Can I suggest a bit of rereading before anyone jumps in to a post where they're going to go for a pretty absolute YOU'RE FUCKING WRONG tone/stance?

Just read through the last few pages, and it's a mix of misreading, occasional wrongness, speculation (of an unimportant and harmless nature) some possibly poorly explained points and some itchy trigger fingers with posts in response.

Also, sad lack of info on next gen, which when I saw 100+ new responses, is what I was hoping for.

lols.

I'm astonished members of a videogame forum are having difficulty with videogame nomenclature.  Things that plug into consoles and allow you to control software on that console are called controllers or, if you want to lump them under a broader heading, peripherals.  Yes, the Wii balance board is a good comparison, because it's a controller.  So are light guns, steering wheels, mice and keyboards.  Just because Kinect is an expensive controller, it doesn't make it anything more than a controller.

On a related note, one of my colleagues regularly says, "If my auntie was a man she'd be my uncle."

Facewon wrote:

Also, sad lack of info on next gen, which when I saw 100+ new responses, is what I was hoping for.

Apparently, expect more "games as a service" from platform holders -which I guess boils down to a mixture of MMO-style subscription games and also F2P with microtransactions. They'll probably dabble with ads as well, they always do.
Could be at odds with trad platform holder desire for absolute control of the metal - greenlighting, limited patching, charge for sub and QA etc. - so will be interesting to see how it's tackled, especially the patching issue.

@live Re: microsoft staying static: I doubt that very much. As shown with the push for a centralised "app store" in win8, they saw the market shift and see the money itunes store, steam etc. are making publishing software, which is their role.
The problem will be how they deal with loosening their grip on the hardware and publishing cycle (will they still insist on greenlighting and curating their store? Or will they open the floodgates for fart apps like apple did? I guess curation works for Valve, but MS have blocked quite a few XBLA games because there was a similar genre game in the pipe, which is retarded as the game that does get released may have been shit and the game they blocked may have been better - IMHO more open is more competitive and raises the quality level better than harsh curation).

The hardware will def be powerful, doubt it's going to be optimized for kinect, more likely going to be aimed more at online connectivity - they can see how much of their console usage is for netflix, lovefilm and the other streaming media portals. Xbox Music is pushing in that direction as well.

Sony will release a hardware beast, with huge paper numbers as usual, but hopefully their software support will get better rather than their "oh our hardware engineers made it deliberately difficult to develop for because we're fucking dicks like that" - software side has certainly has made pretty big leaps in the past few years so I'd hope next cycle they realise that for cross-platform titles to not be poor cousin on their platform, they need to invest in software and developer support. 
Til they resolve the SCEE-SCEA-SCEJ muddle though, it's always going to be a bit patchy across territories.

Let's have a moment to think about that one 360 owner in Japan.

Dude goes nuts about Gears of War tho

adkm1979 wrote:

I'm astonished members of a videogame forum are having difficulty with videogame nomenclature.  Things that plug into consoles and allow you to control software on that console are called controllers or, if you want to lump them under a broader heading, peripherals.  Yes, the Wii balance board is a good comparison, because it's a controller.  So are light guns, steering wheels, mice and keyboards.  Just because Kinect is an expensive controller, it doesn't make it anything more than a controller. On a related note, one of my colleagues regularly says, "If my auntie was a man she'd be my uncle."

Jesus wept.

I didn't say it was a console. I placed its sales in the list of consoles and said if it was one here's where it would be.

What I said was nothing like your Aunty with balls example.

What it was was the same as when the Olympics were on and people said "If Yorkshire were a country it would be fifth on the medals table" or whatever.

I trust everyone was throwing their crisps at the telly screaming "YORKSHIRE ISN'T A COUNTRY!" then as well.

Roujin wrote:

I think Kinect works much better when it's more of a passive thing. Unless you're playing Dance Central (which is fucking awesome). Like in ME3. It was there, you could change weapons on the fly, powers, order squad mates without pausing the game every 3 seconds during a firefight and breaking up the action.

A friend was telling me about FIFA 13's Kinect stuff, sounds hilarious (and handy) – swearing at ref can get you booked, apologising for a foul might save you from a booking, and you can change formations on the fly with yer voice.

Good stuff, but not quite worth the price of admission.

It's always the same, the voice control works well, you can change channels with your voice, it's great blah blah. Fine, stick voice control in the next box, it could easily have been in the last one. The rest isn't needed and definitely not as a built-in extra cost.

Is ham in a can spam?

The tech market over the past 5 years has been full of examples of new features being foisted on users that haven't requested them. Just like every major operating system supplier has decided that their product needs new slick UIs that piss everyone off, are buggy as hell but fit into their product strategy and marketing. 

Given what MS are doing with touch and Windows 8, and integrating the xbox brand into everything they can, does anyone really see them releasing a next gen entertainment device to take them through the best part of this decade, with only a dual analog, multi-buttoned giant plastic controller for input? 

Or do they want something slick and sexy looking for the adverts that will accompany this thing?

I don't know why you think selling to a third of a generally very loyal audience is good enough to force it onto everyone. Everyone I know with it stopped using it a while back.

JMW wrote:

I don't know why you think selling to a third of a generally very loyal audience is good enough to force it onto everyone. Everyone I know with it stopped using it a while back.

I don't know why you're talking about something being forced. If they release a Kinect 2, and all signs point to them doing that, then what about that is forced. It'll be a standalone peripheral again.

People who have them now will be able to reconnect them to any new machine. If they're not that fussed about motion control after all they can keep the voice stuff. If they really do like motion control they might be tempted to buy the new version.

If you're talking about bundling it with certain consoles then that's always happened, happens right now and will always happen in the future.


I'm not that fussed about buying another one because even if it worked flawlessly I'm not bothered about playing them on my own and we don't have young children round or parties often enough for it to be used in those instances. I'm not especially the target market though.

I don't know how you're making the leap between a user base that's loyal towards the 'Xbox' brand (hardcore shooters, racers, online teabagging frat boys etc) and them wanting a motion controlled interface.

The fact they sold to roughly a third of the 'Xbox' crowd is fucking amazing. Not a failure. The fact MS has managed to take a mostly wonky peripheral and parlay it into family sales is astounding.

If they want decent support for it, they'll have to force it. 

And you will all buy it.