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gergroy on 13 November 2010
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Mummelmann said:
gergroy said:
Mummelmann said:

I think its a lot more likely that I become the Prime Minister of Norway to be honest.

Kinect will be, in stark contrast to my prior belief, a big hit but I can't see any possible way for it to sell 20 million units.


you can't see any possible way?  Are you that short sighted?  I can think of one very obvious way, they bundle it with every xbox, or how about if they drop the price to 50 bucks?  There are lots of possible ways for this to happen, and far from impossible.  The 360 and kinect are going to be around for another 2 to 3 years at least.  Plenty of time to move 20 million units.  


They're gonna drop the retail price to six dollars below production cost? Retail also entails vendors profit, transport and storage so MS could end up getting 30-35$ per unit, netting them a solid loss for every unit sold. Giving it away free with every x-box would also net them a similar loss, only bigger since the camera effectively has no retail value. Do you think they're that daft? Come on... The production cost will surely go down in time but by the time they can afford to drop the price to fifty dollars, it won't matter any longer since the next generation will have started and all their focus will be on that (imo).

Besides, seeing the software, I can't imagine why this will keep selling oodles instead of the Wii. Kinect will have a solid holiday and certainly have no problem beating Move, but what about next year and slower months? What possible incentive will they give people for getting a 150$ camera that can only be used for Wii knockoff titles and cuddling animals, on a console designed in essence for a core gamer?

Yeah, I wonder why a company would sell hardware at a loss, Microsoft and Sony certainly have never done that before...  Anyway, my point is that there are ways for the unit to achieve the kind of traction that would get it to 20 million units sold.  Whether or not that happens, who knows.  

Also, kinect will have some core games coming out next year, I know of at least 2 survivor horror games coming out for it, which should be pretty sweet.  I think that is a genre that could work really well with kinect.  

We can also look at the success of wii fit as something that could be a good indicator.  Kinect is $50 more than wii fit, but it's potential stretches into a lot more than just exercise (not to mention the fact that exercise games using kinect should be a lot more effective).  

I'm not saying that it will sell 20 million units, I'm just saying it is too early to say there is no possible way for it to achieve those sales.  We will know more of Kinects potential lifetime sales next holiday season.  As of now, there are lots of possible ways for it to get there.