Xbox Live Gamer Hub staff member Sean writes:
''Kinect has always confused me. It seems to be in a state of confusion, to be fair it's been in that state for a long time. It's yet to produce a true quality title that the masses will remember as a good game. Sure the Just Dance and Dance Central games showcase how to use the Kinect effectively, but bar them what else do we have? 2012 has seen some of the worst Kinect titles released to date. The likes of Steel Battalion and Dragon Ball Z Kinect could have been top titles, instead they turned out to be awful messes.''
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.
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.
Lol I had the Atari Jaguar, surprised its "competition" the 3DO isn't on the list too, both as "popular" as each other.
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 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.
Kinect requirement, TV focused, DRM, and $100 buried Xbone before it even stared.
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.
The damage to the Xbox brand was so hard that til this day they are just the last place brand in the market.
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!
The concept of Kinect and the Eyetoy are cool, but not essential for gamers needs. A controller or km is more accurate and faster for most games out there. Kinect is good for party or dance games but not pratical for fps, tps, or rpgs. While not a horrible product, gamers need fast controls for gaming.
Kinect was only good for dancing games and people are already tired of those. That fad has quickly passed.
2010 Dance Central- 2.95 million sales
2011 Dance Central 2- 1.89 million sales
2012 Dance Central 3- .48 million sales
The games that were supposed to bring the hardcore to Kinect all failed miserably.
The Gunstringer- 300k sales
Steel Battalion- 60k sales
Child of Eden- 40k sales
Fable: The Journey- 140k sales
Rise of Nightmares- 39k sales
The numbers don't lie folks and those numbers speak for themselves. This is a business and when games sell numbers like those the developers go out of business and people loss jobs. Devs can't afford to give a game a sequel when the first sold that poorly. Kinect games just don't sell and that says it all. Kinect has been demoted to a lowly microphone to yell out commands in a few games and when that novelty quickly wears off you won't use it again. Buttons are just the way to go. How good would you be in COD if shouted "THROW GRENADE" instead of just pressing the button?
"What exactly is Kinect?"
A failed concept; a good idea that resulted in a crappy product that barely works properly beyond dancing games.
Funny thing is, I really enjoyed Fable The Journey and I really like Tiger Woods golf. Both of these titles work extremely well with kinect, at lest they do in my house - surprised that people gave up on Fable so quickly.
At this point it's sort of in limbo until the next Xbox and a new version, but I think it's served us well this gen - decent sales and lots of original, fun games.