I like the way 'KazumaKiryu' said it better.

More like people with more cents than sense.

But it made sense(cents)!

Thing is, though, Lordy, MS haven't shown us anything "amazing" , have they? Which negates any talk of value completely. My worry for semi ignorant adopters of Kinect is that articles like this ADD to the confusion. Sure, literally, Kinect is capable of multiplayer gaming in the home but I wonder how many Wiis would have been adopted had only TWO family members been able to play together? MS sure aren't advertising the fact only two can play(why would they?) and to me it's the biggest issue outside the current lack of good games either core OR casual.

We've all seen people buying their Wii with three extra sets of Chucks and 'Motes, no? I don't know as the extra cost is the biggest factor nor ever has been. They liked the motion controls, sure, but the inclusive nature was the big deal from what I remember. What will casuals feel after buying Kinect, finding half the kids have to sit out and then not having anything good to play post launch? If MS don't come along with some stunning stuff there will be a lot of upset people who might always feel gaming is a con and be turned off for good.

Naturally, that's worst case scenario but, seriously(and I WANT Kinect to be great and WANT to want to buy it), what is there currently to make a serious gamer in the know recommend Kinect to ANYONE? I couldn't do it with a clear mind or sleep easy at night having done so right now and don't see quite why anyone with some knowledge WOULD support MS over this one just yet or until we actually see something other than the scope and ambition being reduced since last year.

I agree that the selling point is it's difference(though so far the games aren't anything beyond what we might have expected from expanding Eyetoy tech but there's time for better)and in this respect Wii and Move aren't relevant even if MS are going after Sony on VERY shaky value grounds(esp with you not needing two wands for any games -even if it's preferable for some -or a nav controller AT ALL)but even so there's little reason, to me, to jump in bed with Kinect in the current state of affairs.

I don't agree, though, that people will stubbornly refuse to see if MS find something great with this tech-I think there are fools on both sides who refuse to see(for instance one well known 360 zealot last night claimed Move had neither casual NOR core games coming FFS!)any good in the "opposition" even when they all spent the last five years poo-pooing ,motion controls n general but they're just a tiny minority even on here as even those with a clear preference will usually, like myself, give credit and a purchase where it's due. At heart most of us really ARE gamers and behave as such but I can't see any reason, at this precise moment, for anyone to be excited by Kinect whether they have been gaming for years or minutes-why do you feel that this stance means I'm being unfair in some way as that's the tone I sense here. Sorry if I read you wrong.

Well, obviously when I talk about fanboys, I'm not referring to you. You seem to have your head on straight. There are those here that I think would turn their nose up at a head-tracking-new-age-scifi-ga me that would turn the industry on its ear. I mean, c'mon, it's N4G. Neogaf HATES this place because of all the fanboyisms and thinks it's a joke. You're one of the few reasonable people here so I would expect you to see its value if something neat came out. I purposefully avoided talking about any games in my last comment simply because you're absolutely right. There are no games that have been announced for Kinect.

MS has been devilishly clever with their marketing tactics, though. When the release date for Move (its primary competitor) approaches, could you see MS waiting until THEN to announce some kind of AAA title? Maybe not something that will be released before the holidays, but something, nonetheless. I know it sounds a bit naively optimistic on my part, but like you said, I want it to succeed as well. But as of today, you're absolutely correct. They have not shown any decent software for its release (at least stuff that we don't deem as innovative).

Where MS shot themselves in the foot is where we would have numerous articles from devs touting the positive impact the peripheral would have on the industry (prior to E3). Now suddenly they're completely silent. Devs from Capcom, Bungie, and Valve were all talking about how it's going to change the industry. We wanted that change at E3 and we didn't get it. Not only that, we don't have really anything to look forward to...not even a teaser discussing how tremendous it'll be in 2011-2012.

I don't know a whole lot about the public's reaction to the Wii's "inclusive nature." I have read, however, numerous positive reactions to play Kinect. There are people out there having fun as well as numerous positive articles (arguably even more then negative articles, excluding those who haven't actually PLAYED the demo). Also adding in preorder sales and general online hype numbers, I'd say that MS is doing a pretty good job with selling Kinect. They might not have what WE want now (and that's every good reason why we shouldn't buy one now), but we shouldn't discount the possibility that they might have something up their sleeve...

Anyway, I'm glad there are people here like you. You didn't read me wrong. I think there are some scummy people here who claim to be gamers but are in fact just looking for a club to join. Those who are gamers, I hope you're with me when I say that I'm hopeful MS will release something viable for Kinect.

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".