Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 cuts Kinect, launches on July 12

When The Boy Who Lived makes his big return to Hogwarts for the finale of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, he'll be doing it without the aid of motion peripherals on the Xbox 360. EA producer Gary Napper confirmed to Joystiq that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 won't have any Kinect functionality (unlike its predecessor), as the development team at EA Bright Light made a decision "early on to focus on the core of the experience, get as close to the atmosphere of the movie and make the flow of the combat feel right."

The first Deathly Hallows game arrived last November to negative reviews. The sequel will touch down on July 12, just three days before the final movie launches in US theaters. Unfortunately, its short development time -- it's been approximately eight months since the first game launched -- raises questions about how much the sequel can really improve beyond Potter's previous outing.

According to Napper, "We didn't want to dilute any of our efforts on other things that would require a lot of the team's time to perfect." We were told that EA Bright Light currently has two unannounced projects in development.