Microsoft's Kinect launched with the company telling gamers that their body was now the controller, and the first line-up of games relied on motion control exclusively for their game mechanics. This wasn't the launch of a new peripheral—it was Microsoft treating their new-fangled camera as an entirely new platform. The marketing message was clear: you did not need to hold anything to play.

This year's E3 saw Microsoft softening on that stance, and now a variety of games aimed at the core audience are treating the Kinect as a peripheral, an add-on that will bring extra value to a number of core games. With the hardware a hit, expanding the audience to hardcore gamers could go a long way to keep sales strong.

How Kinect will add options to your games

I sat in a Forza 4 presentation with Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt as he used the voice-recognition features of the Kinect to zip around the game's menus. He held up the controller and let us know that we could still do everything in the traditional way, but voice control can take you directly to the desired menu. You will be able to steer using the Kinect by holding your hands in front of yourself, but Greenawalt assured us that this was aimed at casual game players; full support for the controller and a variety of steering wheels would also be included.

The best use of the technology was the head tracking. While in the middle of a race, you can turn your head left and right and the Kinect will change your view of the race in a fluid, natural way, allowing you to look at other cars or to see around corners in a more organic way. It works wonderfully, and it certainly pulls you into the game. While you don't need any of this to play, the combination of Kinect head tracking and a controller will definitely give hardcore racers an advantage on the track.

During Microsoft's press conference, it was also announced that voice controls were coming to Mass Effect 3. Not only will you be able to speak the dialog options instead of selecting them via your controller, but the game will allow you to speak orders to your squad, telling them where to move and what powers to use when they get there. This is a quicker way to give orders than moving through menus, and will also work when you're controlling the game in the traditional way, with a controller in your hand. This is just an extra level of optional interactivity.

The last example of a game using the Kinect well came during a demonstration of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier from Ubisoft. In the weapon customization screen you can use the Kinect and move your hands apart, which will cause your weapon to expand into an exploded view, complete with each of the customizable parts. Using hand motions, you'll be able to upgrade and adjust multiple components of the weapon, or simply say "optimize for range" to have the game reorganize your favorite gun so it is more suited to longer-ranged combat. The whole thing had a very Iron Man feel, and you can even take your new creation to a firing range for a few quick test shots, fired by opening and closing your fist.

Opening more doors for gameplay

We played plenty of games that will only use the Kinect for their controls at E3. Some were fun, while others were terrible. Even taking away the games that use the hardware for primary controls, the Kinect holds a lot of promise when it comes to tracking the movements of your head and arms to add more interactivity to existing games, or merely as a way to add voice controls. The Kinect doesn't make sense for all titles, but the examples shown at E3 offer a few hints about what we might see in the future.

Microsoft has done a good job of treating the Kinect as a gaming peripheral instead of a discrete platform, and as long as developers focus on what works and what adds value instead of gimmicks, we're sure to see even better implementation in the future.