Well now 25 day's into the life cycle of the Microsoft Kinect. The fancy, much talked about and apparently much loved add on for the XBox 360. I must admit I decided I wanted one during E3. While the kid's were squabbling here about "Who won E3" I secretly knew the answer, because you can only win something by making money off it.
Hand's down Microsoft is making money off everything they showed us at E3. Last year was a bit slow for Microsoft, so I knew they'd come out swinging and early on I almost guessed everything they'd do.
Steady release of exclusive games throughout the year.
Mass Effect
Crackdown 2
Metro 2033
Splinter Cell Conviction
Alan Wake
Ninety Nine Nights 2
Fable 3
Halo Reach
Redesigned Xbox 360 that is selling like hotcakes, improvements to the best online service around.
Kinects much anticipated launch and I wasn't disappointed, I went to the midnight launch here in Florida and there were around three hundred people there, everyone having a good time. I got Kinect Sports, Sonic Free Riders, Dance Central and Kinect joy Ride, it's a heck of a lot of fun online and offline with a beer and a few friends over.
Now I go back and think about all those "Kinect will fail" articles and the "Kinect is the new Sega 32x" comments and I have to ask. What now? 2.5 million and very likely looking to go on the way to the 5 million they wanted this year.Is that salt in the wound of a Sony Fanboy? I realize Move has "Sold" over 4 million, but to me and I know I'm not alone, are sketchy numbers because unlike Kinect, there isn't a way to track how many unique users bought Move. Sony counts each want, Nunchuk and PS Eye as a "Move" sale, so how can we tell? My best guess is by software, where as games like Kinect Sports and Dance Central have sold hundreds of thousands, the Move titles are around 20K and that's not much.
I'm not against Sony, or Nintendo, I own a Wii and PS3. The fact that I own a Wii is why I didn't buy a Move in the first place. Using a Wii Mote without Nintendo characters just seems wrong to be, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, so I am looking for those hundreds of N4G people who said Kinect would fail and not sell and flop and be the next Sega 32X. I want to know what you think?
Originally I warned people, Kinect would sell well, the reason being is that casual gamers outnumber core gamers by a large number. Kinect is new and fresh, Microsoft held off long enough before releasing it to build up interest and now they have a full head of steam.
See the difference between me and most of the fanboys here is, I own all the consoles, made an informed opinion as to why I like the 360 better, (Mostly comes down to XBL and more people) and don't try to make excuses. I said Move would probably do fair and it is, not great IMHO because like I said, hard to tell unique numbers but I'm sure Sony is a little disappointed.
Let's see who steps up and says "Wow, I'm surprised, well played Microsoft." I seriously doubt many will.
So here we go on to next year and the cycle of trash talk is sure to start again about how Sony will have more exclusives, like this past year, though most Sony exclusives got pushed to next year anyway. We'll hear how Microsoft has forgotten their "Core" gamers and how they have no games, almost a reverse of what we heard from 2006 to 2008 pretty much with Sony.
Just figured I'd throw this out there.
WTMG's Jordan Hawes: "Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a great concept that was clearly pushed forward by a good writer and storyteller. There is a deep narrative here that I enjoyed and it really carries the whole package here. While it starts out as a fairly simple, run-of-the-mill metroidvania gameplay wise, it is unfortunately brought way down by its lack of polish and design. Too often I felt like I was fighting the game itself instead of actually enjoying a good challenge. While the story shines bright, its enjoyment is diminished by its frustrating gameplay design."
NE: "Kirby's been on more than a handful of adventures, and we've gathered a list of 10 of the best Kirby games here."
WTMG's Aaron Price: "Overall, Sker Ritual was a lot more of what I wanted and way more than I could have expected from it. Is this going to be a Call of Duty: Zombies killer? Maybe not as of now, but it’s clearly a really good step in the right direction, as that series simply doesn’t care about having to improve anymore. Even though it’s completely different from its predecessor, Sker Ritual is a pleasant surprise, a well-polished game, and something I definitely plan to continue returning to often, especially if there are any big content updates in the future."
Wow, the Move sales figure are DEFINITELY hurting the xbox crowd. Even got this one doing the whole "I have all duh console so I couldn't possibly be biased" excuse to damage control.
How can you say Kinect is a success in one hand and Move, with it's superior sales, is only doing "fair" in the other? It's hypocritical and fanboyish, your whole blog reeks of the familiar hurt associated with psychological pain in the rectal area.
Kinect and Move have yet to prove themselves and claiming victory now is like mistaking a hurdle for the finish line.
Your last paragraph is right though. They will be saying that the xbox has less exclusives than the PS3 next year and you know why?
...Because ITS TRUE!
Keep on spinning though, careful not to get to dizzy or you might fall over.
Errr, but dude, we have two upcoming ANNOUNCED exclusives coming up. Two. Gears of War 3 and Codename: Kingdoms. The "Competition" has over ten. Even if only six PS3 exclusives come out next year, it'll still be more than just one on our console.
I mean, if you're good with Kinect then, you know that's cool and all, but I'm not, and apparently, most Core Xbox gamers aren't either.
On the one hand, I laugh at the idiots who say 360 only folk have no games to play (This is politically incorrect, we have VERY few EXCLUSIVES to play), because we all know that multiplats no longer exist ... and account for more than 60% of most gamers collections.
But on the other hand, I can't help but shake my head at the guys who say that having Core exclusives, not the stuff casuals will go for like Dance Central or Kinect Sports, no I'm talking about CORE games like Splinter Cell, Halo, Gears, Alan Wake, those types of game, suddenly aren't as important any more. The 360 is real light on those, and unless that changes between now and E3 2011, it'll all but confirm that the 360 is dead for Core gamers that support Console Exclusives.
So I wouldn't celebrate. This could be the beginning of the end for us.
I didn't say kinect would fail, but since i'm bored i'll type something and give my impression of kinect.
My opinion, it's cool but alot of the things you could do without the infrared camera. The coolest things i've seen from kinect are from the open drivers running on the computer... specifically the one where the 3d sensing image is overlayed with regular image and the whole thing is replicated inside a program...
The things I see for kinect on xbox is that it would allow for easier tracking of bodyparts that are moving in parallel to the viewing angle because of the extra dimensional recognition. Though I would suspect such a thing could be replicated on another system, using a regular camera albeit it most likely would be more prone to errors.
Summary for ppl who don't wanna read the whole thing: kinect on xbox - meh/nice... kinect on computer - cool.
Last thing to Angelus, good for you, warning people that kinect would sell! lol
I would like to say to all Kinect defenders to stop talking nonsense please. Ever since Move has come out you have said many things that make no sense including Kinect is better because it is "different", Kinect has gotten better scores then move has, Kinect games are better because they are built from the ground up and the fact that Move can be integrated into third party games is not an advantage. Now your here again with the nonsense that Kinect sells better because one person can buy 4 Move wands and that buying one Kinect is better.What are you taking about? Doesn't the fact that one person would buy 4 Move wands show how good it is? And even if one person buys 4 wands doesn't that still count as 4 Moves sold? And how does everyone know that the 4 move wands are for that person alone and not to give to 4 different people?
And to set people straight we never said that Kinect wouldn't sell. We said that it would be a limited retro system that is only of kids and not core gamers. And we were right. The only games that actually work or are worth having is DC and KS. When you check the scores of the other games that aren't mini games or dance games they have gotten score that are equal to or even lower then the Move games and even the mini games get low scores e.g. Motion Sports and Deca Sports.Look what happened when they tried to integrate it into a HP and Sonic Riders game. It didn't even help them get a higher score, it actually lowered the score of the games and it wasn't even because the games were especially bad but crappy Kinect controls that dragged them down.so I don't know why you bothered to write this blog for. Kinect is exactly what I and everyone else said it was, a retro, limited kids toy that no core gamer would take seriously. Sorry.
I never said it wouldn't sell either.