Microsoft’s motion control device, Kinect, will be available for Windows Wednesday, which is good news for gamers who enjoy its controller-free gameplay. For me, it’s just another opportunity to discourage people from buying into what I consider a pretty overrated phenomenon.

I’m not talking about motion controls in general — I’m happy to see gameplay depart from mere button pressing and enter this new dimension. I think motion controls are great, and it’s a shame more games don’t utilize them.

No, my problem with Kinect isn’t that it’s a form of motion control, but it strays too far by abandoning the physical controller altogether.

The thought process behind Microsoft’s desertion of the physical interface isn’t really hard to imagine. The criterion for immersing controls in gaming has long been how well they make you forget about the chunk of plastic in your hands. I can see why Microsoft would assume getting rid of the plastic altogether would make gaming automatically more immersing.

But this was a mistake. I think it was actually a step backward in terms of immersion, because I’m more aware I’m grasping at air than I was ever aware I was holding a controller.

The controller might not have been perfect, but it gave me physical feedback and a sense that I was interacting somehow with physical objects in the game world. When my character wielded a gun or sword on-screen, I subconsciously associated it with the object I could feel in my own hands.

The Kinect disables this association, thus making it even more difficult to believe my actions are affecting objects in the game. I have to rely entirely on my vision to determine whether I have achieved something — the certainty that came from the press of a button and the strong intuition that something would happen when I acted is missing on the Kinect.

Perhaps I should qualify what I’m saying a bit, lest readers get the impression that I hate the Kinect, or I don’t think the technology behind it is amazing. Sure, there are some things the Kinect plays really well, like dancing games and menu navigation. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel pretty cool to play with.

I’m only saying the Kinect’s power of immersion has been vastly exaggerated, and the best way to play games is still with a physical controller. I think Microsoft mistakenly decided the controller was a barrier between the game and the gamer, rather than what rooted the gamer in the game.

In advertising, Microsoft likes to say, “You are the controller,” as if to make it sound like they’ve cut out the middleman with their technology. I think this best illustrates the device’s shortcomings. Microsoft apparently didn’t understand that a controller becomes an extension of the gamer’s body when he or she holds it.

Needless to say, I didn’t appreciate the amputation.