Oprah Gives Away Kinect to Everyone in Her Audience

[ShadowKirby]

My point was that Microsoft is NOT still making plentiful of great games due to clear lack of investment or priority (Bungie leaving).

Dude, it's business. Contracts end, things must get moving, deals must be done, etc... And as far as I know there are still good games coming out for XBox 360. At this point what you consider a good games is your opinion and yours alone but let,s not crazy and act like there's not going to be a single FPS released after Kinect is out. The thing's a peripheral, not a new console that forces devs to use it. They can still make a choice as to what they will do with or without it. Sure, business will get involved but like I said, I don't see how expanding the market is a bad thing, unless you fell uncomfortable about your hobby becoming mainstream, just like how some poets were looking at novels with disdain back in the 19th century.

It's also blatantly clear that Kinect has absolutely zero appeal to the platform's established demographic, spending hundreds of millions if not billions overall on a peripheral that is so expensive that your core fanbase has no use for?

Yeah the thing may have a price issue, but with time those kind of things (if there are games to back it up) arranges themselves. Look at the PS3. As for the zero appeal to the established demographic, well no shit. They are putting this out not for the established demographic, but for a wider one that they are courting.

As back to Extra Credits, as bad as it would be for Kinect to fail, the onus is not on us to buy shit products from incompetent companies to prop up their bad decisions. We should NOT have to buy a bad and expensive product just to save the wider industry. They point out that developers are torn both ways, I say be loud and clear that we don't care about flailing gimmickry.

"Flailing gimmickry" made Nintendo a bunch of money. Even that damn Balance Board everyone was laughing about blew everyone out because the damn thing sold a lot.

Kinect is less a game, its a toy, a novel plaything and almost worthless once the novelty wears off. I have TRIED to see the growth potential with Kinect and there is virtually none, the fundamental problem is the controls are so vague. We will never get a Metal Gear Solid out of Kinect, no Demon's Souls, no Half Life, not even a Time Crisis.

So because you cannot see Kinect supporting games YOU like, it is inevitably a failure?

 

[Macgyvercas]

I don't care about the Kinect part, but the fact that a couple of hundred women are getting given an Xbox 360 by a mainstream television hostess is promising that people in the media might start opening their damn minds to gaming.

Now if we could just get the media to stop bashing the stuff that isn't exactly family friendly.

OT: Good publicity for the industry and all, but I don't really like motion controls that much, and I hate Oprah, so this is one more reason for me to avoid Kinect. Besides, if I did get another motion controller system (I already own a Wii), it would be the Move, simply because Kevin Butler told me too.

 

[Treblaine]

They said it in the ACTUAL press release when they announced the delay it was for a better sales window.

They want the Winter Season sale of November to January. They said so. It IS all about money.

I'm coming in late to this discussion and I hope you'll forgive me if I'm missing the point, but why would a business make the decision to release a product in a non-optimum sales slot, where it would potentially make them less money? Aren't Microsoft doing exactly what they should be doing to stay successful in that regard?

Customers don't like being blatantly exploited. How's this for a sales plan: "Always strive to offer the best to your customer"

People are already fed up of the games drought and how everything stacks up on November, they want a fairly steady stream of games throughout the year. Things only sell better in November due to the retail cycle it is easier to advertise and catch hype at that time.

Customers don't want hype, they want genuine quality.

Is anyone tracking the number of games being released for the PS3 and 360 pre-and-post Kinect/PSMove and their target audiences? Is there really going to be a shortage of 'hardcore' games on the market in the future as the casual/kiddie/family market expands?

Fuck sales units, they are irrelevant to actual QUALITY!

How about the number of games in terms of actual number of different games, how many games would an individual get.

And the thing about Kinect (which hasn't even launched yet) is it's clear Microsoft is cutting back emphasis and money on core games for their established demographics:

-Halo; Bungie leaving completely = handed over to cheap B-team
-Forza; made into kinect "Hurf you can steer with thin air Durf" game
-PGR; Fired Bizzare, the developers of the series
-Rare Games studio; other than haemorrhaging talent since Microsoft bought them, they're also in Kinect duty
-Ensemble Studios; liquidated immediately after finishing Halo Wars

This isn't a short term blip, Microsoft are completely giving up on making core games, maybe hoping to coast on established exclusives though I think they're just following the 'casual gaming = easy money' idea.

Delaying release for Gears 3 is just a way for Microsoft to spread their meagre investment thinner. The right thing to have done would have been to release Gears 3 early in 2011 and have another game ready for Q4 2011, but they don't have another game. Look how much they are blowing on developing casual games for Kinect compared to REAL games with the depth, breadth and content we expect.

Compare and contrast with Sony and the games they are working on (to spite also releasing a major motion peripheral):

Killzone 3
Infamous 2
Gran Turismo 5
SOCOM 4
The Last Guardian
Motorstorm Apocalypse
Resistance 3
LittleBigPlanet 2
Twisted Metal
Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One
Ape Escape 4
Uncharted 3
Echochrome 2
Pixel Junk Shooter 2
Dead Nation
Journey
The Getaway
(also Agent and Yakuza 4 as PS3 exclusives though entirely 3rd party)

No casual frivolous shovelware on this list, this is how you invest and support a gaming platform. While Microsoft is investing in for Xbox 360:

-Gears of War 3
-Fable 3 (but that's getting a PC release)

See what I'm getting at? The next few years for Xbox 360 look to be pretty bad for Xbox owners. Microsoft is selling out, giving up on really interesting and deep games for the lowest common denominator just for the easy casual-money they've seen Nintendo earn.

Only I think they are doing it worse than Nintendo, taking it to a far worse extreme. Nintendo still served their most loyal fans of Zelda and Mario and so on.

But they'll get away with it. For the past 5 years Microsoft has been fucking their users around and still they are content, grateful even.

 

[Treblaine]

At this point what you consider a good games is your opinion and yours alone but let,s not crazy and act like there's not going to be a single FPS released after Kinect is out.

...

So because you cannot see Kinect supporting games YOU like, it is inevitably a failure?

1. It takes about 2 years to make a game and the ONLY shooter being made for Microsoft is Gears of war 3, and hence the only exclusive.
Of course there will be shooters, Multiplat shooters but SO FEW published by Microsoft, so few exclusives... so what is the value of the platform? Why should anyone stick with 360 when it comes to multi-plat games when:
-You have to pay for Online (DO NOT give me that bullshit that 360 has "better online")
-Such incredibly unreliable hardware
-Such expensive proprietary peripherals (360 vs PS3 for a 250GB hard drive = $129 vs $35 )
-More and more games are lead on PS3 (Vanquish) and it's showing
-Third parties are staying PS3 exclusive to spite no contracts (3D Dot Game Heroes, Agent, Yakuza 3 + 4, Flight Control HD,

Microsoft seems to want to coast on third party multi-plat games for their core demographic.

Don't you think that's a bit wrong? While all the other platforms (even Wii) invest hugely in making great exclusives for their systems? They should have offered that 400 million to keep Bungie or hire Respawn Entertainment, spend more of getting the great studios and talent than buying a shill slot on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

2. Fail to sell well? No. But will Microsoft sell their fanbase up river for a far more exploitable one? Yes. That is the "fail" you may perceive me talking about. I got an Xbox 360 entirely for it's exclusives now Microsoft has had a firesale of gaming talent, cutting back on those who stay or putting them on shovelware duty with Kinect. Yeah, that's what the Take 10 and Rare are doing, making Kinect games, not the real deep and satisfying to control games.

This is not something that Xbox users can just ignore, as it is Microsoft who is ignoring you. We all made an investment buying an xbox and games for the system, now Microsoft are letting down their end of the deal.

And this is coming at a critical time, when developers are really getting the hang of PS3's graphics hardware Xbox could get left behind. Third parties are more likely to make a game PS3 exclusive just by utilising the Move controls a lot, as the case with so many Wii games.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Talk about a sell out...

 

[Throwitawaynow]

Why are people acting like this is something new on the Oprah show? EVERYTHING they get as gifts was given to them by that company for advertisements.

 

[C95J]

damn, I wish I was there.

and looking at the past prizes that she has given out, it seems that she is a very generous person. I've never watched Oprah, but this just made me really jealous.

 

[gamebwoy]

There's a better product under development for PCs, called O3Di.

 

[Falseprophet]

I don't care about the Kinect part, but the fact that a couple of hundred women are getting given an Xbox 360 by a mainstream television hostess is promising that people in the media might start opening their damn minds to gaming.

While I have several issues with Oprah (like her willingness to swallow any New Age guru's BS), I cannot discount the power she has. I'm a librarian and have had a ringside seat to her power over the book publishing industry for years.