OXMUK
At work? Bored? Expunge that mid-morning tedium with another round of "Whack the Analyst". It's kind of like the Angel Attack minigame in Bayonetta, except instead of ghastly monsters from another dimension you're shooting down dubious games industry speculation.
Collated by GamesIndustry.biz, this round's most dubious offering by far is IDC Research man Lewis Ward's prediction that a Kinect price cut in the US paves the way for Kinect 2 in October. "I'm leaning toward Microsoft not cutting the price of the Xbox 360 in the near future since it's already selling quite well, though a minor cut is possible," he began.
"I think there will definitely be some interesting bundles this holiday season. I'll go out on a limb as far as the Kinect MSRP cut goes. It's been rumoured that Kinect 2 will arrive with the Windows 8 launch at the end of October. It's possible that Microsoft is clearing the channel in preparation of this (potential) new arrival."
"If Kinect 2 does arrive this holiday season I'm sure they'll put it in a bundle and there will have to be a few marquis games that use it in interesting ways. That's a tall order, though, and if they've been able to keep it quiet to this point that would be a stunning feat!"
In fairness to Ward, there's been some movement on the Kinect 2 front lately. Shots of a new development interface surfaced a week or two back, suggesting that Kinect's successor will be able to track fingers and recognise clothes.
At the other end of the impossibility scale, RW Baird's Colin Sebastian claims that we'll see a price cut for Xbox 360 next year, shortly before the announcement of Xbox 720. "For now, I think Microsoft is happy with Xbox sales and some early traction in the different pricing models they have rolled out at retail," he said.
"We still expect the launch of the next Xbox in the fall of 2013, so there will still need to be a price cut on the current gen, although perhaps not until after the holidays. I am sure retailers will offer their own promotions this holiday though."
EEDAR's Jesse Divnich concurs. "I don't believe an Xbox 360 price cut is imminent. The Xbox 360 hardware still leads in sales and I do doubt whether we even see a price cut at all in 2012. However, we should expect a holiday season full of discounted and limited edition bundles that, on paper, would reflect a price cut. But a full price cut on the base hardware, I wouldn't expect one until early 2013.
Microsoft has said it'll launch "a new version of Xbox" within 18 months. EA's Frank Gibeau has laid eyes on the new console, and reckons it'll help grow gaming's audience to two billion worldwide.
http://www.oxm.co.uk/45144/kinect-2-to-arrive-before-xbox-720-price-cut-could-point-to-october-reveal-analyst/
