Those with sharp memories might recall a Kinect game that was announced at E3 last year, during the Xbox 360 presser, which simply went by the name Matter.
And along with the rather generic sounding title was the following trailer, which aside from looking like a combination of Portal, Tron, and a DROID commercial, was equally stupefying:
The key detail was how Hollywood director Gore Verbinski (best known for Pirates of the Caribbean) was involved. Though according to Joystiq, it's no loner happening. The statement from its now former publisher is fairly short and to the point:
"Microsoft Studios is no longer pursuing this title… We have no further details to share at this time."
Joystiq also goes on to quote Phil Spencer, Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, who in an interview from last year, who explained Verbinski's vision for the game:
"To a lot of people who haven't played games for a long time, somebody standing completely stationary with a controller in their hands kind of seems emotionless, even though we know that we'll be sweating or twitching… And [it was Verbinski's] feeling, that with motion and movement, that the connection of the emotion that's happening on screen and how the player feels would be more natural."
One can't help wonder why Matter was never meant to be. One cynical theory is how a Hollywood filmmaker, who had aspirations of singlehandedly reinvent ingvideo games, perhaps didn't realize how difficult the game making process truly is, due to certain biases towards the medium that crumbled during development.
Either that or Verbinski is too busy making movies. Among the projects he’s working on is a big screen adaptation of BioShock, which he will be producing.
