I read a bit of what people are saying and it seems that the general consesus is that some say its successful some say its not.

but i find its better to break down the regional success of Kinect. if we look at Europe and Japan, Kinect isnt selling a lot of Xboxes. and even if it is PS3 and Wii are beating it week on week for most of this and last year in both Europe and Japan, despite the $500mil spent on advertising.

and even i have seen evidence of a marketing campagain. here in the UK we've had live demos of Kinect in a grocery supermarket, not just shopping centres (malls) or even game stores, but Microsoft have gone all out with marketing.

clearly this is not the result they wanted, where 2 months after Kinects release, Wii and (in particular) PS3 are still selling abundantly more in Europe and Japan.

the only place where Kinect is having a substantial success is the US. where even there a lot of Kinect users already have an Xbox they're just buying the standalone unit. but either way the device has been a monumental success in America, but a disapointment if not failure in the rest of the world.

It seems the better the HD consoles perform the more idiotic Malstrom's blog posts become.  The fact that he still holds to the belief that Kinect is another 32X says it all. 

It's laughable that he went through the 5 stages of grief in regards to Wii third-party support and now he's going through them again with Kinect.  Looks like it'll be six more months of denial.

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/email-about-the-incredible-360-post/

For the record, I too think that Kinect is failing at its job, which is to counter the Wii. Of COURSE it's meant to counter the Wii. You think Microsoft made it - threw half a billion dollars at marketing it - just so they could get those five hundred million dollars BACK? Spending that much money communicates one central message; Microsoft has a goal with Kinect. And if that goal is to just flat out make money, then Sean Malstrom has simply overestimated them. If their goal, however, is to counter the Wii? Guess what, it's not happening.

Judging from the blog post I linked to up there, he seems to have suffered from lack of sleep or something. I guess there's that. But maybe he's just overestimating Microsoft's intentions. Maybe they don't want to chase Nintendo after all. Maybe they're just happy with making money.

But that thought once again crashes with the fact that they spent half a billion dollars in marketing. It's not their intention to simply make half a billion dollars back from sales. You don't spend a buck to earn a buck.

Is Sean Malstrom in denial? Or are the vast majority of people here (particularly every person who goes "bleh that was horrible but I'm not gonna say why") in denial that Malstrom might just once again be right about something? Given how many times he's ran circles around gamers and analysts alike, I'm not inclined to follow the "common logic".

RIGHT ON, Well said.

No, the boost isn't an illusion.  In viewing Kinect it's important to consider what sales might have been like without it.  360 was trending down and was looking, even in US, like it was slowing up a bit.  First the redesign (which I do think doesn't get enough credit in all this BTW) and then Kinect turned the situation around to one of growth for the 360 and delivered great sales both for HW and SW for the console, particularly in the US.

At this point, I think the worst you could say about Kinect is that it's effect has been muted outside the areas where 360 was already doing well.  If MS hoped it might change things drastically in Japan for example, then sure that hope has - so far - been dashed.

I think it's clear that Kinect (coupled with the redesign) has had a positive impact in a number of ways:

1. solidified 360 in US and given it a huge holiday boost
2. sold better than expected to existing owners as well as driving an increase in baseline demand in US
3. established 360 with credibility with new demographics in US and to a lesser extent UK and some other territories
4. successfully gave the 360 the desired "mid life boost" and changed it from trending down YOY to trending up

The only negatives I can see are:

1. no major impact in Japan at all - predicatably it was a bust in Japan, and surely represents the last throw of the dice that could deliver any change this gen
2. lesser impact outside US in general - yes, Kinect did best in US by a fair bit.  Pickup in EMEAA in general was much weaker next to US and it doesn't seem to have troubled the PS3 in those regions
3. the "mid life" boost was confined to the existing 360 profile - i.e. it raised 360 where it was doing well but didn't significantly change the shape of the market for 360
4. arguably lacking a killer app to date which may leave it exposed going forward if the library isn't rounded out and given some "must have" titles - but there's still time for this and new titles are for sure coming

So sure, I guess if Kinect was expected to kill the Wii and make the 360 king of the heap everywhere it underdelivered - but did anyone sensible really expect that?

It drove growth in core 360 markets and looks like it will successfully extend the life and demographic reach of the console.  It's for sure going to be a successful peripheral and establishes MS in motion control gaming for the rest of this gen and into next gen if nothing else.  I'd say that was a good enough result vs the cost.

No, that's a common misconception.  Microsoft is using the 3D depth camera developed by Primesense but there is a LOT of Microsoft technology in Kinect.  They expanded and greatly improved on the work the Primesense did as well as doing all the work on the other aspects of the unit like the voice recognition, facial recognition etc.  The technology that MS uses to get the voice recognition working in a myriad of situations is extremely advanced stuff and is also built on their voice recognition software that has been in Windows for years.  The acquisition you're thinking of was another depth camera developer 3DV.  They don't own Primesense though.

Here is a good article on the development of Kinect - http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/11/features/the-game-changer

Thanks Flint!  Now we know--and knowing is half the battle.  Now let's jump our dirt bikes over that downed power line!