E3 2011: The Kinect Disconnect

This year at E3, Microsoft’s focus was clearly on Kinect. Be it Kinect integration with controller-based games or a slew of new Kinect games, the wildly successful controller-free peripheral had a massive showing. Unfortunately, it failed to impress.

[Just_The_Truth]

I don't own a Xbox or kinect but watching that conference made me sad. The coolest things shown were the 3rd party games. Everyone defended MS and believed in them and this is what they get. I'm not even glad i can throw this in the faces of the people that constantly defended kinect, no now i'm just feeling sorry honestly.

[MariaHelFutura]

The coolest thing shown was a weapon customization screen......let`s be honest.

[SilentNegotiator]

It was children's games, games on rails, and some voice implementation that could be done using any cheap microphone (the implementations shown don't REALLY take advantage of Kinect).

[The Great Melon]

Arghh... the rails. Sure there may be more games now, but everything is on rails!

[Pedobear Rocks]

How many developers does MS own? Of course most of their games are going to be 3rd Party (and thus this gen almost all multiplat to boot)

[cheetorb]

So long MS, it's been fun playing with you.

[live2play]

ok yes i honestly think that 8 year olds will have a blast with kinect, its great for them
but e3 is no place to impress kids and casuals.. they are not watching
YOUR AUDIENCE IS A BUNCH OF GAMERS

[Mr Tretton]

A big part of the E3 audience is also investors and publishers.

Not defending MS or anything, just saying, E3 is not all about gamers. E3 used to be something we couldn't even watch in the past.

[SilentNegotiator]

True. The original Playstation was announced pretty much with a powerpoint.

[darthv72]

expecting flashy stuff on stage and substance in the games that are shown. But if we let our own personal hype get the best of us we will never really see what is being shown.

Sometimes it isnt about what you see now, its about the potential in how something is made and giving ideas on how to take it one step further.

[Cajun Chicken]

Kinect became a microphone today.

[darren_poolies]

haha this made me laugh, bubble for you!

[LOLconsoles]

Plenty of material for images at least.

[PSjesus]

M$ is a company looking for profit only and don't care about
fans.

[ForROME]

Welcome to what we call a "business" wallet first, no matter what company we are talking about, dont sound narrow

[Kyur4ThePain]

Unfortunately, most of the demonstrations looked downright retarded.
Everyone looked so smug with chests pushed out into next week and yet they were hardly interacting with the onscreen images.

[ForROME]

awww Im sure you said the samething last E3 when you thought it would be a flop, to bad you looked "retarded" once the dust settled

LOL anyone who uses the word retarded, is retarded LOL

[Kyur4ThePain]

You're equating sales to quality. If you think that "playing" unresponsive on-rails games is a good idea, knock yourself out. I think it looks and plays stupid.

[jamstorr86]

Star Wars was the biggest dissapointment of the lot. So much potential thrown away just to make use of the kinect. Scrap kinect and you would have had a nice game there.

[KratosGod3]

Unfortunately I think the next xbox name will be... Kinect720, for sure.

[Umb]

It reason for being now is to make a profit for the shareholders, anything else is secondary or third.

MS sees the potential of the causal especially with the children demographic as a gold field prompted by Nintendo's Wii success this gen.

MS also may feel that with so little internal studios, the numbers of exclusive they have can not match Sony's, since 3rd party are now all heading multiplat anyway and MS is not about to dish out the same amount of money at the beginning of this gen to secure 3rd party exclusives.

Kinect games are also cheaper and faster to produces over a traditional AAA titles, and the same level of production values is not required. Children will be just as excited about the colours and character on screen to worry about FPS, pop-ins or screen tearing.

Its about the economics of the business and MS has decided to head down this particular road for the potential profits to be made. Sony may also feel the same and may also directing resources for the children/casual audience, since now a days parents tend to give in to their children and buy things for them.

[philpee2]

First of all, every company is interested in profit, not just MS. Second, Microsoft may not have a lot of exclusives, but I guarantee you Gears of War 3 and Halo Anniversary will sell more copies than every Sony exclusive combined. They don't need a lot of big exclusives, because the few they have are so damn successful.