Now that the dust has settled and Kinect is out the door, it’s becoming quickly apparent that Microsoft’s motion controller is on to a bit of a roll. With sales surging and the big M talking down claims of enforced stock shortages in order to ramp up the peripherals desirability, no one could have honestly predicted we’d be here last E3…
With sales of Kinect doing all sorts of good business, we decided we should take a look at the real reasons why it’ll outlast and beat the competition…
It’s specifically targeted
Kinect isn’t for gamers. The Wii wasn’t for gamers. They’re specifically designed for people who don’t play games. Microsoft doesn’t need people who like Call Of Duty or Halo to buy an 360; clearly, you already have one. If the Xbox was to succeed and reach the kinds of numbers Nintendo’s Wii has been doing, it needed to reach out to a larger audience. Kinect works successfully here because, unlike Move, it doesn’t have any pretensions of being anything other than a game changer. Move still works with shooters and genres we’re all used to playing with a pad, but that’s an unnecessary concession. The Kinect has had laser like targeting and so, in the long run, audiences that don’t play games are already interested in the sorts of experiences Kinect can offer.
They’re not really games
Another glaring issue; Kinect’s games are nearly totally removed from the sorts of experiences that have been the 360′s bread and butter for years. This is both a good and bad thing. When you take a look at titles like Get Fit With Mel B or Kinectimals the traditional ‘game’ template cannot be applied. Once again, this is appealing to all those people that gawp at Halo and COD with a condescending air. Kinect is the perfect peripheral in this regard, even more so than the Wii and Move – traditional experiences are almost impossible with Kinect. Its accuracy is enough for it to function, but inaccurate so that score attack games or anything that really requires ‘skill’ is made redundant. Kinect is more about the act of doing than the skill required to do it – perfect for families and people that shudder at the thought of spending time chasing an arbitrary number.
It looks like the future
Well it does. Where as the Move looks like a slightly advanced Wii, which we suppose in many ways it is, but that does totally ignores the improvements it makes. For the general public though, these perceptions don’t really matter, it’s what you can see in front of you that counts. When someone is moving a menu around like they’re in Minority Report, then that’s when people get excited. It’s also really easy to use with no confusing buttons, despite the on-screen menus becoming far more complicated and difficult to manoeuvre as a result.
In conclusion
Ultimately, Kinect’s success is down to the huge audience it attracts that have invested in it because of its potential. With no traditional game at launch, it should have been abundantly clear that Microsoft was entering into a much wider and considered market and we should stop looking at Kinect as something that will change our gaming lives. Perhaps a few games will come along to make us sit up and take notice, but for those of us that like gaming with a pad, Kinect won’t change this.
But it will make Microsoft’s machine the home hub for everyone in the family, and that’s the reason Kinect has the brightest future of all the motion controllers.
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