Kinect is and will continue to be successful, but it's not a new console, and it's not going to extend the 360's life by more then a couple years. Wii sales are already starting to drop, and at latest, Nintendo will release a successor console by 2013 (likely 2012). I don't think either Sony or MS will just sit back and let Nintendo take even more of the market away from them.

Remember the 360 came out in 2005, before this gen the average life expectancy of a successful console was about 6 years. I really doubt a successor to the 360 wil come out any later then 2013, as that is the 360 will have already been an 8 year old console.

Also if you look at games, trends show that a new generation of consoles is near. None of the big 3 are developing any new IP's, but older IP's are getting reboots. The big games of 2011 so far are Mass Effect 3, Gears 3, Uncharted 3, Forza 4, InFamous 2, Zelda, a potential Halo 1 remake, etc Almost all sequels. Also very rarely does a franchise see more then 3 installments per console. Final Fantasy always sees 3 games per generation (3 NES, 3 SNES, 3 PS1, 3 PS2, and so far 2 this gen). Also many of the big games have been expliciatly stated to be trilogy's. Uncharted, Gears, Halo, Resistance, Forza, Modern Warfare, and Mass Effect will all see third third installment by years end, and these are literally the biggest HD exclusives (not forgetting GT5, and MGS4).

It's only a matter of time before Nintendo announces their Wii successor to kill off Kinects popularity, and MS/Sony will follow and make a compeditor console.

yes but if the wii successor is a controller based system it will have no effect at all on kinect imo.

Codename kingdoms would be considered a new ip would it not? See that is the thing you are basing off half of your argument on previous generations, I think this generation has proven it will follow its own rules, and codename kingdoms imo is enough to show that Microsoft is finished with Kinect just yet.

Mark Rein (epic) also retweeted a topic today about unreal engine3 and kinect. http://ht.ly/3Fj7P have a read of that. The Kinect is yet to be optimised with UE3 when it does it will (when this works (whats in the link)) extremely extend the life of the xbox.

I havn't seen any articles saying FIFA is exclusive so I wouldn't worry unless he posts a link.

I would say Scenario 2 is most likely

Scenario 1 or 2, but not due to Kinect failure or lukewarm longer term welcome, for another reason: I don't see MS pushing 360 after 720 release as much as Sony did with PS2 after releasing PS3. Also because Kinect depends on console's processing power to fully deliver its potential, a powerful XB720 will allow more players and reduced lag on Kinect (and most probably also higher resolution versions, that would be too expensive now and unmanageable by 360), making appealing for most new MS market fans to drop the old console as soon as the new one becomes affordable.

:-/

I dunno, if a Wii successor makes anywhere nearly as much of an impact on the casual market as the Wii did, I think it will steal the sales. I beleive Kinect is only doing well because the Wii is so old, people want something new. It is a sub-console, it's not meant to be a full console replacement.

Project Kingdoms is a new IP, but it's one of few, and not a first party title. Was God of War not released in 2005, the year the 360 came out? The bulk of the market is now focues on sequels, and the final installment in various trilogies. As I mentioned before, almost all of the big games of 2011 are sequels.

The last big 6th generation games released between 2004-2006, and I believe that last big seventh generation games will be released starting in 2011. If GT6 is a PS4 title, then we already can see one major franchise see it's final game this gen. Think about it, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Modern Warfare and Gears are the 3 big trilogies this gen, and they are all seeing their final installment this year. I doubt we will see a Resistance 4, Killzone 4, Forza 5, or InFAMOUS 3 this gen. MS only has an early map pack contract with Activision for CoD games up to and including 2012. Finally even if we see a Resident Evil 6, GTA V, or MGS 5, we won't see another one this generation.

I mean, whats left this gen when Call of Duty is over in 2012, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Gears and Forza are done in 2011? Kinect may push MS 360 sales for the next while, but if Sony and Nintendo make successor consoles, MS will follow.

Also I do not believe Project Kingdoms has any relation to Kinect what-so-ever. Project Dragon is a Kinect title, but there is strong evidence to beleive that Project Dragon is a Panzer Dragoon title, which would be a reboot of an old franchise, not a new IP, and still not first party.

As for the Unreal Engine 3, that engine is aging, you can see it's limitations in games like Mass Effect 2 and Gears 2. The Unreal Engine 4 has already been in development for quite some time now. It's only a short matter of time before a new gen is announced, and that a tech demo is reveiled.

Either way the HW boost due to Fifa is not as major as say COD for example, so even if it is time exclusive, which I highly doubt as it would be the dumbest move possible by EA, the hardware should not be affected dramatically. If next year is the X360 peak year in UK it has a chance at pushing past PS2, if the data is down YoY, then not so confident.

Making a 360 successor Kinect capable would be a very smart marketing strategy. It wouldn't help 360 sales, but it would give 720 sales a strong starting push.

I think never. Also PS2 UK sales look very poor for a console that sold 145M units worlwide. It would be more reasonable to sell at least 15M just in the UK...

Yeah you are right Kinect has no impacdt on Kingdoms BUT with them both together shows that Xbox360 is trying to push this gen a little further. I also understand Kingdoms is not first party but MS could simply have said make it for a new console and release it at the same time if they were aiming for 2013 for example.

Yes MS will follow the next consoles into the new gen but unless Wii 2 pushes graphics further than 360/ps3 MS will wait till sony releases theirs or when they are making it as they seem to do release them close to each other.

I think with Epic/Ms relations Unreal Engine could work for this gen. One hopes anyway. And the crytek engine could just be the start of this generation as they have announced in one of Nsanitys many many threads. They have also put weight to Kinect pushing a bit further down the road.

Again this gen is very different and we shouldn't compare. It wasn't that long ago where people thought that this would be the last gen.