The upcoming ultra-violent Ninja Gaiden 3 is shaping up nicely, blending unbelievable carnage with super cool shinobi skills. Team Ninja has already confirmed that the PS3 version will feature move functionality, meaning that we’ll actually get to go through the motions of swinging a blade on a hapless henchman, but as for the Xbox 360?

Looks like the Kinect will be gathering some dust when the adventure rolls around, but it’s not as if Team Ninja didn’t try to make use of the hands-free device.

“Kinect?” said Team Ninjas Peter Garza when asked about it in a Beefjack interview. “Well,it doesn’t. End of that.”

Garza explained that the Kinect system just wasn’t the best device to use for the gestures necessary to play the game. “We looked at Kinect, we tried some things out, but we couldn’t find a way to get that sort of connection”, Garza said. “So looking at our development resources and what would make our fans really excited, we figured it would be best to put those resources into some other aspects on the Xbox 360”.

Don’t think that we won’t see any Kinect-enabled action in future Ninja Gaiden games however, as Garza was keen to add that the studio was still looking at ways of making it work. “We’re definitely open to all new technologies and control inputs”, Garza said. “We did Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword on the DS,which used the touchscreen controls”.

“We’ve announced Ninja Gaiden: Razor’s Edge for the Wii U using that controller. So we’re definitely open to new ideas”.

While the PS Move functionality for Ninja Gaiden 3 sounds fascinating, and quite intriguing, it would be difficult to picture how exactly such an action packed game would make proper use of the Kinect,as navigation and exploration are key components of any Ninja Gaiden title, something that the Kinect isn’t truly suited for.

We’ll just have to continue playing Fruit Ninja in the mean time, until Team Ninja can figure something out for the fans.