What you propose, user Me, is an enrichment of an existing experience. Enriching existing experiences is a way to boost sales temporarily, but it ultimately will not combat gamer drift; it will only forestall it slightly. The initial response to such efforts would be largely positive from the more open-minded gamers (and largely derided by much of the hardcore demographic as "unnecessary" and "gimmicky"), but the novelty factor would wear off and ultimately result in no significantly greater sales than without that feature.

Experience is key to the success of games, and while experience entails far more than just playing the game (and how you play the game), it's ultimately the authentically new elements in this experience that draw people in and renew interest. If improving the experience instead of adding unexpected new components was all that was necessary for success, then Metroid Prime 3 would have sold far better than it has thus far.

Again I must stress i'm not diasagreeing with you as I think you are bang on but you're discussing how it would be accepted by the entire industry where i'm merely explaining how delighted i would be if it were applied correctly for me personally. Regarding your example though I do feel that you cant draw on individual cases like that to prove a point that would be applied in many different ways - I could easily say improving experiences is guaranteed to be successfull as RE4 sales on the Wii proved when comparing it's sales and attatch rate against the PS2's 120M userbase or I could have said it wouldn't work as Bully sales on the Wii prove compared to 360.

It all depends on the experiences you would strive to improve, take Command and Conquer - I love these type of games on the Pc and hate them on the consoles yet if one were to come out on the Wii or 360 supported by Xmote then I would jump at the chance to play it on my HD Tv sat back in the comfort of my living room with a control method that wouldn't frustrate me and for me this novelty would never ware off.

But I do have to get in a pre-emptive strike - "The Xmote is a fad and will not last"

"X-mote" doesn't worry Nintendo for number of reasons:
1. Before "X-mote" would come out, 360 would be halfways of its life, which would limit its success.
2. Nintendo already has the "brand" in a control method in question.
3. Copying would just prove even more Nintendos strategy correct, and use in large scale would just make 360->Wii porting easier (number of smaller innovative companies still doesn't have the cash to go HD, but would save money for the big ones and what would M$ say for their gamers, they go for "casuals" or that "hardcore" can enjoy the controls too?).
4. Nintendo have prepared for others to copy its controller.

As what it comes to balance board, it's a peripheral, but not the "idea" in the console, and it was released just a bit over a year after Wiis release, so it can have "early" developer support. What M$ should have done, is copy Balance Board, not Wii Remote.

As what it comes to M$ buing companies, it really doesn't work that way, since the market M$ had previously worked in, is generally a market where it's the only big boy around and consuming the small ones isn't a problem. Now, if they would suddenly start aquiring a lot of companies, the stock price could plummet and suddenly, M$ could be just a part of Google. There are certain risks, if investors lose their interest.

It they want it to have any success they should start bundling it with the system now so at least half the user base has one and 3rd parties can be confident that games designed with the x-mote will have an audience.

Talk about alienating your loyal fanbase who bought the 360 at launch or at least before others and lived through RROD etc. If they remember that a lot of people bought Wii Sports not the wiimote itself and try to come up with a "hardcore" equivelant of that and go down the same route as Wii Play where you get the xmote / game bundle pack but with an incredibly strong game or two (I would personally aim for at least a C&C type strategy, FPS and driving game - all with strong online components) and attempt to build a userbase up.

If they hit a minimum of say 1m sales, which is doable on the 360 platform with a new Hardcore gimmick then there's a chance some other devs may start porting titles across or producing Wii / 360 multiplat games and a snowball effect may occur. I doubt it though but I feel this is the best chance but agree with all posts in that Ninty wont be worried in the slightest.

That's nice. This machine is fully updated and built for Vista. XP drivers do not exist for it. He's trying to put Linux on it, but isn't having much luck.

 His current plan is to pick up a Macbook Pro when he sells his car.

@ the Bolded part

I couldn't agree with you more. That would have been a smarter and better move, but to be fair, it seems when nintendo releases new info on new hardware or software, its just around the cornr from release, so its harder for the other comopanyies to copy them and release it at the same time, look at the sixaxis controller, it was not there at TGS when the wiimot was revealed, so when it came to E3, sony did not have time to implement the technology, they just created a sidewinder for the PS3, which did not create as much hype as the wiimote did.

Not only do I believe that this will be seen as gimmicky by the same people that thought that the Wii Remote was a gimmick, but I also believe that Microsoft are in danger of abandoning there fan base with this move. Most XBox fans do not like the Wii of the Wii Remote. What makes anyone think that anyone will like this knock off? Just my two cents.

It might be that they just say it's a gimmick cause it's not on their console and also as an indirect prayer of hope that if they repeat it enough times the gimmick effect will wear off and sales of Wii will die off rather than crushing the sales of their beloved console.  I find it hard to believe that anyone who has played RE4 or Prime 3 will honestly say he prefers using a controler to play a FPS.    

If the machine is built for Vista, it should work with it. If it doesn't, either it's not built correctly or there's some faulty hardware there. The company I work at has just deemed Vista as stable and ready for being used throughout the corporation. I very much doubt that those stability problems are Vista's fault.