Kinect Sports, one of the launch games for Xbox 360 motion control add on Microsoft Kinect, has been shown off in public for the first time at E3. Developed by Rare studios (Legendary developer of GoldenEye and Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo N64), it’s eerily similar to Wii Sports, right down to a boxing mini game, using your avatar.
Microsoft will no doubt deny any similarity between Kinect Sports and the phenomenally popular Wii Sports for Nintendo’s rival console until the cows come home, but using your Xbox Live avatar to compete in a series of short athletic events which involved you flailing around the living room sounds, well, exactly like Wii Sports.
Still, Rare is one the most venerated game developers in the world, so Kinect Sports is at least in good hands. On stage at Microsoft’s E3 keynote, 200m hurdles was demoed, with two players sprinting on the spot and leaping to clear the obstacles, so expect to break a sweat to win.
Some of the other events in Kinect Sports were shown in a promo reel, including football, bowling, table tennis, boxing (sound familiar), and javelin and long jump. We can’t fathom how the latter at least won’t end up with you knocking over your flatscreen TV, but we’ll find out for sure when Kinect Sports goes on sale later this year. Hey Microsoft, how about you take another leaf out of Nintendo’s book and make it free?
Out 2010 | £TBC | Rare
