[quote name='gantt']But go ahead and laugh at those ignorant consumers who don't know chroma key from a house key. The game's been half off at Target for nearly a week now, and still plenty of copies at the store I went to yesterday. Is Microsoft laughing with you at them? Not so much.[/quote]
I'm just saying, the game at its "lowest common denominator" is a gimmick. Of course they're taking advantage of people who don't understand how things work. But I was just pointing out how ridiculous it is to have these grand expectations when Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson are bound by these same limitations. There is no technology that just magically detects the outline of a human body and plucks it away from any background...under any lighting condition. You need good equipment and a controlled environment.
Using Singstar as a comparison is a bit unfair because Singstar doesn't do anything that could be deemed "amazing". A better example would be Lips' claim to be able to "use your own music" when singing. Once again, the uninformed are going to buy, hook, line and sinker, the idea that their CDs and MP3s can just magically have the vocal removed with unbelievable clarity and accuracy. Does it work? About as well as "You're In the Movies" does. Luckily, for Lips, it does more than just that, so it's not dead in the water like this game.
Ultimately, what they're selling is a party gimmick...and that's what you're getting. Were families who bought this game believing the commercials (which were obviously shot using better technology) swindled? Yeah, probably. But come on. Who looks at this game and says "Wow, I believe that's possible" without doing a little research? Honestly, I'm really playing devil's advocate more than anything because mostly, you're right. I just can't fathom anybody believing that they could spend $40 (or even $70) to do what movie studios pay thousands to do. In the end, it sort of works...and there are things you can do to make it better. That's as good as you're going to get.
