Console Domination writes: I have been a Kinect supporter since it was announced. I believe in the idea and see promise in it's future. I've purchased many of the games and overall, I have a good view of the product. I knew what I was getting into when I purchased it, being an early adapter and all. But even I have my limits...
Joy Ride Turbo launched 10 years ago today. The first title was Xbox Kinect exclusive, yet this sequel failed to support the device at all.
Cultured Vultures: "Sadly, not all hardware is created equal, and no matter how much developers might try, some gaming hardware just fails to hit the mark. We’ve compiled a list of 10 gaming hardware fails, and boy did some fail hard."
I would label the Power Glove, Kinect, and that Tony Hawk skateboard more as hardware addons hardware failure would be like the Virtual Boy and one day Stadia.
Kinect was bundled with every Xbox One and inflated the price on an already underpowered and low RAM machine so for the One it wasn't an accessory as much as a white elephant.
Definitely the RROD but that power glove had a lot of issues as well. The Kinect just didn't work
Hardware add-ons are more like RAM or a video card, basically components that enhance capabilities or performance of the computer.
If you really want to get technical the Kinect is more of a peripheral device, kind of like a keyboard or mouse to a computer.
The person in this article obviously is not up on their gaming history....
Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Coleco Gemini, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga, Atari 5200, Atari 7800 were all massive failures and in most cases cost their companies participating in future gaming generations.
Sega saturn (successful in Japan) and dreamcast were not failures.
Seems like you're not up on you're gaming history
@Gamer79
How in the world are the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast not seen as failures? They both sold around 8M each, which is much lower than the ~30M that the Genesis had sold before it, and even the Master System before that. They were both the worst selling consoles in their respective generation (PS1, N64 outsold Saturn, PS2, GC, and Xbox outsold Dreamcast). Both of the consoles were incredibly short lived. The Saturn was discontinued in every territory but Japan after just three years. In Japan the console was discontinued after six years. Meanwhile the Dreamcast was discontinued worldwide in 2001 after launching in most territories in 1999 and in Japan in 1998. The failure of the Saturn and Dreamcast lead to Sega pulling out of the hardware market. Which, by the way, all of this occurred when Sega was massively dropping the price of their consoles quickly to compete. Sega was hemorrhaging money at this point.
None of this indicates a successful console. Saying the Saturn was a success because it did better in Japan is like saying the Vita is a success (they both sold around the same amount of units in Japan). Even the Wii U outsold these consoles worldwide.
The picture should be the 360 RROD. When I think of gaming hardware failures that's what springs to mind. Kinect and it's bundled price tag definitely hobbled the already underpowered Xbox One though for sure so I would give it a close second place.
That's not what the author means by failures. It's about hardware that failed in terms of sales (Wii U) or just failed to deliver on its promise (Kinect).
Given that the 360 had a year head start, much easier hardware to develop for, was cheaper, and still ended up in third place I think it qualifies especially when you factor in the frustration and huge losses incurred by RROD.
Selling over 80 million consoles isn't a sales flop. We get it, you don't like Xbox, but that doesn't mean the 360 is suddenly a failure.
Porky....
You know how many people I know bought a 2nd or third 360 due to RROD? Even when MS had to confront the issue with replacement systems, my mates couldn't wait for even the turnaround of sending it in, and waiting for a replacement.,,..,..
If that's how you consider it a win... OK.. but so is having 5 , of which 3 don't function.... Its a win win....mwhahahahaha
"my mates couldn't wait for even the turnaround of sending it in"
You're acting like it would take months. When I sent my 360 in I got a new one literally 5 days later. As soon as MS had tracking confirmation that you sent yours, they'd send a new one to you the same day. No one is going to spend hundreds to buy a new console instead of waiting a week. I swear you guys pull some of the dumbest shit out of nowhere and think people will actually believe it.
Regardless, none of this changes the fact that this isn't what the article is even about.
Porky
"You're acting like it would take months"
Sometimes it could.. FFS.. 'Strya here...
Best turnaround I reckon was 2-3 weeks.....
Either way, My mates experiences still exist.. So Sorry, no point trying to earn Xbox Achievements when it doesn't feature in what was a situation you never dealt with,,,,
3 of my friends would disagree (overall, 10 extra Xboxes purchased)
Regardless.. MS sold a lot of 360's that was due to this reason.. That is sales. Fact
"none of this changes the fact that this isn't what the article is even about."
Headline says HELLO !
Oh and "Sadly, not all hardware is created equal," that's enough to pass this on without taking your article bias into consideration.....
As for the rest.... Ok.. But you've actually gone out of your way to give MS a Pass... Fap on.
Yup, and because of that big fiasco MS had to fork out 1 billion but knowing them I think they're very proud of the 360, it's the only time a MS console reached 80mil+ sales, RROD played a big part of that and a record they will never break again.
So true.. Even when MS accepted they where caught out in the biggest lie of any generation, The wait for a replacement was outweighed by just buying another, and having one be returned as a backup, which, btw, generally failed on first swap.
I own honestly can't believe MS tards are just supporting , or arguing why and what MS did by just dismissing it....
Lol I had the Atari Jaguar, surprised its "competition" the 3DO isn't on the list too, both as "popular" as each other.
Lol same. Played the crap out of Aliens Vs Predator and Tempest 2000 .... aaand that's about it really!!
Agreed, I never actually saw a 3DO make it to retailers in the UK. At least the Atari Jaguar was sold for around 6 months.
It made it to some my brother got one, fared just as well as the Jaguar so most probably hard to find in general.
3do had way better games. Jaguar not so much. Neo Geo sold less than both and yet isnt considered a failure. Go figure.
Stadia is a weird one. It hasn’t sold at all well but in terms of how it works it’s still miles ahead of Xcloud in terms of stability and performance. Xcloud is still a way behind and that needs sorting but it will be in time. Stadia for me is one of those things that will go down as a what could have been moments. With better marketing it could have been a roaring success. I still play it and it remains the best place in my opinion to play CyberPunk 2077. Only platform I have played it on without having any issues at all. The tech is great. The concept is fine. Marketing terrible. Shame really.
The sales model was awful. They should have teamed with an existing player to allow for local and cloud access to games or a gaming subscription service.
It was a strange mess from such a huge company, as I said, as a system it works really well but without gamers it’s nothing. Such a waste,
The Xbox One was Microsoft’s Nintendo Wii U. Undercooked, undersold and just an unholy mess. The thing is with any of these failures is to learn from them and thankfully both Nintendo and Xbox did just that to the benefit of gamers everywhere.
Xbox 360's Kinect had flopped yet Microsoft insisted on mandatory Kinect for Xbox One, driving the price up and alienating their potential customers.
the tech was pretty damn good but their focus on making it the centerpiece was not. Had they opted to keep it as a secondary or even tertiary device, it may have found new use for AR/VR.
Replies(2)
Their focus was marketing metrics. Information gathering for targeted advertising. Also "event curating" or head counting for special TV events. If MS had had their way with always online and mandatory Kinect pre COVID, as and during it they'd likely be turning into dominant presence in many Western homes. Be getting subsidized by Disney and other streamers as well as the NFL.
Thing was, Kinect as an actual game system, its games, just weren't ready. MS moved on it too soon. Thankfully.
Sorry but it was incredibly bad for gaming. The thing barely worked as intended and the games were broken shovelware. And let's not forget all the lies from Xbox to try and sell it. What happened to Milo?
It's like Xbox it's a perpetual lying machine.
I had almost forgotten about Milo. It looks so unbelievable in retrospect. How did anyone believe it?!
Kinect requirement, TV focused, DRM, and $100 buried Xbone before it even stared.
I think Kinect was the worst of the bunch. They reversed DRM overnight and try to play down the TV stuff when they realised it made them look disinterested in gaming.
Kinect stuck around for six months, preventing sales and making more and more people upset when they dropped the Kinect and the price.
Don't forget the inferior hardware which affects their game development to this day.
And the constant boasting and lying that hasn't change very much to this day.
I was kind of excited for the kinect. It had potential. That was until i tried it at one of their Microsoft store. The thing was so laggy and worker who was there, had no clue what he was doing. It kind of made rethink about buying an Xbox One with Kinect.
I had already been turned off of the idea by Kinect for 360. Even when it worked, the games were bad and showed no potential.
Wii made you understand what they were going to do with it within about 10 seconds of Wii Sports. It went on to become a bit of a joke but at least it worked and had a purpose.
The damage to the Xbox brand was so hard that til this day they are just the last place brand in the market.
That has to do with repeatedly failing, having to reaffirm only to again fail at creating a competent flow of decent games.
@PrimeVinister:
Until Game Pass and BC are mentioned. Only for the point to be missed.
thats because they dont know what they want to be. A gaming console, Television, or a gaming service?
@kayoss:
They wanted, expected, to be Steam. To have everyone coming to them and paying for the privilege. That's the exact mentality on display when they tried to push always online.
Its sad because the Xbox one version of Kinect was actually pretty solid. Not for motion games, I couldnt care less about those, but for the other features that are now commonplace in the gaming ecosystem. Things like voice control and optional motion features in games. Stuff that Sony did with the PS camera was pretty sweet and they could have done some of that stuff with Kinect.
The tech was pretty sweet when implemented right though. Who remembers the implementation in Dead Rising 3?! You could lure zombies away by saying stuff into the kinect, it was a bit hokey at first, but it actually enhanced the game significantly once you learned all the different voice commands. There was and still is nothing else like that!
The focus on TV seemed to be an issue for people, but the TV pass through had some real potential. They could have had cable companies giving the XBone out instead of cable boxes! I understood what they were trying to do, but they needed to show the games too, and thats where they lost the core gamers. Being able to jump right to a sports event or TV show with out leaving the console was actually a pretty cool thing. I spent many nights switching between NHL games or TV shows and jumping right back into my games seamlessly, just by telling Kinect to do so. It was better than people care to admit, but I loved it!
People say XBone had no games, but on launch I got Dead Rising 3, AC Black Flag, Watch Dogs, Killer Instinct, Battlefield 4, Forza 5, and Ryse. That was actually a pretty solid lineup in hindsight! Then later on it got gems like Quantum Break, Dead Rising 4, Sunset Overdrive, Gears 4 and 5, the Ori games, Rare Replay, Forza Horizon 3/4, State of Decay 2, ReCore (SUPER UNDERRATED GEM), Halo 5, Halo Wars 2, and all the great 3rd party stuff as well! I dare anyone who sat on the Xbox One to go back and give it a shot now.
It was actually a pretty great console all things considered. Yes the PS4 had better 1st party stuff, stuff that MS just couldnt top or even compete with, but there are some really great games that a lot of people missed out on that they would probably really enjoy if they actually played them. Thats why I recommend a Series S and Gamepass to a lot of people, as its a great way to get an awesome lineup pf games for super cheap!
I have to agree with most of this article. Our library of Kinect games is extensive enough that we've tried all of the major releases and genres. Sesame Street's Once Upon A Monster, Dance Central...some of the best experiences for the device, but certainly not for everyone.
Then you have games like Gunstringer. It appears to be a great looking game, plenty of style, and a unique use of motion control. That is until 5 minutes in when you realize how exhausting it is holding your hand up like you're maneuvering an invisible marionette. It's incredibly exhausting!
Moreover, Microsoft still hasn't addressed the bugs with height detection. How am I supposed to explain to my 5-year old son, that we can't play together because the Kinect can't handle drastic height differences on some games...the games he wants to play? Kinect Adventure? Well, we can play for a maximum of about a minute and a half before the Kinect begins to have a difficult time reading him, his avatar starts to freak out, and ultimately it just kicks him off. It's almost as if it it's telling us "Whoah, whoah, whoah! I can't handle this $#!T...kicking the kid off in T-minus NOW!"
The idea is great, but I can't help but think I had less frustrating experiences with the controller free gamplay on my PlayStation 2, with the EyeToy! To think, that was a rudimentary and entry-level use of motion control by Sony, and it stands the test of time.
I'll also agree on this articles point that it seems Microsoft's interest is in market share gain through Kinect software, interesting software or otherwise, at the cost of truly concentrating on quality First Party releases.
Good headline. I must ask as a couner point are gamers becoming un-moved . Ha I thought that was clever. Back to the topic I think MS definately needs to intergrate the controller into more Kinect games to get mainstream gamers interested.
"none of the PS3's big hitters did anything for me this year"
Obviously he didn't play them.
I say microsft should just allow indie developers to upload their own version of kinect games onto the gaming marketplace. There moveing towards something with that contest that gives 10 people 20,000 bucks with free equipment to do something awesome with kinect. I also belive that they should try to take somt pointers from the kinectfaast youtube user hes already made kinect look good with Skyrim and bulletstorm both which are first person and allow for free movement and shooting. After seeing his vids I kind of noticed that on the PC front their the top producers when it comes to kinect but microsoft is kind of slow on the uptake.If Microsoft could get the developers to add a 360 version of the kinectFaast program to the previous and future games that coudl add some more games to the kinect library There were 2 kinect games that i really wanted to get this year though kung fu high impact and power up heroes one used to be on the eyetoy the other is good but gets bad rep for controllers not working but after looking at different playthroughs of the game the main problems are people not doing the correct gestures.
Great article.
The problem with Kinect is it just doesn't work for gaming. People can argue all they want about it, but it just doesn't work. Microsoft either needs to release a two piece controller admitting that they were wrong about their "you are the controller" campaign or just move kinect to more of a consumer product then gaming peripheral.
As a media controller, that's a whole different story and I think it works great. I like the voice recognition and being able to tell my xbox what to do. If you review sales of kinect games that were released during the fall/winter, you will find that the majority of kinect owners did not buy it for gaming...
Dance central 2 has sold roughly 800,000 copies. Disneyland Adventures has sold roughly 350,000 copies...Kinect sports season 2 sold under a million copies. Kinectimals Now with Bears only sold roughly 80,000 copies....there are 14 million kinects roughly in households around the world...those software sales are pitiful to say the least.
I think this should be an immediate red-flag to anybody that Kinect, as a gaming peripheral, is not well received...You can already tell that Microsoft has taken some notice because their kinect focus these last 6 months has switched from games to more of a consumer media control product...integration into netflix, the entire dashboard, the rumors that they were making deals with cable companies, kinect integration coming to televisions, kinect for pc and of course the consumer kinect dev kit launching in Feb. etc etc.
There is just more money to be made from kinect as a consumer product then a gaming peripheral, but that is just my two cents.