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PlayStation (Games) Input Devices Microsoft Sony Hardware Games

Sony's Favorite Gadget Is Kinect 222

Posted by timothy from the they're-practically-tiering-up dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Gary Marshall writes that.Microsoft's marvelous motion-sensing device is doing really good work for Sony, helping the PS4 outsell the Xbox One in the US and rocketing it to the top of the world's console sales charts. With the Xbox One $100 more expensive than the PlayStation 4, the Kinect is the explanation for the huge difference in price between the rival platforms says Marshall. "That kind of money makes a huge difference, and I wonder: if Microsoft had kept the Kinect as an optional add-on, which we all know it should be, would the Xbox One be much more attractive?" Ben Kuchera describes the peripheral as one of the most hated pieces of equipment in current use. "The system is still new, but every Xbox One owner now has a peripheral that has little reason to exist, aids their gaming in very few real ways and costs them a significant amount of money." The common defense of the Kinect is that developers wouldn't support it unless it was forced on consumers but according to Kuchera pushing a product on the public with the hope that it will be useful once we have it is a cruel inversion of how product adoption should be handled. "The forced pack-in proves something we already knew at the beginning of this generation: Almost no one would want to buy the Kinect separately if they were given the choice," writes Kuchera. "It's time to make the Kinect a peripheral, not a pack-in.""
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Sony's Favorite Gadget Is Kinect More

Sony's Favorite Gadget Is Kinect

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  • It's the ads (Score:4, Interesting)

    by i kan reed ( 749298 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @10:56AM (#46295061) Homepage Journal

    Microsoft started including ads on the xbox home page last generation. It was enough for me to entirely drop purchasing anything at all for it(and definitely not xbox 1). I had no reason to believe the PS4 is better in that regard, so they get ignored too.

    • Why did you have no reason to believe the PS4 was ad-free? It's not exactly a well-kept secret.

    • I noticed that but I don't pay for the live part so I figured it was only non-subscribers that got those.

    • So then it's not the ads that are making the difference between PS4 and xbox 1.

  • Social (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ciderbrew ( 1860166 )
    I wish they'd both make everything a lot less social and less connected. I don't want to go into another persons house if they have the NSA/GCHQ spy cam installed. I don't know what the police think I've done and come get me regardless. Think they wouldn't?
    Luckily the games are awful so I've not need to buy either.

    • Luckily the games are awful so I've not need to buy either.

      I can't decide if games have gotten worse or my standards have gotten more exacting, but I definitely feel like there's a more-recent anti-intellectual undercurrent to games that really disagrees with me.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Not going to happen (Score:4)

    by H3lldr0p ( 40304 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:00AM (#46295097) Homepage

    Microsoft is going to hold on to that thing for as long as they can. It's not going away for several different reasons.

    The first and largest is that the Kinect is a product differentiater. It makes the XBone different from the PS4. There really isn't that much a difference between the two boxes otherwise. Fine, you can go on with the technical differences between the types of RAM and the custom silicon for the XBone's APU but those are not large concerns for Mom and Dad buying little Sally's birthday present.

    Until MS comes up with something besides the software that makes their product different, the Kinect is going to hang on. But the second that happens, it'll be tossed. They know they've screwed the pooch here. They know exactly what it cost them in terms of customer relations and in terms of developers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xombo ( 628858 )

      The PS4 has a system similar to the Kinect on the PS4; the difference being that Sony's peripheral is optional.

    • They could have gone without a disc.Make it like a Steam box.

      There are rumors they considered it, and I wish they would have. Chances are they could have still bundled the Kinect and been at price parity without the BD drive.

      I was really looking forward to the discless console. I don't normally resell my games, and I have a gamer family of 4 with multiple consoles. For me, it was a huge win to buy everything digital and never have it damaged, be able to play it on every device without buying a second copy,

      • Re:Microsoft had another option to be different (Score:5, Interesting)

        by lord_mike ( 567148 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:22AM (#46295301)

        Diskless consoles are great in theory. After all, who wants to go around physically inserting discs like it's the 1980's or somethin?. But, it comes with a cost--the inability to buy used discs or discs from third parties at a discount will keep prices outrageously high for games. Yes, in theory, they could reduce the price to make up for savings from using physical media, but they won't. A $60 game (which is way too expensive to begin with), will always be $60 as a download, whereas a $60 disc can be acquired cheaper new at amazon.com or ebay, and even less used. The only way a disc-less console would be attractive to the cost conscious consumer would be if they would guarantee a significantly lower price for content--like $30. That would be a big selling point.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Megane ( 129182 )
          The other cost is if you require people to ONLY download games, they have to have a fast enough connection to make it worth it, and there is still a distribution cost to run download servers and give them bandwidth. Some parts of the world have metered internet, and some people may be on slower connections. It's also a trade-off between how long it takes to download, and how much you put into the game. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 5 inch piece of polycarbonate. It's still too early for a dickless

        • A $60 game (which is way too expensive to begin with)

          Eh, not really [flickr.com]. A game cartridge for the Atari 2600 was about $25 in 1981. Adjusting for inflation [bls.gov], that works out to $64.33 in 2014 dollars. Game prices have been remarkably consistent over the years. Don't make the mistake of comparing game prices you saw as a kid with modern prices. You always need to adjust for inflation.

          Also the Atari games were usually made by a couple of programmers with a few months of work (stuff you can buy for $0.99 o

      • I think you underestimate the number of people who don't have appropriate internet connections to make that work. Some people (more than you probably think) simply don't have consistent access to the internet. Then there's the fact that a single game can run 10s of gigabytes, for many people that is days of download time. Even for people with fast connections it can represent a significant piece of the monthly cap, Mediacom's standard package starts at 100 Gigs last time I checked but even at 200 or 300

        • The first Xbox shipped with an ethernet connection when most people were on dial-up.

          My point is that they could have played to the majority that have a high-bandwidth connection and leave the PS4 and the Xbox 360 for those that don't. Don't try to be everything to everyone.

      • They could have gone without a disc. I was really looking forward to the discless console.

        See that PS4 in the store? It can work that way if you want it to. Just download everything via PSN.

        But still, the bandwidth of a truck full of Blu-ray's is rather high.

    • Re:Not going to happen (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:18AM (#46295263)

      The first and largest is that the Kinect is a product differentiater. It makes the XBone different from the PS4. There really isn't that much a difference between the two boxes otherwise. Fine, you can go on with the technical differences between the types of RAM and the custom silicon for the XBone's APU but those are not large concerns for Mom and Dad buying little Sally's birthday present.

      Until MS comes up with something besides the software that makes their product different, the Kinect is going to hang on. But the second that happens, it'll be tossed. They know they've screwed the pooch here. They know exactly what it cost them in terms of customer relations and in terms of developers.

      My friend has an Xbone. It turns out Kinect is what caused his WIFE to monopolize it. Yes, his wife took over the Xbone. Playing Just Dance 2014, Kinect Fitness and other Kinect games.

      Enough so it's hard to get him on his Xbone. (And apparently, his youngest kids are all seeing mom dance and doing it themselves. And no, he's responsible - they take their kids outside to play which is why his Xbone gaming time is limited - they purposely want to keep their kids from getting addicted so they only play normal games when the kids are in bed).

      Apparently they also really, really, really like Skype on it - the Kinect "zooms" in on the person speaking.

      Of course, a popular peripheral for the PS4 is the camera - which if it isn't used to stream amateur porn shows on twitch...).

      I have both, and find myself playing the Xbone a lot more than my PS4 - the camera's just so-so ($60 for what amounts to two $10 720p webcams...), and PS4 controller battery life is atrocious.

      The only really bad thing is, on the PS4, I'm not buying games on it - I'm just waiting for them to show up on PS+. I did buy two games, though, but those were on ridiculous sale.

      And no, the "p"s don't matter to me - because I end up playing PS4 using my Vita and remote play - about the best feature the PS4 has over the Xbone. But it also means the p's don't matter because ou're just squishing it down to quarter-FHD (540p) for display on the Vita screen.

    • I bought a 360. Thought the kinetic would be very much used. It made the video game a much more physical activity. Turns out we don't want a physical activity, or developers don't know how to create one. In any case the kinetic did not end up being a key part of the play.

      It is instructive to recall that pundits and MS were saying something similar about Sony when they included the expensive bluray.

    • Problem is, most studios want to design their games to have similar experiences on the two platforms, if at all possible. Which is why we aren't going to see many 3rd party titles make much use of Kinect, other than for very basic and non-critical UI functions. Now, if the Xbox One proves to be a runaway success, and grabs huge market share, it's possible you'll see more developer adoption of Kinect features, which make the PS4 version look less fun in comparison (unless they have the Eye accessory). Unf

  • But that's the way Microsoft does things... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:02AM (#46295113)
    Microsoft still has the Windows monopolistic, dictate what the market wants philosophy. Microsoft is unable to function in a marketspace where they are not the monopolistic bully in the room.

    .
    Maybe the new CEO will bring a change of attitude...

    • Microsoft still has the Windows monopolistic, dictate what the market wants philosophy. Microsoft is unable to function in a marketspace where they are not the monopolistic bully in the room.

      This. Windows 8 Start Screen, anyone?

      This is hardly new behaviour for MS lately. It's like they're deliberately sabotaging all of their flagship products.

      I guess if you're big enough, you can do that kind of thing...for a while, anyways. Trouble is, once the avalanche starts, it's awful hard to stop it again...

    • To be fair, consoles always worked that way. The manufacturers try to guess what the market will like, build it, and throw it on the public. If they gess right, they are sucessfull, if they guess wrong, they are not.

      There are very deep reasons for that way of working, so it won't go away, and is shared by all the manufacturers.

    • I know, hold off on the troll mod for just a second...

      Seriously, Apple has always taken the "my way or the highway" stance. You WILL use MP4s. You WILL have a fingerprint reader. You WILL have the iTunes store. And, sonofabitch, it's working for them. And it's not even Apple - every manufacturer does this. There's all sorts of weird or in-house developed features which could be optional but which aren't because making it optional doesn't serve the purpose of the manufacturer.

      I like to hate on Microsoft as

    • Funny, since that's what Sony themselves did by stuffing Blu-Ray into the PS3. They sacrificed a ton of market share by conceding the price-point (and arriving late to market) in the interests of forcing the market to adopt own their proprietary storage media format. It completely worked, and in the long run I imagine it'll turn out in their interests to have done so...

  • Sony - our heroes! (Score:5, Funny)

    by RevWaldo ( 1186281 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:05AM (#46295141)
    http://i.imgur.com/KON0j7C.jpg [imgur.com]

    .

  • It's not Kinect that gives the PS4 the edge (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JDG1980 ( 2438906 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:06AM (#46295151)

    The Kinect isn't the primary reason that the XB1 costs more and has worse performance than the PS4. The primary reason is that during the design phase, Microsoft's engineers overestimated the cost of GDDR5 RAM. As a result, they decided to go with DDR3 instead of GDDR5 for the 8GB of system memory, and compensate for the slower speeds by including a 32MB cache ("eSRAM") on the die. This cache is so large in terms of die space that it meant there was much less room for GPU – which is why the XB1 only has 768 shaders, compared to the PS4's 1152. Meanwhile, developers have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get decent performance out of the XB1 by carefully managing allocation of the on-die cache, while on the PS4 they can simply rely on all 8GB of memory being fast enough because it's all GDDR5.

    So the result of this miscalculation is that the XB1 is more expensive to build (due to a faster die), more complex, and slower. Oops.

    • Those were decisions that should have made the Xbox One cheaper. It's basically the same architecture as the original Xbox 360, and is well-understood; by comparison the PS4's GDDR5 is luxuriously expensive. Kinect is definitely to blame.

      • Re:It's not Kinect that gives the PS4 the edge (Score:5, Interesting)

        by JDG1980 ( 2438906 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:50AM (#46295597)

        Those were decisions that should have made the Xbox One cheaper. It's basically the same architecture as the original Xbox 360, and is well-understood; by comparison the PS4's GDDR5 is luxuriously expensive. Kinect is definitely to blame.

        While GDDR5 is definitely more expensive, the price difference isn't that massive, at least when you are a company as large as Sony or Microsoft with the corresponding bulk purchasing power. This estimate [eetimes.com] indicates that Sony's 8GB of GDDR5 costs about $62, compared to $39 for Microsoft's 8GB of DDR3. Add to that the fact that Microsoft is paying more for a larger APU die to offset the RAM's weakness: roughly $132 compared to $121. (Those figures are estimates, but we know that the XB1 APU die is 363 mm^2, compared to 348 mm^2 for PS4.)

        So when you factor the larger and more expensive die into the equation, Microsoft saved a grand total of $12 a unit by going with DDR3 – and in the process, reduced their graphics performance significantly. Like I said, the only sensible explanation is that the Microsoft designers drastically overestimated the cost savings of skimping on primary system RAM, and probably also underestimated the performance hit it would cause because of the die space trade-off.

        • Microsoft saved $12 going with DDR3. Granted this is much less than they expected, but they still saved money. So why is the XBone $100 *more*? The Kinect. The Kinect is what is killing them.

        • But no one cares that much if the game runs in 900p or 1080p. Stores don't set up the consoles side by side with the same games. The consumer has to some digging to find out one is slightly better. The cost difference is because they have dozens of extra parts to manufacture, assemble, and eventually ship. There is also sunk costs they need to recapture from the Research and Develoment of the camera. Plus patents they need to license.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by JanneM ( 7445 )

            "The review said the xbox game goes to 900 and the PS4 one goes to over 1000. Better get a PS4 to play it then."

          • Keep in mind MS first party studios are a joke compared to Sony's. Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Polyphony Digital, Sucker Punch, Incognito and Guerilla are going to WIPE THE FLOOR with Xbox One in terms of graphical fidelity.

        • Another short-sighted aspect of this is that in time, outdated memory tends to go up in cost while newer memory goes down- considering the life of consoles this could end up being a real burden.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by amorsen ( 7485 )

            DDR3 and GDDR5 are contemporary standards. DDR3 is slightly older, but DDRx cycles last longer than GDDRx cycles, so they should both go obsolete at about the same time.

        • Well-argued, thanks.

      • The Xbox One does not use the same architecture as the 360, the 360 (and PS3) uses the PowerPC architecture which isn't used much any more. The Xbox One and the PS4 both utilize x86 architecture. The only thing the Xbox One and 360 have in common hardware-wise is use of a smaller secondary cache of RAM that is faster than standard memory. The Kinect costs around $75 to manufacture and even if they cut the price down $399 for a system that didn't include the Kinect they would be loosing over $20 on every

    • The added cost of the silicon does not add 100 bucks, unless the yields are absolutely atrocious (they shouldn't be and there's no talk of them being so).

      If there is a 100ish buck difference in manufacturing costs, Kinect is the main reason.

  • Kinnect (Score:3)

    by deadweight ( 681827 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:10AM (#46295181)
    I have one someplace in a box. We used it about a month and decided it was useless crapware. The old WII does bowling SO much better than the kinnect is about the first thing you find out. It was always going out of area or not sensing the right motion and otherwise being useless.
  • I use the Kinect rather heavily. As I use my XBox One as a media center more than a game system, the Kinect plays a large role in my usage. I like not needing to find a remote control to do anything with my setup. Also, with Skype I am able to see my grand children, as they have an XBox One as well. The ease of use is such that even my wife, who is not a geek, is able to utilize the system. Now, could they have sold it as an add-on, or as a bundle option. Yup.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      Also, with Skype I am able to see my grand children

      Too bad for MS that grandparents aren't the market segment they were shooting for. Consoles are sold for little or no margin, or even below cost. The big money is in the "razor blades", aka games. How many games have you bought for that system?

  • Local source for Kinect for Playstation (Score:3)

    by Technician ( 215283 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:14AM (#46295223)

    If you want one cheap and don't want to wait for delivery for your Sony, simply check your area thrift stores. They are almost as common as Guitar Hero Guitars, Microphones, and Wii Balance Boards.

    FYI, the Rock Band/Guitar Hero microphones show up on a PC as a decent Logitech USB Microphone. Not a bad mic for under $5.

  • If I were invested in the whole Xbox ecosystem I would resent having to shell out more for a device that basically brings nothing to the table as a gamer. Looking across at my PS4 'rivals' they basically get a more powerful console for a lot less money. To add insult to injury Xbox fanbois try and point out the flaws in the PS4 ecosystem, flaws which the XBox has too.. "Look, you have to pay for multiplayer now!", which although is a new added expense, was ALWAYS an expense for the XBox. Microsoft have

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      If you are invested int he Xbox ecosystem the Xbone has no advantages. Nothing crosses over, your games all will not work with the new system. Microsoft was stupid to not allow xbox360 games to run on it to make it easier for people to transition across.

      I think the reason is that most people would notice that it is not that much better than the Xbox360 so why even buy it.

  • but how profitable is it? (Score:3)

    by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:29AM (#46295361)

    This reminds me of way back in the day when SOE increased the subscription to Everquest from $9.99 to $15.99 per month. Everyone decried it as the end to SOE, because they lost about 30% of their accounts (mostly alt accounts) But they were wrong, it was a great plan financially. If you have 100 users @ $10/month you're making $1000/month. If you have 67 customers @ $16/month you make $1072 AND you have less overhead. Also, a lot of those users eventually came back at the higher rate. SOE was making more money than ever and had fewer customers to serve. Not only that, but they set the standard for all their future MMOs and in fact, the industry in general settled on that rate.

    So the question isn't in the popularity of the xbox, it's the profitability. If the Kinect makes each user more valuable via marketing and such, then the lower number of users may be a moot point. The only question is: Just how valuable will that marketing data be?

    • Re:but how profitable is it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @12:05PM (#46295749)

      (mostly alt accounts)

      This is incorrect. They lost mostly casual infrequent players. The multi-boxing alt players raised the biggest stink because they were heavy players, heavily invested, and their little hobby got a lot more expensive on them overnight, but the 'silent majority' that left were the more casual players.

      If you have 67 customers @ $16/month you make $1072

      Slightly better than break even, but at the cost of marketshare in an business where "critical mass" is crucial to growth and sustainability.

      AND you have less overhead.

      Again, incorrect. As they lost mostly casual infrequent players they lost the group of users that weren't really costing them anything in the first place. They lost the people who were playing once or twice a week for a couple hours.

      The 'hardcore' crowd sucked it up, they were getting a 100 to 200 and beyond hours per month of entertainment so even at $15 per month, even for $15 per month for a couple accounts it was still good value. But the casuals dropped like flies. And new players similarly dropped the game.

      And you needed those casuals playing, they formed up the feeder guilds that provided new players someone to play with and learn the ropes until they were ready move to the raiding guilds.

      Also, a lot of those users eventually came back at the higher rate.

      But most didn't, and a lot of people who'd have joined at $10 didn't join. And as you said, the price jump set the standard for the industry, and a lot of people who were playing 2 or 3 MMOs cut a title as a result.

      Plus SOE wanted $30+ bucks for a new expansion every 3 months, adding effectively $5+ / month to play since most expansions were nearly indispensible -- between the new convenience features they added, and the fact that it was usually tough to find anyone to play with outside the latest expansion zones the vast majority of players kept up with expansions, even the casuals.

      Not only that, but they set the standard for all their future MMOs and in fact, the industry in general settled on that rate.

      And now they are nearly all Free 2 Play with premium tiers, which is what they should have done back then. (Although SOEs Free2Play restrictions even today border on asinine -- why can't you move the XP / AA slider on a silver account in EQ2? At least they finally removed item unlockers and "frequent upgrade reminders" but they still haven't got the 'mix' right in my opinion.

      So the question isn't in the popularity of the xbox, it's the profitability.

      Short term profitability vs long term sustainability. Giving up some profit today to make more over the course of the games life cycle is worth it. That 30% of the accounts they lost stopped buying expansions, stopped introducing new players (some of which would have become core players) etc.

      Trust me it wasn't mostly 'alts'. They were just the loudest group of complainers that STAYED.

  • ....all the hatred for Kinect. People cite privacy and all that, but the hatred for Kinect goes back much farther than that. There was incredible hatred for the device at the initial release well before there were any privacy concerns. That's a shame, since it is the most innovative thing that Microsoft has ever developed. Download Kinect Party and play the demo for awhile--it's incredible that they actually were able to make something like this even work!! I have always thought it was very cool. The k

    • ....all the hatred for Kinect. People cite privacy and all that, but the hatred for Kinect goes back much farther than that. There was incredible hatred for the device at the initial release well before there were any privacy concerns. That's a shame, since it is the most innovative thing that Microsoft has ever developed.

      That, and oddly enough a shitload of people bought the original Kinect, despite the hatred by the gaming elite. A ton more people bought the 360+Kinect combo. Did every one of them love the Kinect games, probably not. The kinect, to its credit, was the thing that finally gave the 360 the edge over the Wii, despite it costing a ton more to get a 360+Kinect than a Wii, people ate it up. And now we have more haters saying they dont want the Kinect with the One? Go sell it on ebay and quit whining, you are

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DdJ ( 10790 )

      ....all the hatred for Kinect.

      In my case, it comes from owning one for my 360.

      First, the requirements for a space to use it fully are absurd. I do not have a tiny living room, but the way it's laid out, I can't use the amount of floor space that Kinect games "want" me to. The optimum viewing distance from my TV is taken up by a couch and an easy chair, and there's an actual wall right behind them.

      Second, Microsoft got so excited about using the Kinect for non-game purposes that they virtually destroyed ot

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

        I've seen 3rd party lenses that contract the space requirements, didn't need it myself, but they exist.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DdJ ( 10790 )

          I've seen 3rd party lenses that contract the space requirements, didn't need it myself, but they exist.

          I actually tried one that a member of the Xbox team recommended. It very much did not work for me. YMMV, I suppose. That wouldn't have covered all of my complaints anyway, even if it had worked.

    • I got one and it - IMHO - sucked. You needed to be too far back to fit in the living room. It was too narrow a view. The novelty wore off very fast when yoou got tired of it not resolving your movements correctly.
    • Kinect is definitely some cool tech, but its price/value proposition sucks.

  • It's also hated by most players. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:35AM (#46295411) Homepage

    Every single Xbox owner I know that has a Kinect does not use it at all. the games for it suck, even Forza Horizon had support for it but it rarely works right. and if you have windows behind you it fails completely.

    The $100 difference does make a difference as well, I know a lot of hardcore console gamers looking at the PS4 instead of the Xbone this time around, and they were Xbox360 hardcore fanboys.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

      So I don't really game console, but I hear Child of Eden was maybe the only game that used Kinect right, and it's pretty much an abstract musical game that lets you shoot lasers from your hands.

      I did get a PS2 and a nice wheel to play GT4... and now that the PS4 is out I might shell out for a used PS3 so I can play GT6. But yeah... Playstation tends to have a few really good exclusive titles, while XBox tends to just be a cheaper and easier to use (well, OK, "dumbed-down") gaming PC. But I already have a

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by DdJ ( 10790 )

        So I don't really game console, but I hear Child of Eden was maybe the only game that used Kinect right, and it's pretty much an abstract musical game that lets you shoot lasers from your hands.

        I think it's worth noting that the Kinect support in "Child of Eden" is optional. I got the game, and played it Kinect-style for a little while, but ended up getting too tired too quickly to get very far.

        Fortunately, you can also play with a standard controller, as if it were just an updated version of "Rez". And t

      • But XBox never supported the somewhat-affordable Logitech G25 / G27 wheel

        [Don Draper moment] What? [/Don Draper moment]

        I thought the 360 supported the same wheels the PS3 did, via USB. That sucks for the Xbox-ers.

    • I don't like a single Kinect game. The controls are wacky, and the games have a wide open win condition because of this. That said, the next gen Kinect(3.0, 4.0?) might be able to capture punches/kicks in real time. Then you'll have the fighting game with real punch+kick action. Maybe have a 360 room display, so you can look around and see critters come up to you. Sure this would only work in mini-arcades. Or maybe use Occulus. Walking could be determined if you're standing off center from the middle

  • Cruel Inversion (Score:3)

    by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @11:44AM (#46295515) Homepage

    pushing a product on the public with the hope that it will be useful once we have it is a cruel inversion of how product adoption should be handled.

    Nonsense. People buy a product like a game console speculating that they will get future use out of it. This doesn't always pan out, as many second and third-gen consoles can demonstrate quite well. You can certainly make the argument (and I believe the author has) that the XBone raises the risk too high, and that's a valid point, but the only inversion going on here is the one between reality and wishful thinking.

  • The sort of thing they're well known for, basically the MO of MS: force an unpopular product/feature onto an existing client base and just expect them to suck it up now or wait for the "corrected" release (the next version). Either way, they'll pay eventually.

    And yet in spite of this institutionalized douchebaggery, they somehow keeping making money. Someone please remind me again how up is down, black is white. What a world.

  • Sega Anyone? (Score:3)

    by triffid_98 ( 899609 ) on Thursday February 20, 2014 @12:10PM (#46295787)
    As much as I'm not in favor of an always on camera controlled by a shady mega-corporation, anyone who lived through the late 80's-early 90's knows how little third party support you get when you have optional components.

    I'm sure there were plenty more, but here are a few off the top of my head. (for the Genesis) Sega CD, Sega 32x. (for the NES) Powerglove, (for the Saturn) Twin-Stick, (for the PS2) Trance Vibrator, (for the DC) omg...so many. Maracas, Fishing Reels, Mice, Keyboards, Microphones, Cameras, etc.

    None of the above got much love from developers, because of market fragmentation. The good news (for DC owners) was that those controllers allowed flawless ports of their arcade titles since you had the same controller setup...and also the Trance Vibrator is both super creepy and clearly brought to you by the same minds that created tentacle rape pr0n.

  • So you're saying it's like the NES robot [wikipedia.org]?

  • The original Kinect hardware was one of the fastest selling consumer electronics devices in history.

    http://www.1up.com/news/kinect... [1up.com]

    That was when it was an optional add-on.

    My kids play X360 games via connect exclusively.

    I mostly play FM4 on the 360, with a racing wheel. In fact, the only time a controller gets used is to navigate DVD menus.

  • There is a lot of very cool tech in and that can be built around a Kinect.

  • I cannot believe that on a site that bills itself as news for nerds, we are slamming Microsoft for taking the bold step of bundling what is the most advanced motion sensing, image/voice recognition system available outside of DOD contractors with a gaming console and doing it for just $100 more than its otherwise similarly spec'd competitor. For everybody that complains that the kinetic should have been sold separately you got to remember that because of the lower volume and the added cost of packaging, adv

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