Move and Natal will likely fail as gaming interfaces.

[famousringo]

Squilliam said:

famousringo said:
That's an excellent point, although my question is: What exactly constitutes failure for these peripherals?

The EyeToy shifted around 10 million units without a real killer app (of course, it was selling to the PS2 install base, so it had that going for it).

MS and Sony seem more dedicated to these new motion controllers, so wouldn't an install base of 10 million for Move or Natal be pretty good? Or do these controllers need to drive sales with a monumental 30% attach ratio like the balance board to be considered a success?

Given the level of investment I would consider 25-30% attach rate as the floor of where they start being considered successful. They would have to be looking at between 30 and 70% attach rate as the realistic range of support for the interface from consumers. Anything less than that is likely a very negative rate of return for their time/money and a setback in terms of moving into the next generation as it raises questions from third parties about whether its worthwhile supporting them and it would kill consumer confidence.

I would say they'd need closer to 15M units because any third party targetting the interface would only be able to get a subset of the market. In a way I think of the new interface equiped consoles as a subset of the whole and a unique console to itself. I believe people ought to think of the interface as their own console within a console and give it the same considerations about userbase size relative to support that they gave consoles like the PS3/Wii/Xbox 360 with original equipment.

 

 

Okay, if you're setting the bar at Wii Fit or better, then yeah, they're definitely going to fail.