Seece 10-15m games for Move / Kinect..alot of that would be from existing owners so it would just replace 5-10m games that would be core purchases by core users if they didn't get Move / Kinect. New users who come in because of Kinect / Move aren't going to be buying a ton of games, not when the selection is small and the price for going motion-able on PS3 / X360 is high. If you sell 10m Kinect games to 4m new X360 owners...great. But thats as big as one large core game a Halo or whatever. Its not much. If the 50m non-Kinect X360 users are trending to go from buying 2.5 games (125m) in 2010 to 1.8 (90m) in 2011 that ten million only holds the rate to 100m / 54m (1.85).
Users buying for Move or Kinect may end up with six to ten games in total - but thats completely average for a new user and the problem isn't new users in these purchasing rates, its the old users that are deteriorating and vastly outweigh the new users. Then the new users become old and so on, but the number of new users purchasing alot of games eventually falls behind the number of old users slowing down in their purchases.
To have any shot at reversing the decline in software this is the math:
AVG X360 Owner in 2010 = 2.5 games per user (just for argument). 50m * 2.5 games = 125m
Kinect User in 2011 = 3 games per user. 8m * 3 = 24m games
Non Kinect User in 2011 = 1.8 games per user. 52m * 1.8 = 94m games
AVG X360 Owner in 2011 = 94m 24m = 118m. Not a reversal. But thats with Kinect in over 1/6 X360 homes and seeing a higher purchasing rate than the avg X360 base.
For a reversal, you need something like this:
Kinect User in 2011 = 4 games per user. 8 * 4 = 32m games
Non Kinect User in 2011 = 1.8 games per user. 52m * 1.8 = 94m
There are other options too I suppose...
Kinect User in 2011 = 2 games per user. 18m * 2 = 36m
Non Kinect User in 2011 = 1.8 games per user. 52 * 1.8 = 94m
But the math is definitely tough. I think Kinect gets to a 1/6 or so of the X360 base at the end of 2011. Thats not bad at all, but with deterioration ongoing for the number of games the rest of the base purchases there is no reason to believe Kinect will reverse the software decline unless X360 owners using Kinect buy over twice as many games as Kinect-less X360 owners, and I don't see that.
The mathematical issue is the same for Move on PS3 - steady or increasing purchasing rates for a narrow segment of the audience isn't enough to reverse the decline in purchasing rates for the entire base.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
