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MS: Kinect launch will be bigger than PS3, 360, Wii

Microsoft has claimed that Kinect's launch can be bigger than that of every console in history - including Xbox 360 itself.

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computerandvideogames.com
Stunt5716d ago

As interesting as Kinect looks, I highly doubt that.

XANDEO5716d ago

I get the feeling if this fails then microsoft's gaming division will be feeling the pinch for a few years to come.

JokesOnYou5716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

and make a new prediction just like sony does but of course Phil Spencer is a PR guy, so he's going to hype Kinect as if its the greatest thing since slice bread and everybody wants to taste the bread. In the same interview he seemed to be more realistic with this final statement:

"You forecast, you hope, you do your best, right? You ship something. I know my manager, Don Mattrick, was quoted saying a holiday target of over 3 million.

"I think about it in a bigger way than that. Not that Don's wrong; that's the number that he stated, but a lot has to happen in order for us to have success. Our content partners have to ship great games, our retail partners have to be there with us, our marketing has to be there in a very impactful way."

JOY

units5716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

couldnt have said it better

N4g_null5716d ago

And there you have the problems with the ps3. No matter what a fanboys says Sony needs third party games bad.1st party is getting awards but not sales that push new systems.

He is talking like they are launching this stuff with out having all of these things in place. Being first does not matter being fun does.

dangert125716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

Ok really microsoft its going to be that big
so there you have it core gamers
your money for new Ip's and studio's have gone on
Developing Kinect
and
Launching/Advertising it
A few months ago i really loved my xbox but it does seem as if microsoft have lost there way

Christopher5716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

I wouldn't doubt it, but Microsoft is likely to lose a lot more money on Kinect in their first few months, even year, due to how much money they're spending on marketing the heck out of it. Kinect isn't going to win because of the technology, though, it's going to win because Microsoft is going to advertise the hell out of it.

If this does fail, I would expect to see more than a few heads roll over at Microsoft since the shareholders didn't like the concept to begin with and wanted them to switch back to just supporting the 360 console with games and other software.

Seferoth755716d ago

Losing money is par for the course when launching a product. You think Sony made money off of developing the PS3? You don't think Sony used their money from game sales to make Sports Champion?

Nintendo is currently losing money as they ramp up for the 3DS. It's common business

Christopher5716d ago

Yeah, but we're talking huge losses. Not just those from R&D, but those from an extremely extensive and costly marketing. That's why I think their overall revenue will see a loss. I wasn't talking about just losing money on Kinect, but so much that they wouldn't see a profit at the end of the year.

MicroSony4Life5716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

but you have to take into account that the Kinect tech is not only for the 360 but MS is looking to implement it in other devices as well.

Kinect could just be a testing ground for what MS has in plan for Kinect tech.

I dont think the 360 sales will dtermine if the tech was a failure or not.

Christopher5716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

Very hard for them to implement their tech into other devices. The concept is based on standing away from a device and software that reads the data received and performs various calculations on it. I just don't see where this would be viable considering the extreme costs in creating something that's even close to being capable of matching surface touch technology already out there. Specifically the ability to accurate read gestures at the hand-level for manipulating data in real time. The Kinect technology is the most basic of gestures, and is actually primarily a tracking tool in most games and not dynamically responsive to said gestures, and has the delay of having to be captured and then processed for the action being made. Surface touch technology is immediate and can detect the specific gestures of a person's finger/hand already and offers a portable technology solution.

I think Kinect is too big of an investment on Microsoft's end for it to fail. I also don't think the sales will be bad, in fact more than likely much better than Move. But, there's always the chance that it could fail.

Seferoth755715d ago

Nintendo lost 100million? That is nothing. You are acting like it is the billions Sony lost.
Sorry but it's easy to understand 1 quarter having a loss when launching a new product.

You do understand it is more than R&D? They are buying the pieces to put millions of 3DS together so they are ready for launch. You really think that is something cheap?

Just pretend its Sony that lost 100 million. Maybe if you got the hate out of your system you could use some common sense to figure things out.

Of course most of you would agree if it were Sony and billions of dollars but its Nintendo so that 100 million is going to be treated like a trillion in the eyes of the haters

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 5715d ago
Tapey5716d ago

I think Kinect will be a huge success. The thing is, the average consumer doesn't read up articles on the hardware online, they don't see videos and hands-on reports that the tech doesn't work correctly or that there aren't really any games. All the average consumer will see for Kinect is the advertising campaign which Microsoft will no doubt have a lot of cash to spend on, and that's what will see its success at the end of the day. No doubt there will be a lot of buyers remorse when people realize that it doesn't work as advertised, but it will sell a tremendous amount regardless.

I mean this is the same company that released a broken console, sold millions, and then got everybody who purchased it within the first year to go out and buy the console a second time (be it an Elite or a Slim). They're absolute geniuses at selling products, and I'm positive that they will have all of those exact same people lining up to buy Kinect. It's a guaranteed success.

ExPresident5716d ago

I wouldn't call them 'absolute geniuses at selling products'. I'd call the people who have purchased several of the consoles idiots for supporting a company who clearly didn't value their customers enough to treat them to a quality product. Kinect may do well simply because Microsoft will do what Microsoft is good at, and that is advertising. Clearly if they pump enough money into that, they will reach the masses who have been proven in the past to not read up or be knowledgeable on many purchases and merely get it because they saw it on TV.

I'm not saying everyone falls into this category but many do when it comes to electronics. The problem with Kinect is that from all the videos it just doesn't look good, lags etc. Word of mouth will eventually kill the product if it doesn't live up to expectations.

Keith Olbermann5716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

The average casual consumer wont spend $200 on a system and then buy a $150 piece of equipment to play a game where your bouncing balls or driving a car with no controller. Thats not including the price of games.

matey5716d ago

what it will sell 25 million plus like wii did what ever Microsoft bosses chat some good old shit wow only the Wii2 will be bigger than wii and Iwata wants people to know it will leave your mouths open

timmyrulz5716d ago

Only time will tell, who would have thought that the wii would be a success or even the PS1 back in the day

Developer support, marketing and a bit of luck will decide Kinects fate, not a minority bunch of pissed of core gamers who dont like the idea of jumping around like a loon

AceofStaves5716d ago

Actually, the consumer will decide Kinect's fate. If they don't buy the product, all the dev support and marketing dollars won't mean anything.

Anon19745716d ago

Just keep digging that hole, Microsoft.

5716d ago
CptBach5716d ago

You can do anything you want with money

The launch will be bigger = more spending on marketing
The launch will be bigger =/= big sales

krisq5716d ago

I just can't wait for another CIRQUE DU SOLEIL...:/

wsoutlaw875716d ago

are they trying to set them selves up for disapoitment i just don't see how that would be possible

gamingdroid5716d ago (Edited 5716d ago )

If you actually read the source, the information is really presented differently. This computerandvideogames.com is really re-hasing it in an almost inflamatory way to get hits. Here is the actual quote by Phil Spencer:

"You forecast, you hope, you do your best, right? You ship something. I know my manager, Don Mattrick, was quoted saying a holiday target of over 3 million. I think about it in a bigger way than that. Not that Don's wrong; that's the number that he stated, but a lot has to happen in order for us to have success. Our content partners have to ship great games, our retail partners have to be there with us, our marketing has to be there in a very impactful way. We are investing in this like we've never invested in a platform launch. This is, for us, the biggest platform launch in the history of the industry."

source: http://www.next-gen.biz/fea...

Notice, this is for "US", the biggest platform launch in the history of the industry.

n4gno5716d ago

"as interesting" ?

do you ignore like some others here, each previews, opinions, videos, etc ?

+ Show (11) more repliesLast reply 5715d ago
Hellsvacancy5716d ago

"Kinect launch will be bigger than PS3, 360, Wii" lol, now u know its gonna fail

DFresh5716d ago

Yeah right.
Unless the price drops significantly and offers some good games it won't succeed.
Simple as that.

Roonie5716d ago

If kinect fails to live up to this outragous predictions by MS I don't think MS fanatics or MS them selves will be able to defend kinect.........

Lucreto5716d ago

I would prefer more money on more games than a huge advertising campaign on something I will probably never buy.

Stop going after my Mum and my Gran and focus on the loyal hardcore game or does MS think we are in their back pocket already.

AceofStaves5716d ago

I think Microsoft knows that, as long as they continue to offer the titles their core audience wants, then the 'hardcore' fanbase will remain loyal.

I'm not sure why the hardcore would abandon MS over Kinect anyway - as long as the 360 still offers them the games they want, what does it matter if the camera peripheral attracts a different set of gamers to the platform?

Unless MS stopped releasing the top-tier games the hardcore expect, that is.

madjedi5716d ago

I speak from the opposite camp on this subject, but what is likely pissing 360 gamers off with ms.

Is the money they have spent on natal, could have been used to buy or build some first party studios, so the 360 would have some new exclusives.

And this could just be me, but i know crackdown didn't have halo's sales numbers, but it is a fun exclusive game. That ms couldn't have spent a little more money and another 8-12 months on so the game would be alot better than part 2 is.

Ms should sell the ip to ea or activision, take two if there just going to let it wither and die like that, giving it only 6 months dev time.

Lmao at the title, time to put the pipe down.

Show all comments (86)
70°

Microsoft Gaming Revenue Drops 7% Year-on-Year, Content and Services Down 5%, Xbox Hardware Down 33%

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.

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simulationdaily.com
Jin_Sakai24d ago (Edited 24d ago )

Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.

dveio23d ago

To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

Jingsing23d ago

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Tanktopmaster9223d ago

Once they re-evaluate exclusive all will be fine….

S2Killinit23d ago

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

Jingsing23d ago

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Tanktopmaster9223d ago

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

Show all comments (13)
70°

Xbox boss: Memory crisis could impact next-gen hardware pricing

Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.

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gamedeveloper.com
Eonjay25d ago

When does this end? Its killing everyone. Consoles and PC. And for what? AI? The benefits of AI are completely outweighed by the negatives. And the government should have never allowed one company to buy up all the RAM.

Lexreborn226d ago

This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.

This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.

I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet

Fishy Fingers26d ago (Edited 26d ago )

I mean.... what?

We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.

You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.

Lexreborn225d ago

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

Sitdown25d ago

You don't really know how this works huh?

Profchaos26d ago (Edited 26d ago )

Helix is going to be stupidly expensive

Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential

I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought

That's going to be ps6 vs Helix

Eonjay25d ago

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

Eonjay25d ago

While this does seem to be the case, I am encouraged by the statement from Microsoft about wanting to provide affordable options. If this means a Series S style Helix, at least there will be something affordable being offered.

XBManiac25d ago

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

blacktiger26d ago

It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs

pwnmaster300026d ago

Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.

DarXyde25d ago

Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.

LucasRuinedChildhood25d ago (Edited 25d ago )

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.

DarXyde25d ago

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".

Show all comments (28)
50°

'The big things that we're thinking about'

In an exclusive interview with Game File, new(ish) Xbox boss Asha Sharma and Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty explain their vision for Microsoft’s gaming division

Read Full Story >>
gamefile.news
Agent7527d ago

A good start would be to release games to go with the console. My Xbox Series X has gathered dust virtually from launch. My advice would be to ditch a next console and release games on PC, PlayStation and Switch. Another idea would be a hybrid console based on Xbox Series X tech and go the same route as Nintendo. Another idea would be to pull out of gaming altogether. Plenty of options there.

Reaper22_24d ago

Why would they pull out? They have the momentum. Sony has been getting nothing but bad news lately.