If Kinect is to be anything other than a decent selling ad-on then yes, I think it does have to see some transference of demand from the Wii.  Of course success for Kinect may only need a small amount (I'm sure only in their wildest dreams do the 360 team at MS really think the 360/Kinect is suddenly going to be dominant and crushing the Wii worldwide) but if it only sells to existing base and a small percentage of the curious then I'd say it will have failed.

If it can transfer 5 to 10% of potential Wii purchases then I would say it would have been an okay success.  Anything more and it's success would only be greater in relation to the percentage.

I believe Move has the same issue.  PS3/360 are selling to specific demographics right now, so is the Wii, and with Kinect/Move so clearly and obviously aimed at the Wii demographic (Kinect in particular I think has been even more targeted than Move in terms of marketing so far) then to succeed they will need to take some of the current demand for the Wii.

Short version - I don't think there is an untapped demographic and market for Kinect.  It's market is already occupied by the Wii and therefore it must make inroads against that incumbent competitor.

@ImJustBayuum - I think this answers you too, regarding my views on success criteria for Kinect.

@kowenicki

No, wii wouldn't have been successfull without motioncontrols. But it wouldn't either have gone far without the "arcade-based" gameplay. It is this that has made the big wii games so lasting and has given the wii such a lasting appeal.

Microsoft sees only the motion controls, while nintendo saw both them and the fact that gaming had left it's roots. (sorry for my bad english)

Sorry to say it but that's so full of errors and inconsistancies I don't even know where to begin.

For example say the top Wii titles don't rely on motion when very clearly the ease of motion(balance) control was a huge selling feature for all listed except NSMBW and SSBB - which also both use motion control in gameplay (although no one here would use it in Brawl, it's still there) .          

There's a lot of other points I'd dispute, but it's not worth the time.

What I do agree with whole-heartedly is Nintendo's focus on easy to pick-up, hard to master.  

 However, also important to note is Nintendo's complete dedication to finding the 'fun' factor of an idea and then building on that.  Whereas most everyone else builds a game around an idea and then tries to insert the fun (usually by apeing existing fun gameplay - Transformers:WoC).   Nintendo also does a ton of polish, polish, polish.   They may seem simple, but a lot of work goes in to ensure they are fun, and no game goes out until it's ready (except DK Barrel Blast...).   It's not uncommon for a game to be in development at Nintendo for a decade, until they find a way to really make it addictively fun.    Kirby's Epic Yarn looks to be yet another example of that.  So the 3DS's Steel Diver.

The big problem here with this OP is the Kinect games are not yet out for anyone to play and judge if they have depth or not.  Or are fun or not.    It's true 3rd parties have generally missed this on the Wii and will on Move and Kinect as well.  But if MS and Rare does so is another story.  I don't think Rare understands the mass market (in the way Nintendo does), but they do understand depth and fun.

How do you quantify any changes in demand due to what happens with another console? For instance the PS3 had a price cut in 2009 but as of now I cannot see what effect it may or may not have had on Xbox 360 sales and these two consoles are apparently targetting a similar market. Beyond that theres the question of who is buying it, is it just the unattached Wii owners or is it also the attached Wii owners, but then only the software attach rate would tell the story and thats clouded with conflicting data. So even if there was a transferrence of demand it may not be immediately obvious in the sales of Wii hardware/software. The sales data only tells us a part of the story.

@Metallicube,Nice article. I'll wait & see if they'll turn out as you predict. What's the game at the extreme left below NSMBWii in ur sig?

You make some statements I find false.  Depth in Wii Sports. Really where?

Then you make assumptions that this so called depth isnt part of Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures, etc.  Watching the videos of Kinect Adventures for instance it seems in the river raft game the course (of this one river we have seen) seems to have many branching paths/shortcuts/etc.

The selection of initial release titles actually makes perfect sense. Kinect simply does not work for most traditional games - and even in cases where it does, using a controller would be considered the better choice by most people. There are very few areas where people will regard controller-less Kinect-playing as an advantage to traditional playing with a controller.

If you look at the initial release titles, you can see that they are well chosen - dance games and fitness games for example are a perfect match for Kinect. Okay, that does not apply to all release titles - I still consider Kinect racing games to be a complete fail for example. But the vast majority of Kinect release titles is from the small selection of areas where I always expected Kinect to be good at:

- Fitness games

- Dance games

- Minigame collections

For most other games, controller-less Kinect will simply suck. The developers who got their test kits were probably the first to realize this, and I guess that's why no other types of games have been introduced yet.

But that's why I said you guys are on two different starting points.

He's not downplaying it from his perspective, because he didn't think motion controllers was the only contributor to Wii's success, while you do.

In simpler terms:

OP) Motion control not absolutely crucial

You) Motion control was everything

IDC about what you think, or really what the OP thinks. It just pisses me off that people can't even fucking read a post and understand what the argument was stated, before they refute it.

Don't debate with me, I like to play my games with controllers, and thought that Wii sports was old fast. But now you know what the OP's arguments are, so go fucking nuts man.

Excellent thread Mr. Cube.

I brought up the point you made about Kinect only being able to be played by two players instead of four in another thread and was getting mocked because of it.  Being able to have four people play at once definitely makes it more of a party machine.

Also, don't worry about listing Mario Kart Wii twice under your list of games on the Wii that sold 10 million copies.  Technically you're correct.  Mario Kart did sell 10 million copies twice.  

I remember that lol.

Also, great write up. I agree completely..I understand you focused solely on Kinect, though I wonder if you coulda killed two birds with one stone in including Move, and discussing the various issues Sony may face as well. Or were you just milking this thread first and making that thread later? ; )