Microsoft tried the Kinect for 13 years. How long are they supposed to let a product run?
It was a cool tech solution in search of a problem.
It was a cool tech solution in search of a problem.
It is hard, really, really hard, to convince game developers and publishers to make games that require an optional accessory. It's been tried again and again and it is never more than a mild success and usually an abject failure. They want to target the base platform, which will always have a dramatically larger install base.
Thr original Kinect was just such an optional accessory, and yeah, didn't have much in the way of third party support.
The XB1 could have, and would have, encouraged more devs to use and experiment with the Kinect because devs could be assured that every single user would have one hooked up.
Except that Microsoft chickened out instead of sticking to their guns. As usual.
Granted price isn’t the only reason - MS’s self-inflicted bad PRs and slightly lower graphical performance of the XB1 - but it really wasn’t helping.
At the end of the day, their core demographic wasn’t interested in the gimmick that was the Kinect.
With Kinect, you had to make a game that was entirely designed around it, and not have some random mix where you play with the controller and occasionally use gestures. And there really only are so many types of games you can come up with where it doesn't feel like you made something for the Kinect just for the sake of it..
I think the market tried quite a few things with Kinect on the 360, and the most convincing game to me was dance central, because it didn't entirely feel like a casual game with a bit of tech-demo scent, where you'd lose interest after a week and then maybe only ever pull it out again when you have friends over.
The market did not try quite a few things with Kinect. Most publishers put out a game, one single game, presumably subsidized by MS, and then went back to making games for the base console because there was not a Kinect install base.
I call bs, the original Kinect was a commercial success and around for long enough. The tech was there, casual gamers were there, anyone could've picked it up and release an awesome AAA game with kinect to conquer the existing gaming audience. The price of the Kinect quickly dropped to 100$ after the initial price of 150$, which any serious gamer would've spent without hesitation. How is it Microsoft's fault that nobody did create such a killer app? Again, give me an example of anything that had at least potential. Or if you're that convinced it would've worked, you must have come up with your own ideas over the years, right?
> The market did not try quite a few things with Kinect.
Hit me.
Microsoft actually did try really hard with the Kinect (already in the Xbox 360 generation) but it just didn't work out. I wonder how much money they lost on that whole experiment (or maybe they actually made money, apparently they sold 35 million overall which isn't too shabby actually).
Dance Central 3 and Just Dance 2015 (?) were terrific.
Kinect was great for music/rhythm/dance games in general.
Now I want to go back and try Fruit Ninja, Kinect Adventures, and the Gunstringer.
Force-bundling it with the Xbox one enraged the (hard)core gamers as they had to pay for an addon that the last few years showed they have no need for, and for the casual gamer, it was too expensive. It had success with casual gamers on the 360 because that console was already relatively old and thus affordable when the Kinect appeared.
The Xbox One was then tightly integrated with the Kinect, but that was such an unpopular move that they eventually gave up (first by no longer requiring the Kinect to be connected [1], then by no longer shipping a Kinect with each Xbox [2]) - so it's not for lack of trying. The thing was just unpopular with Xbox users.
...also as an Xbox 360 user at that time I saw Kinect as an expensive toy, and the completely brainless Xbox One marketing (which made very obvious that I'm not their target audience) was one of the main reasons why I gave up on the Xbox and went back to PC gaming.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/12/4615586/xbox-one-no-longe...
[2] https://kotaku.com/microsoft-announces-xbox-one-without-kine...
> Microsoft is making another Xbox One policy change by allowing gamers to use the upcoming console without Kinect.
> upcoming
They did not try. There was no trying. It was not eventual. They folded before it ever came to market.
And the thing already had worse performance than the PS4, so dropping the Kinect really meant just having an inferior product with no product differentiation.
The thing is simply that Kinect made the Xbox One more expensive than a PS4, and that for a piece of hardware that most Xbox users saw at best as a gimmick. It probably was the first sane decision of the bungled Xbox One launch.
It has been tried again and again and again. Optional console accessories and upgrades just never have enough of an install base to attract a critical mass of devs.
Going further back in time, I remember the GameCube/n64 and gameboy game-relevant accessories as largely being limited to a few games each, and always as an optional bonus feature that never really mattered that much
You are free to pay $100 for gimmicks all you want.
My understanding is it died ~six months after the Xbox one released (early 2014) when they stopped bundling it with that console. They kept selling it for several years after, but it was inconceivable it would do anything but die at that point.
People didn't want to pay a premium price for a motion gimmick. The Wii hit the sweet spot for casual gamers and they didn't care that the fidelity was lousy.