendo doesn't bother as much with fads because they're busy with actually making something new.