Buzz! dev: Kinect "a stroke of genius"
"We'd be mad not to look into it."
Buzz! maker Relentless Software is no longer shackled to PlayStation, and there's one piece of technology that has particularly caught its eye: Kinect.
"Of course I'd consider any game for Kinect. And the reason is because Kinect is amazing," Relentless co-founder and executive director Andrew Eades told Eurogamer.
"It's the exact right technology for now. It's given our sector a new lease of life. We'd be mad to not look into Kinect and what we can do.
"The Kinect audience that Microsoft is going after is exactly the audience that we've spoken about forever. Since we started we've said we make games for everyone and that's exactly what Kinect is about, making gaming available to anybody.
"The removal of the controller is a stroke of genius," he added. "People can actually have a go because they don't feel intimidated by this weird DualShock controller or the Xbox controller."
That's the reason Relentless developed the original Buzz controller for PlayStation 2 six years ago.
Eades wouldn't confirm or deny if Relentless was making a game for Kinect nor whether he'd talked to Microsoft.
If Relentless did develop a game for Kinect, a Buzz! game would be off the menu - Sony owns that IP. But what about family murder mystery game Blue Toad Murder Files, could that potentially be a Kinect game?
"Yeah in theory it could be, of course," answered Eades. "It would be really suitable for that.
"There's a lot of hurdles in practice, but why not? I mean I'd love to do it. I'd love to do it multi-platform but I think you'd have to get PlayStation and Xbox to agree with each other on that."
When asked about PlayStation Move, Eades sees one stumbling block: sales. Kinect, remember, raced out of the traps with eight million sales in 60 days.
Sony's been less forthcoming with Move figures; the last we heard was in November 2010, when Move had shipped 4.1 million units around the world.
"My only issue with Move is if it's got enough numbers out there - whether it's sold through to enough people to make it a platform that we could aim at," said Eades.
"The difference with Kinect is that it's big enough from its first holiday, and growing, that you can take a punt on it - and my conversations with publishers are confirming that decision.
"But we're still not sure if Move is big enough yet for us. I hope it will be, because my dream scenario is not to be partisan in any of this, it's to have available a bigger audience."
Let's not forget about Wii, the console with the biggest rectangle on the seventh generation home console sales chart - not to mention an audience that fits Relentless' remit.
"We have Wii capability here," Eades revealed. "It is a platform we're looking at.
"We find it slightly more difficult because we think we're a bit late to the party, if you like, on Wii. There's a lot of good, solid games out there that are sufficiently supplying our audience, our market. So it's a bit harder for us to come in and compete there."
Relentless Software has already branched out to PC with the release of Blue Toad Murder Files. The studio has also announced its first iPhone game, Quiz Climber, which will be published by Angry Birds powerhouse Chillingo.