Can somebody please define what exactly a success is just so I know 5 years down the road when some are saying it is a success and othres are not.
1.) Is a success based solely on the number of Kinect's sold (including the ones in bundles)...in this case, what is successful in 5 years...10 million, 20 million, more, less?
2.) Is a success based on Microsoft making profit on this...while this is very hard to calculate...lets assume that the total costs associated with R&D and advertising are 2.5 billion (one person said 2 billion for the R&D before, so I'm using that). At $149.99 per Kinect, they would need to sell 16.67 million million assuming they are profiting $149.99 on each one. They need to make them though, and I'm pretty sure the 2 billion does not include production and shipping out the consoles. Lets assume that on average in the next 5 years, they make $50 per Kinect sold (this does not include extra 360's sold, nor does it include additioanl Live subscriptions...however if you do want to count the consoles, it is $50 cheaper to buy it paired, so there is really no additional profit there). If they make $50 per, they would have to sell 50 million Kinects...that's more Kinects than there are 360's out there right now. If this is a success, then it will never happen people, sorry.
3.) Or is a success a combination of the previous two options: Good sales, not making a profit, but at least not losing a billion dollars, but rather a number in the 100's of millions of dollars perhaps. In this case, you are looking at sales of 20-25 million, which I still think is an insane number.
The only real plausible option to make it a "success" would be to look at solely sales, which would mean you need to indicate a number, and I think 10 or 15 million is a good number.
Microsoft is obviously going to lose money on this, but it is about what it might do to help them out in the future.
I think Kinect does really stand a chance at selling 10 or 15 million, but not more than 25 million (much more is needed for a profit when not including additional live subscriptions (which I really don't think would be that substantial).
Not trying to bash, I hope it is a huge success, the thing is sweet, my only concern is that video games are slowly moving away from controller only gaming, which really really scares me.
Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.
