I don't think Dance Central is 1st party as it is rumoured by Harmonix to get a Move port.  I, personally, would be a little concerned if M$ is going to be the main driver of the Kinect platform.  Other than Forza, Fable, and Halo has M$ actually funded that many great 1st party games in the 5 years of Xbox 360?

4 plus years in a generation the top dog is going to lose the fury it once had as the underdog. Nintendo remembered the failure of the N64 and GC in comparison to the PS1 and PS2, thus forth from 2006 to 2008 they came out quarter after quarter with a huge freaking chip on their shoulder and delivered.

I agree with RolStoppable, Nintendo lost focus somewhere in 2008 and the numbers here and elsewhere have shown with the Wii market share decreasing year after year from 2008 on.

As for Kinect being a "referendum" on Nintendo, I disagree. Microsoft has not franchise on par with Mario, Donkey Kong, or Zelda where they can scantly advertise for it, develop it into an awesome game reminiscent of classic from the SNES days, and sell 10 million guaranteed due to the quality and the nostalgia of years past.

If anything, what the success of Kinect has illuminated is how ready Nintendo is for the next generation. I presume the bulk of Nintendo's energy is going into the 3DS and once the launch is all done, they have plans to cut the blood flow and end this generation as soon as possible.

I think you're comparing a casual gaming perhiperal to a console. The Kinect is just an add on designed to give the 360 a cutting edge casual gaming experience. The Wii is a stand a lone console and the launch software was intended to appeal to all audiences, casual and core. So yeah, I think we can say the Wii had superior launch software than Kinect.

But I do think the Kinect has much better casual games than what the Wii offered at launch. But hey, that's just my opinion.

Wii users are leaving the Wii for Kinect? Where's your proof here? The Will has been handily outselling the 360 through the Kinect launch to current day. Kinect isn't slowing Wii sales at all. If anything is moving people to get a HD system, its just that - people want HD quality graphics, no longer content with the Wii's offering.

Kinect is a nonfactor, for the Wii, despite its success.

The Wii has fulfilled it's promise. That's why more people bought it over Kinect and X-Box through the Christmas season.

Actually if they appear to have lost focus in 2008 then they really lost focus in 2005 or 2006 considering the lead time for software development.

You are hard on Nintendo, they didn't fail in anything, Wii is awesome.

What Nintendo did was introduce a new audience into gaming, and that was their goal. People who would not have been too interested in gaming tried their friends Wii Sports, or Wii Fit game, and enjoyed it so much they bought one, and showed it to all their friends who then bought more Wii's. These casual gamers, don't care much for Call of Duty, or MGS, or Gears of War. They play games for 30 minutes at a time, and thats it, their attention draws somewhere else.

I beleive the reason Kinect is selling so well is because Nintendo, just can't make more then a handful of innovative games every year. Like you said their most innovative ideas came early, and DKCR may be great, and is selling well, it's not so much a new concept, just a well developed simple game.

It's not entirely Nintendo's fault, they could realease 5 more quality titles like DKCR or Kirby this year, these games are not new concepts. Nintendo tired making innovative peripherals, like Wii Fit, and there are a lot of new concepts on the Wii, but without new hardware Nintendo cannot continue making any new concepts. They had to make the Wii Plus add on, in order to make a proper sword fighting demo, and in the future more accurate Wii games.

What MS did was saw Motion gaming as a successful medium, and they noticed the Wii had peaked, and is slowly losing sales. It's only a short matter of time before Nintendo announces their Wii successor, but until then MS could essentially garentee a second place this generation by making a large scale motion add on to their 360. Nintendo can't do that, the Wii itself doesn't cost much and it would cause a lot of confusion among gamers much like old SEGA consoles.

Nintendo played it smart, but they also played it safe. They had ideas like the Vitality Sensor, but we have yet to see anything from that. I'm sure the Wii successor will shock us all and kill off all current gen sales.

Until then, kudos to MS, they made an appealing peice of tech and released it at a great time in their consoles life, essentially re-establishing itself and giving their console a fighting spirit.

I'm curiously anticipating Sony's responce to this situation. I don't think they will be too happy to see MS take majority sales worldwide among the two HD consoles.

Already have imo. Of the games out at the moment, Dance Central, Kinectimals and Zumba are all 3rd party as far as I know. East of Eden is a big one that is coming. Now per se what you are saying that 3rd parties didn't do justice for Wii I don't really agree as there are a lot of quality items out there that just haven't got the deserved sales of a 1st party game. 

But if what you are saying is true, those few games within 2 months of Kinects release is a bloody great start. But Xbox360 is more or less a 3rd party derived system. They rely on 3rd parties a lot more then 1st and as Squilliam has provided a valid argument for, is not such a bad thing.

Actually this is incorrect, when Kinect released Xbox360 sales were ahead of the Wii's in America and worldwide together if i remember correctly. Wii started to outsell Xbox360 again during the holidays.

The issue with Kinect is that it is an add-on. It may be a popular one, I would compare it to the WiiFit craze, Very successful moves alot of system, but it will not be in itself a game changer.