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KichiVerde on 15 December 2010
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thx1139 said:
Metallicube said:

People seem to be ignoring the elephant in the room when going on about Kinect's future success; the GAMES. Considering there are only like 15 games for the Kinect right now, 3 or 4 of which are ranking over 80%, and similarly only a few hanging around the top 50 in sales, and even fewer announced releases in the future, all signs point to a massive drop off in sales. It may be selling out because of the initial hype of the technology, but that cannot last forever. Sooner or later, the reality of the weak library is going to affect the hardware sales. Just like a console, the main point of this add-on is to play GAMES. And if it doesn't have the games to back it up, sales will drop, and will drop hard.

What games have been announced that can help push 20 million units? The only decent looking games I see that have been announced are Children of Eden and that Star Wars game, and the latter looks sort of like an arcade game that you play for 10 minutes at Gameworks.

In terms of game sales, only one Kinect game is really selling significant numbers, and that is Kinect Adventures, which is bundled with the hardware, so like Wii Sports, it's a given that it will sell. The other two best games in quality by far are Kinect Sports and Dance Central, which have sold 970,000 and 552,000 respectably. The other Kinect titles are nowhere to be seen on the charts. NPD had no Kinect software in the top 10.

Then you also add the factor of Japan and Europe, two markets that do not favor the 360, and it becomes clear that Kinect software is going to have an uphill battle ahead of it to sell. It's essentially relying mainly on America. If the games don't sell, the publishers will look elsewhere.

Everyone seems to point to the Wii and its motion controls as the driver behind its success, but the simple fact is the Wii would not have been a success without the strength of its library. Games like Zelda, Mario, Metroid Prime, Smash Bros, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Play, etc. These were all mega hits. Kinect just doesn't seem to have these calibur of games, instead it seems to be littered with rushed Wii third party ports. I mean, games like Your Shape, Joy Ride, Sonic Free Riders, Biggest Loser, Deca Sports, etc. This stuff did not sell on Wii, a console with an 80 million userbase. How on earth could they sell on a platform that will have less than 10 million users for awhile?

In order to sell 20 million or close to it, Kinect needs some killer aps.

You really dont understand how software sales make it into the top 10.  NPD for instance had Kinect selling about 2 million units in US. So the additional software sales were limited to an install base of 2 million vs install bases of 37, 27, and 17 million for the Wii, 360 and PS3.  So NPD results had Kinect Sports and Dance Central at #11 and #12, but since holiday sales are so inflated the sales are still great.

Of course at the holidays the hot holiday titles are going to dominate the top 10.  With Kinect and Kinect 360 sales so high during the holidays for gifts you will see longer term legs for Kinect Sports, Dance Central and others, while the other software selling well now will drop like a rock (comparatively). Difference being Kinect Sensor and Kinect 360 are the gifts now and the software in the top 10 are the gifts now.  You could see Kinect software sales in January dominate.

Come January people that were given Kinect will go out and add some extra software. Even in December the sales will rise, because mom and dad found a Kinect for the family and Grandma and Grandpa now know that picking up a Kinect title for Christmas would be a nice gift.


Good point. Kinect can not push huge numbers because of its limited install base. It makes perfect sense.

The important thing is that Kinect is catching on big type. this will encourage developers to do two things. Make better quality games with higher budgets, and add kinect functionality to games that would still be playable without it.

I think Forza 4 is really showing how Kinect can enhance the experience for the everyday gamer. Kinect doesnt have to reinvent the way you play your traditional games, but it can still bring something new and interesting to the table.

Even if Kinect does not turn out to be a huge game changer it will still heavily influence the future of gaming. Microsoft hass upped the ante and the other companies will be forced to respond, much the same way Nintendo changed gaming with the launch of the Wii.