Sony Move

Kinect is for Christmas, not for life…

Gamers, as a rule, have a reputation of not being the most active of people but make no mistake Kinect is not aimed at your hardcore gamers, but at the all important family market over the Christmas period.

Whilst the PS3 and Xbox 360 sales hover around the 45 million mark, The Nintendo Wii has so far sold a whopping 75 million units because they managed to tap into the “Christmas Family Market”. Of course there are now many Nintendo Wii’s that are left unloved and untouched and sales are dropping like a stone because the fickle occasional gamers  are looking for something more sophisticated to impress at their Christmas Party.

In my head there will be many snob like scenarios, where people find themselves gathered in a living room of people whom they see once a year and when the Wii is turned on, someone will say “Darling, the Wii is so last year haven’t you seen Microsoft Kinect? We have it and it’s so much better”. At this point the hostess runs upstairs in tears saying “Why do they always have to be better than us and ruin our Christmas”. Christmas ruined! For me, this is the market Microsoft is aiming for.

As news breaks that worldwide sales of Microsoft Kinect smashes the one million mark in ten days, I thought it was about time I should test the latest must have from Microsoft in a home environment. The biggest drawback seems to be that you need to be at least six feet away from your TV with no obstructions in the way. This may be fine for your typical American living room, but I think it’s fair to say that the average UK living room is a little more intimate, or should I say cosy.

Is your living room this big? (more…)

Product placement in games

We have recently touched upon how corporate gaming has become, what used to be an underground guilty pleasure is now rapidly turning into mainstream entertainment and if there are any doubts about this, one look at the sales figures. They show that the PS3 has now sold 35.7 million units, Xbox 360 40 Million and Wii 70 million. This shows the main reason that we will be seeing Sony’s “Move” and Microsoft’s “Natal” this Christmas as they go after the Wii market.

The hardcore gamers amongst us are beginning to get a little tetchy as the world of gaming begins to change with rising costs of DLC and an increasing amount of product placements in games are starting to become the norm. The sad truth is that TV Shows, Magazines, Newspapers etc are created for one purpose and one purpose only and this is to fill advertising space and if a show does not perform it’s axed to make way for something else to keep the advertisers happy. A fail safe system but guess what? People are no longer watching TV, and even if they do, they skip the ads anyway. (more…)