My butt hurts. :l

Christ, some of you REALLY need to just get over the fact that some people just don't like Kinect.. I mean, think about Wii fans, how do you think they feel? Their console has been shunned, dissmissed, and belittled by the gaming media, analysts, "hardcore" gamers, and media for over 4 YEARS, and many still do. Despite Wii selling massive amounts and establishing for itself plenty of quality games. Hell, I've been belittled at other gaming sites simply because Wii is my console of choice. You people don't know TRUE struggle! :P

Anyway, while I guess you can say I "downplayed" the success of the peripheral, I certainly DID predict it, at least for the first few months. I don't however, use the marketting excuse. As I've said before, the marketting can only bring you so far, and can do little more than raise AWARENESS of a product. But at the end of the day the product has to stand on its own.

What I DO believe is the main reason (or "excuse" if you wanna call it) for the initial fast Kinect sales are simply the natural holiday boosts, along with the sheer novelty of a 3D camera that senses body motion. I still do not believe Kinect sales will last very long, looking at the games released now and in the ones announced in the future. The games are ALREADY not selling that great, and this is during the holiday season, during the product's launch.. Without the games, Kinect's momentum will inevitably hit the wall, since it is GAMES that are primarilly the purpose of Kinect. All you have to do is look at gaming history if you want a likely picture of Kinect's future. Hardware add ons rarely do well. Just ask Sega.

Good point. I've been scratching my head as to why MS fans want this device to be successful, at least the ones that pride themselves on their "hardcore" nature. Perhaps they just want MS to be successful, but come on, MS is like, the richest company in the world! It's not like the NEED the success..

All these 360 gamers are going to end up with is a shift to casual "birdmen" games on Kinect, the same types of shovelware poured out by third parties on the Wii that everybody loves to hate, and one of their biggest cards against the Wii (that 360 has a better ratio of quality games) will be lost.. The third parties have tried this strategy on Wii a couple years back and it failed. And if these games couldn't sell on Wii, they sure as hell won't sell on the Xbox 360.

If MS is really going to shift as much focus to Kinect software as they've claimed, naturally there is going to be a decline of typical core games on 360. I guess they think they can have it both ways.

Look at the software announced for 360 this year already.. Gears 3 and Elder Scrolls V are litterally the ONLY 360 games I want.

no one is, were just using the 500 m budget to state that no one thought kinect was going to fail.

I think that Microsoft has done an obviously good thing for the longevity of the 360.  Instead of trying to convince everybody that it is time to replace their current system with another one, they have a stop gap device that can lure in the casual gamers to its system.  If there was a hardcore gamer that doesn't already own a 360, then they were never going to get one anyway.  So, to make their current hardware go another 2-3 years, they have the Kinect to get more brand loyalty for their next system that will have whatever kind of built in features that will be required 3 years from now>  They will also be able to create a level of acceptance of the common person to using their system as an interface for all of their media needs.  Anyone who thinks this is the downfall of the hardcore games is ridiculous.  They will make the same number of Gears/Halo/Uncharted/killzone type games in the future for all systems, but you will be playing them on systems that won't be only "game" systems.  This is just another step in the evolution of the home theater or living room set up.  The only thing for certain is that it will not be a fad, too many people will try it at a friends and like others have mentioned, there will be other uses brought forward to get more out of it.  THe next generation of game systems/home theater boxes will all have some version of this.  Oh, they will still have your controller available as an accessory(for a small fee of course!).

A LOT and i do mean A LOT of people were hoping and praying for kinect to fail.

Their hope was dashed and their prayers weent unanswered as KINECT became the fastest selling product in history less than 2 months after launch.

Checkmate haters

Cause Wii still crushed them

Still crushed by Wii, then drank in a milkshake

dont worrry im happy for microsoft!

I am butthurt honestly but I am not downplaying anytihng.