Microsoft cancels Matter, Gore Verbinski's Kinect game

**Blacksite** · 03-08-2013

Matter, a Kinect game expected to launch on Xbox Live Arcade in 2013, has been cancelled by Microsoft. It was to be the first game developed in partnership with film director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Rango) and Blind Wink Games.

"Microsoft Studios is no longer pursuing this title," says a company representative. "We have no further details to share at this time."

Phil Spencer, Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, told Joystiq in June last year that Verbinski had pitched Matter as a means to instill and demonstrate emotion in typically motionless game players. A futuristic metal sphere, seen moving through a futuristic landscape in the game's E3 2012 trailer, represented an active control surface implemented through Kinect.

"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," Spencer said. "And [it was] his 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."

Blind Wink, which is attached to a film production company partnered with Universal Pictures, has not responded to requests for comment.

via Joystiq.

I guess you can say it didn't really matter. Seriously though, I still don't understand what the game was supposed to be about. Perhaps filmmakers should stick to making movies.

**Rapture** · 03-08-2013

Or maybe the Kinect could not be a piece of shit.

But seriously, I never heard of this. The fact it had no gameplay in the video should have been enough of a sign.

**DarkVincent07** · 03-08-2013

LOL ^

I remember it was teased at E3.

I know exactly why it was cancelled, it isn't a bro shooter. Microsoft only back those lately

**Blacksite** · 03-08-2013

Teaser trailers don't usually show any gameplay though.

I really just think they didn't know what they were doing. Nothing came out of Guillermo del Toro's Insane trilogy either and it's been almost three years since it was first announced.