One of the less obvious problems with the Microsoft’s belated answer to Nintendo’s motion-sensing Wii is that while all of the demonstrations of the Kinect at E3 involved the player standing up, jumping around the room, screaming and wildly gesticulating… well, it doesn’t really look like you can just sit down, balance a beer on your belly and play with the Kinect from your couch.

In fact, all of the demonstrations of the Kinect made it seem like Microsoft’s newest Xbox 360 accessory was a standing room only affair. Compare this to the Nintendo Wii, which can — of course — be played actively and upright (Wii Sports) but can also be played seated with the only exertion the occasional flick of the wrist (Super Mario Galaxy). Are we going to get to be lazy with the Kinect, or is the only way to play it to hop around the room hooting like a hyperactive idiot all the time?

Luckily, yes. Microsoft has clarified that the Kinect works just fine with seated players… as long as the developers of a title have programmed it to. For example, navigate through the 360’s Dashboard, ESPN or Zune from a sitting position is no problem, but don’t try that with the new Star Wars game.

You know, ostensibly, this all makes sense and seems reasonable… but it’s actually a big disadvantage of the motion sensing strategy Microsoft has chosen for the Kinect. One of the beautiful things about the Wii is that it doesn’t really tell you how you have to hold the controllers, what position you need to be in or how much motion you need to put into, say, a swing in Wii Golf. You can play with the Wii in the way that is the most fun for you. The Kinect, though, forces developers to make decisions for the player on what the proper way to interact with the game is. That’s just not as much fun with a motion-controlling device.