Kinect price confirmed 150USD plus arcade model priced

obonicus said:
Well, kind of. I'm curious what sort of success you see for this thing. As I've snarked before, I think that post-release actual discussion of these devices success will be impossible, since it'll all resolve to 'it did good enough' (except for those people who will think that anything short of Wii 2008-2009 holiday sales means failure). My own guess is 10 million kinects by the end of 2012, WW. No idea about Move -- I'm probably getting it, but I'm not sure why anyone ELSE would. (On the other hand, my tastes are not the majority's, so what do I know?)

And yeah, I should have added: 'all predictions are off if the Wii price-drops, or Kinect is supply limited'. I don't think either of those will happen. I also framed it in terms of this year's holidays exactly because the Wii looks like it's in a slump, so we might see lowish numbers, comparatively. I guess what I'm wondering is: do you think Kinect's performance will be within the same ballpark as the Wii's?

I'm on the record that I don't think so, not at all (I think $150 is far too steep, I don't think the software is there, I don't think the Wii upgrade is real, I think the Wii will keep most of its mindshare) but I'm starting to consider the possibility that I might be wrong based on these anecdotes. I don't think it's a particularly real possibility, but it's a possibility.
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Kinect will be in Chicago most of next week so I will see if I can get some unauthorized audio recordings of bystanders and players. If I make it on YouTube as a player I'll post it here with my impressions. Should be a huge crowd from which to choose since the setup is at the Air & Water Show.

I was also on record here that $150 was asinine yet I still have the damn thing on pre I might even have one for my son on Pre and the more I hear random conversations from people I wouldn't imagine to be talking about it, the dev and my wife and my wii only friend and his family the more I am convinced that it is going to at least be a one holiday hit.
 
NavNucST3 said:
LOL. You just really want me to get close to that ledge and jump don't you? :p The Navy taught me to be brave (read: stupid) but I don't know if I'm quite THAT brave. I'll have to look at last years numbers. I DO think that if the Wii holds price that it will have a "significant" drop YoY in December with the 360 gaining the majority of that share (not including the handhelds). I am talking worldwide not just North America NPD.
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If the Wii holds the same price I don't expect that the Xbox 360 will benefit in any real significant way from people who aren't buying the Wii. The people who aren't buying will as a likely majority, either never buy or buy when/if the Wii price drops to $149. It'll take more than a holiday season of sales to convince the wider market to change their favourite from the Wii to the 360 with Kinect.
 
Squilliam said:
If the Wii holds the same price I don't expect that the Xbox 360 will benefit in any real significant way from people who aren't buying the Wii. The people who aren't buying will as a likely majority, either never buy or buy when/if the Wii price drops to $149. It'll take more than a holiday season of sales to convince the wider market to change their favourite from the Wii to the 360 with Kinect.
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Ah, you have little experience with the fickleness of non-core anything (electronics, toys, consoles, dolls, etc.) consumers. If Kinect manages to capture the imagination of enough people and those people actively recruit other people to come over and use it (like Wii or other fads before it), it'll reach fad status similar to the Wii for the first few years.

I don't think it's going to be quite that successful at the moment, but the possibility is there. And becoming a fad is not something predictable or even reproduceable (companies try all time and fail way more often than not). It'll happen or it won't. But I do at least think there might be a possibility. Whether 299 USD is too much for that is unknown. Then again Wii reached fad status with a 249 retail price that was more often than not inflated to 299-399 in the first couple years.

When considering how well Kinect is going to do this holiday season, I'm totally discounting the stand alone for 149 USD, I don't think that's going to have much of an impact in the overall adoption of Kinect. My current feeling is that the Kinect bundle is going to bring in the majority of sales (80-95% of Kinect sales).

Standard Disclaimer: Fad status is NOT a bad thing. :p It means your product is popular enough that just about everyone and their dog practically wants one.

Regards,
SB
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Ah, you have little experience with the fickleness of non-core anything (electronics, toys, consoles, dolls, etc.) consumers. If Kinect manages to capture the imagination of enough people and those people actively recruit other people to come over and use it (like Wii or other fads before it), it'll reach fad status similar to the Wii for the first few years.
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I haven't seen any increases in Xbox 360 sales kill PS3 sales nor have I seen the reverse after the PS3 had its latest price cut. If the markets for both DX9 consoles are similar and yet they cannot effect each other badly then I believe I have good reason to believe that increases in sales for the Xbox 360 Kinect consoles won't show an immediate and obvious impact on Wii sales.

Beyond that, theres also the idea that the Wii is currently a fad. I simply don't believe its selling because its the hot item. I suspect its selling because it has the software people want and its the one peoples friends have at this point in time, the PS2 effect. This effect isn't going to end unless some other console comes out with both a better experience and gets enough consoles out there on the ground to actually dent the word of mouth advantage.


When considering how well Kinect is going to do this holiday season, I'm totally discounting the stand alone for 149 USD, I don't think that's going to have much of an impact in the overall adoption of Kinect. My current feeling is that the Kinect bundle is going to bring in the majority of sales (80-95% of Kinect sales).
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Its funny, its almost like Microsoft wanted to make the Xbox 360 Kinect seem a lot better value by saying "See you're saving $50 already". By making the stand-alone much more costly. But yes, I certainly agree with you here. $299 isn't actually a bad price for it now that im used to the idea of it costing that much. We focus too much on the list price and we tend to forget that console owners tend to walk out of the store with cables, extra games, extra controllers, Live cards etc, its not that $299 its the $399 or so that people really pay which is important.

I just want to add that IMO its a great move that Kinect games are $10 cheaper because it means that most people will be able to walk out the store with an extra game, HDMI cable and with tax still get under $399.

Standard Disclaimer: Fad status is NOT a bad thing. :p It means your product is popular enough that just about everyone and their dog practically wants one.

Regards,
SB
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I still reckon the fad was over a while ago. :)
 
250GB Xbox 360 Kinect bundle tipped on 4GB packaging

j9xdfc.jpg
 
Mind you that packaging is localized to Australia. Does not mean we will see that elsewhere.

Tommy McClain
 
Ha! The jokes on you, this is a pants-optional forum and I always choose the pants-free option.

Digisan sits with legs spread wide open letting the breeze waft through his exposed privates. :cool:

;) :p
 
ROFL, right there with you here in the 100+° weather we got going on. Just need some pretty ladies to help fan us while we drink a Mai Tai. LOL

Tommy McClain
 
Squilliam said:
Beyond that, theres also the idea that the Wii is currently a fad.

Its funny, its almost like Microsoft wanted to make the Xbox 360 Kinect seem a lot better value by saying "See you're saving $50 already". By making the stand-alone much more costly. But yes, I certainly agree with you here. $299 isn't actually a bad price for it now that im used to the idea of it costing that much. We focus too much on the list price and we tend to forget that console owners tend to walk out of the store with cables, extra games, extra controllers, Live cards etc, its not that $299 its the $399 or so that people really pay which is important.
Click to expand...

Not currently a fad no, hasn't been for a while now as it's sales and consumer desperation to buy one have dropped significantly such that it's now in the same ballpark as the X360 and PS3. It still sells more units most of the time, but it's not always dominating.

As to the price. I saw an interesting editorial piece the other day. It's interesting that so many are fixated on the 150 USD price of Kinect, and many of the same people that complain about that price have no problem with the 2k+ price for the biggest Sony push this holiday season. 3D gaming. Hell just the glasses for a 3D TV can run up to 200 USD a piece. And yet, that's one of the major pushes Sony is making for the PS3. And one of the major pushes for their games on PS3.

Yes, I realize that's not directly comparable. :) But it just goes to show how ridiculous price comparisons can become. As well I'm sure making the bundle more attractive by pricing the camera high isn't causing any MS PR people to lose sleep. :)

And as with the person in the editorial, I think there's still a lot of internal infighting at Sony. Rather than having one cohesive vision and push for the Holiday season they are sending out all kinds of marketing messages with no unifying push. You want 3D! No you want Move! No you want both! You need 2 wands! No you can use just one wand! No you need... A PS3 gamer trying to take advantage of everything Sony wants to promote for the PS3 will have to spend a few thousand USD this holiday season.

Anyways, for me. Faced with Kinect bundle versus Halo Reach bundle. I think I'm going to end up paying the 150 USD for the stand alone Kinect. :p

AzBat said:
ROFL, right there with you here in the 100+° weather we got going on. Just need some pretty ladies to help fan us while we drink a Mai Tai. LOL

Tommy McClain
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Ummmm, are you sure pretty ladies fanning your privates is going to lower the temperature? :LOL:

Regards,
SB
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Not currently a fad no, hasn't been for a while now as it's sales and consumer desperation to buy one have dropped significantly such that it's now in the same ballpark as the X360 and PS3. It still sells more units most of the time, but it's not always dominating.
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What gets to me however is that I don't feel theres a complete answer as to why the Wii was so successful in the first place. Nintendo has a theory and calls it 'Blue Ocean" theory where they go for parts of the market which aren't being actively competed for by their competition. They call "Red Ocean" a market where there is a strong competitive presence, for instance they called motion controls "Red Ocean" which they attempt to avoid competing in if possible which might explain the fact that they have changed tact a bit and are releasing so many 2D games where they have absolutely no competition. They also say they are competing against non consumption / apathy as much if not more than they are competing against Sony and Microsoft.

As to the price. I saw an interesting editorial piece the other day. It's interesting that so many are fixated on the 150 USD price of Kinect, and many of the same people that complain about that price have no problem with the 2k+ price for the biggest Sony push this holiday season. 3D gaming. Hell just the glasses for a 3D TV can run up to 200 USD a piece. And yet, that's one of the major pushes Sony is making for the PS3. And one of the major pushes for their games on PS3.
Click to expand...

I think Microsoft might be right, and we might be wrong. Theres something which can be said for such confidence to release the peripheral at more than two times what the analysts have pegged as the maximum for it to be successful. Its interesting in the kind of price signals they are sending. A lot of people have been conditioned into believing that something being priced higher than another competing product can mean its of higher quality. Perhaps releasing high and then dropping the price next year sends a better signal than cheapening out the product right from the start.
And as with the person in the editorial, I think there's still a lot of internal infighting at Sony. Rather than having one cohesive vision and push for the Holiday season they are sending out all kinds of marketing messages with no unifying push. You want 3D! No you want Move! No you want both! You need 2 wands! No you can use just one wand! No you need... A PS3 gamer trying to take advantage of everything Sony wants to promote for the PS3 will have to spend a few thousand USD this holiday season.
Click to expand...

To be honest with you, I don't think Sony could launch the product this Chrismas in the same way that Microsoft can launch Kinect. They need to get the wand into peoples hands and they need the word of mouth to back them up before they can launch a real campaign to drive adoption. They need to prove that the Move controller is "better" than the Wiimote however they don't have the advantage of novelty or ease of demonstration that Kinect has nor the ubiquity of the Wiimote in the market.

This is the reason why they are focusing on their own audience and why they priced the peripheral at the level they did. Once they get a reasonable level of adoption they can get the price of the PS3 down to $299 with the Move controller next year and do a full push for the product with a proper range of core and mass market games. In my opinion the reason why Socom 4 got delayed was to stack the deck for 2011 when they really want to do their massive push, ditto for Resistance fall of man 3 not releasing this year.

Anyways, for me. Faced with Kinect bundle versus Halo Reach bundle. I think I'm going to end up paying the 150 USD for the stand alone Kinect. :p
Click to expand...

Naughty Buddha. :p



Regardless,
SB
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Reminds me that I think I saw an HDMI cable for $0.70 on Amazon.com or something like that. :LOL:
 
Typical trick on Amazon, charge .99 or so for a low price item, and then $12 shipping.

However they constantly say there's no difference in HDMI cables. But I ordered a cheap one from Monoprice, a 6 ft one and also a 3 ft. The 3 ft one has a very thick ribbon and is too short. However one day I couldn't get my Blu Ray player to connect to the TV with the new 6 ft cable. Sure enough switching to the 3 ft cable solved the problem.

So I'm not so sure about the whole "all HDMI cables are the same" thing.
 
Well, in theory a thicker cable would make it more difficult for the cable to bend or kink in such a way that the internal fiber optic strands would be in danger of breaking. I don't think there's many places that make the fiber optic strands, so those should almost univerally be of relatively equal quality. The only differences will be in how well you can protect those strands.

Regards,
SB
 
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