Sonic the Hedgehog has been one of the most prolific franchises in gaming, but one of its spin-offs met its end at the hands of the Microsoft Kinect. A motion-capturing peripheral that was supposed to bring new dimension to the Xbox, the Kinect ended up with a reputation similar to Nintendo's Virtual Boy. Before it was discontinued, it managed to bring down the Sonic Riders series.
Sonic Riders was a series of racing games featuring characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. Unlike cars or karts like most racing games, Sonic Riders equipped characters with hoverboards, hoverbikes, air skates, and other such gear to ride. That gave the series a unique hook, even though many people questioned why Sonic needed a vehicle to begin with. Although Sonic Riders wasn't as successful as Mario Kart 8, it was decent enough, and the sequel Zero Gravity was a step in the right direction.
Sonic Free Riders was released on the Xbox 360 and controlled with the Kinect, which was the game's primary problem, and one that proved to be insurmountable. Previous games had been controlled by their respective systems' controllers, and while not perfect, they performed just fine. However, many were wary of the Kinect for the same reason they had concerns over the Wii at release. When motion controls aren't used well in a game, they can completely destroy the player's experience. Unfortunately, while Kinect Star Wars was silly fun and a decent proof of concept for the peripheral, Sonic Free Riders on Kinect was an unmitigated disaster.
Sonic Free Riders Was Doomed By Bad Kinect Controls
Very shortly after release, fans and critics lambasted the controls of Free Riders. The game was completely controlled by the Kinect, which did not do a good job of managing the spin-off's gameplay. The controls were unresponsive to the point of basically making the game unplayable, and both old and new mechanics failed to impress. Sadly, Zero Gravity showed that the developers were on their way to ironing out the kinks in the gameplay, and another traditionally-controlled Riders game would have likely been even better. Experimenting with the Kinect reversed all of that progress and led to a game that was functionally broken, making it unsurprising that the Xbox Kinect would die a few years later.
After Free Riders garnered such a disastrous reputation, there was no hope for the Sonic Riders subseries. There has not been mention of another game in the works in over a decade, so there is no question that the series is completely dormant. Because Sonic Riders hadn't built up significant goodwill the way that a series like Mario Kart had, it's also hard to imagine a revival after being gone for so long. It's a shame, because the Riders games really did have potential. Not to mention, the Riders games' signature rivals, the Babylon Rogues, are very fun characters whose futures were left in limbo after Riders games stopped being made. Sonic Frontiers may be the biggest Sonic game to date according to developers, so the series is still surviving, but that doesn't make the fall of Sonic Riders any less brutal.
The end of Sonic Riders was a sad event to witness. Even though it wasn't among the most popular Sonic titles, Zero Gravity showed good progress, and Free Riders destroyed any good will that the games may have had left. Sonic the Hedgehog has continued to be a gaming icon, but it's hard not to imagine what could have happened if Sonic Riders had avoided the Kinect.