One simple thing Kinect can do to appeal to a wider audience.

What a cruel mistress you are...

What is this magical thing that can bring more hard core gamers into the motion controlled gaming experience?  Let's take a trip down memory lane first.

The Kinect for Xbox 360 released to some fanfare, but in the gamer community, mostly hate was hurled at it.  Honestly if my wife didn't want the dancing games, I wouldn't have bought one.  I want to try Rise of Nightmares (though the demo was clunky) and Fable the Journey at some point.  The voice commands were actually an improvement in the Skyrim update and who doesn't love saying the dragon shouts?  But by and large, there isn't a lot for core gamers on the Kinect.

Now with the Xbox One, we are having the Kinect included with every console, which may spark more use of it... Maybe.  Now that all Xbox One owners will have this on his or her tv, what could make the Kinect more gamer friendly?  

A Nunchuk.

Yes, this is for the Wii/Wii U, but make it wireless and alter the buttons... you get the idea.

 Just one little itty bitty analog stick for movement. That's it.' Rise of Nightmares is hard to navigate, because you're leaning and slowly walking and ugh!  If you made the movement based on the analog stick (with pause and menu buttons) you could use your motions for a list of actions and attacks (hell the stick/Nunchuk could have motion sensors like the Wii Nunchuk for extra control).

Movement is the number one problem in these games which has been tackled with on rails applications or leaning in certain directions.  These aren't solutions.  An analog stick is the only thing that could solve this situation and make core gamers a little less angry about having the Kinect forced on them in their purchase (watch used Kinectless bundles pop up in December at the latest).  At least my wife will get her dance on (probably me too...) until Microsoft takes this advice to heart... Which they probably won't (if you read this blog MS, sorry, I'm wrong, do this now!).

I could imagine a Kinect game where the analog stick moves your character and you grip things with your right.  Imagine Skyrim or Fable with object/weapon manipulation using your hand(s).  This has a lot of possibilities, but not as long as we are held back by rails and leaning.  Laters.