Matter, a Kinect game expected to launch on Xbox Live Arcade in 2013, has been cancelled by Microsoft. It was to be the first game developed in partnership with film director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Rango) and Blind Wink Games.

"Microsoft Studios is no longer pursuing this title," says a company representative. "We have no further details to share at this time."

Phil Spencer, Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, told Joystiq in June last year that Verbinski had pitched Matter as a means to instill and demonstrate emotion in typically motionless game players. A futuristic metal sphere, seen moving through a futuristic landscape in the game's E3 2012 trailer, represented an active control surface implemented through Kinect.

"To a lot of people who haven't played games for a long time, somebody standing completely stationary with a controller in their hands kind of seems emotionless, even though we know that we'll be sweating or twitching," Spencer said. "And [it was] his feeling, that with motion and movement, that the connection of the emotion that's happening on screen and how the player feels would be more natural."

Blind Wink, which is attached to a film production company partnered with Universal Studios, has not yet responded to requests for comment.