If every game were a Kinect game, I'd be a superhuman - Kudo Tsunoda

One of Kinect's unique selling points over other games is that it can "can teach you things that you can do in other parts of your life", Microsoft's perpetually sun-glassed auteur Kudo Tsunoda has told OXM.

Speaking in an OXM Special dedicated to the motion-sensitive peripheral, on sale 27th October, Tsunoda argued that Kinect allows you to participate in a game's story and universe in a "totally new way".

"I think some of the really cool areas are like... so one, just like we were talking about earlier, the possibilities in how you can change the way that an interactive narrative or interactive stories are told. Again, I just do think that enabling people to be active participants and compelling characters in a story that becomes very unique to them and their experiences with the world I think is just a totally new way and a new storytelling medium that I think is going to be very compelling.

"I'm super-excited about the possibility of gaming really being able to start teaching people skills that they can use in other parts of their life," he went on. "I think it's one of the unique things about Kinect that it can not only teach you how to play a video game, but it actually can teach you things that you can do in other parts of your life, that I think is just such a meaningful transition of where the videogame industry is heading.

"I think of all the hours that I've played videogames over my life and if every time that I played a game was actually helping me get better at something in the real world, I would just be like some sort of superhuman at this point."

"And I think what's great with Kinect; you can see games like Dance Central where... I just played Dance Central because it was fun, but before Dance Central I was a total crap dancer, you know? And now I'm actually able to go out and at least be good enough at dancing that my wife will go out with me and dance now, whereas before she was too embarrassed to do that. And it's like at least it's something that I've learned from videogames that helps me in the real world. Just seeing a lot more of that real world skills development I think will be great with Kinect."

We keenly await the first Kinect marital crisis simulator.

Kudo thinks the work of independent developers will be "hugely important" to Kinect. Microsoft has taken steps to foster homegrown talent, launching Kinect Fun Labs - an expanding collection of easy-to-use Kinect tools and minigames - over the summer. "This is just something we're starting to do now with Kinect Fun Labs and KinectShare.com - really enabling the University people and the independent developers to be a hugely important development force as to what the new innovations and the new experiences are going to be.

"And I think that's just something super-exciting; that Kinect has inspired so many different types of people to express their creativity through the Kinect technology and just getting those things for people to be able to experience. We're just going to see so much more of a variety of creativity and invention, and I think that's going to be a thing that really pushes the platform forward."

Tsunoda has suggested it may take years for Kinect to fulfil its potential. Microsoft is throwing its weight behind the peripheral, targeting one Kinect-capable Xbox Live Arcade a month in the run-up to Christmas.

Look out for the Kinect Special - which also features Diabolical Pitch, Fable: The Journey and Crytek's brutal first-person brawler Ryse - on 27th October.