Does Microsoft Still Believe in the Kinect?
Take a journey with me back to the last console war. It seemed like it was going to be a battle between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 for superiority, as their graphics were top notch and superior in nearly every way…but…then Nintendo came out with the Wii, introduced motion controls, and then went to beat them in console sales and win the generation.
During that battle though, both Microsoft and Sony came up with their own devices to battle the Wii-Mote. For Microsoft, that was the Kinect. On one hand, it was an ingenious take on the idea of motion controls, as you had to use your whole body to get involved and not just your hands. On the other hand though, when it didn’t work…it REALLY didn’t work. So many gamers were surprised when the Kinect was attached to the Xbox One, with no option to go without it. That changed quickly, and many thought Microsoft would give up on it. But that’s not the case as Phil Spencer told Games Radar:
“We’ll continue to build functionality to make it a valuable part of the ecosystem,” Spencer says.
However, he admitted that making the Xbox One Kinect-free was a crucial move, one that allowed them to drop price and be more competitive.
“[P]rice point’s really important for the console – we saw that over the holidays in the UK and US, where we did well when we dropped the price, which was great. And I want to make sure consumers have choice on how much they value the functionality of Kinect when they buy a console.”
So where does it go from here? Hard to say, but if Microsoft still believes in it, they’ll still make titles for it, whether we buy them or not.