The Xbox One’s upgraded Kinect 3D camera isn’t just for tuning to TV or giving the National Security Agency an easy way to spy on you. The device can also tell who is holding the controller, and it can help the Xbox One automatically load your profile and preferences.
Speaking during the EVO 2013 fighting-game tournament (via IGN), Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Isgreen explained how the Kinect will improve tournament play for Xbox One-exclusive fighter Killer Instinct.
“Say there are eight of you and you just start sitting down,” said Isgreen. “I know a lot of people are like, ‘Ah! The Kinect camera in the room — I’m scared!’ But the coolness of being able to sit down, the controller pairs itself to you when you pick it up. It knows your buttons — it knows how you like to play. It knows what characters you want to play.”
Kinect on Xbox One is significantly improved over the original camera for Xbox 360. That means it can easily tell who is using a controller. Automatically loading profiles will save people the trouble of finding out that the previous player screwed up the button layout.
“If you have a character you love, it might select that character already,” said Isgreen. “Your buttons are already configured based on you picking up that controller. It knows it’s you, so it can do the leaderboards correctly. All that’s possible on Xbox One.”
The developer explained that this works even in the middle of a match. If one player starts a fight, then hands the controller to a friend, Xbox One will automatically change the controls.
Hopefully this means I’ll never in my life have to go back into the menu to change the Y-axis controls back to inverted after someone else was playing the wrong way.
“There are a lot of neat features we can start to do that you can’t do right now,” said Isgreen. “We can’t do that without having those kind of things built into the box. That’s one of the reasons we’ve kept them in. There is a lot of really cool stuff coming for it. Those are the kind of features we want to uphold for tournaments, online or offline. It’s going to be a big push for us.”
Xbox One is due out in November. Killer Instinct does not have an official release date.