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Sega prepping core Kinect title

Western division head Mike Hayes pins late 2011 or early 2012 launch date for game using Xbox 360 camera in a "more sophisticated" way.

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When the Kinect launches November 4, the Xbox 360 motion-sensing camera will be accompanied on store shelves by a handful of games, including Sega's Sonic Freeriders. While the publisher's Kinect debut will be a new entry in its mascot spin-off boarding game designed for broad appeal, Sega has plans to use the Kinect for something more specifically targeting traditional gamers.

Sonic Riders may not be the Kinect-enabled Sega franchise core gamers hoped for, but the publisher has something else in the works.
Sonic Riders may not be the Kinect-enabled Sega franchise core gamers hoped for, but the publisher has something else in the works.

Speaking with CVG, Sega West president and CEO Mike Hayes said the casual-focused launch lineup of the Kinect was due partly to the amount of time game makers have had with the new technology.

"It is a reasonably complicated piece of kit, therefore it's going to take us longer to use all of those aspects in a game," Hayes told the site. "We're not going to be able to develop something [for the core audience] in under a year, which is frankly what we've had…We've got one good idea and hopefully something will be out the back end of next year, perhaps early 2012, which we think will use the aspects of Kinect a lot more originally and in a more sophisticated way."

Sonic Freeriders is one of eight games Microsoft is advertising for the Kinect launch and one of only three third-party titles. The other third-party games set for launch are Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and Majesco's Zumba Fitness. For more on Kinect, check out GameSpot's complete primer on the hardware, straight from the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

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