arcn

I think that regardless of the promise of Kinect and whether it managed to live up to that promise (I don't think it did at all), that this was also caused by Microsoft's hubris. Besides touting stuff like Skype calls and voice commands, and how it was involved in their TV plans, I don't think there was ever some kind of unified message saying here's why people who play games should care about Kinect. It seemed like Microsoft mostly just showed up and said, "hey we're the Xbox people, we've been on top for the last 8 years, and we want one of these in every home so you're gonna pay for it, because you really have no other choice" Which seems like the worst way to get people to adopt something.

Whether this is the end of the Kinect, who knows? When they announced the new SKU I saw someone say, "there's nothing to worry about, if they want Kinect games they can just buy the one with kinect," wait you mean the one that they're having trouble selling already? I think there's a very real chance that the Kinect will suffer from Wii U syndrome when the new SKU comes out. Also known as, "no one is buying this thing, and no developers will make a game for it because no one is buying it."

Actually, to be honest, this probably would have been a horrible business decision, but you know what? If Microsoft cared so much about getting a Kinect in every home, then they should have covered the cost of it themselves. No consumer should have to pay an extra hundred dollars for a product that already failed once, and is mostly being sold on the promise of seeming futuristic.

Sure there's a chance that the Kinect add on by itself might succeed, but I just don't see Microsoft getting behind it, at least not for games, and especially not like they did back in 2010, with weirdo Cirque Du Soleil elephants and tons of games.

I always thought the most annoying thing about the paywall was the people who would rise to the defense of this blatant scam. "What bro?!?!? its only 3 bucks a month! What? are you some kind of homeless person?!" Seriously, imagine if any other company tried to pull this bullshit, imagine if a notification showed up on your iPhone "asking" you 3 dollars a month just for the privileged of being able to use Netflix on your phone.

@heatdrive88: Yeah he always makes me feel like they made him spend way too much time at whatever corporate reeducation center Microsoft sends these guys to.

ill believe it when I see it, right now all I'm hearing is "uhhh well we lost a ton of money because we're still trying to party like it's 1999, but don't get mad investors cause we're totally doing that smartphone thing you guys wanted"

In other words, "please understand."

I wonder if the case could be made for some type of compromise where DRM would be implemented when the game launches, but then would be removed after a small period of time, say somewhere around two weeks to a month.

I don't think its realistic to assume that every single game gets cracked on day one. I haven't pirated a game in ages because of steam, but I'm guessing these things still take some time to crack, at least successfully so the game isn't a crashing mess, and since the bulk of game sales tend to be in the first couple weeks after release then I see how that could encourage someone, who isn't pirating because of financial reasons, to buy the game instead of waiting.

This way publishers get their sort of barrier that makes it harder for people to get it instantly for free, during the game's launch when it really counts, and consumers get to play their games without DRM after a short while.

Eh I'd try it out but I also sort of don't care that much about GTA online anymore, that part of the game just isn't that much fun after a while, it really seems like Rockstar could only come up with about 50 levels of what I would consider meaningful progression in GTA online.

So whenever I see people who are level 316 and have millions in the bank all I can think is great? what now? You're still stuck in a tedious game with not much to do, besides probably destroy other people's cars and never play again with anyone else because you got called a bad sport.

Eh, I'd say The Thing video game was at least somewhat ambitious, some parts of it were definitely bad, but it did have that whole paranoia system. I never got to see if how deep it really was, but essentially the characters would react to your actions and start to distrust you if you were acting suspicious to them.

I woke up, read the news and saw the 50 dollar price drop, then I saw the 299 price tag, and immediately thought, wait is that a typo? I thought it was already 299. Then I remembered that the Wii U is actually 350 dollars, and with less than two and a half months left until the Xbox One and the PS4 come out, it sort of gives me a bit of perspective. That being that Nintendo, as a company releasing a console going into 2013, vastly overestimated both their place in the market and their ability to properly market a product to their casual audience from the looks of things.

I thought they made the right choice with PS4, its simple, self explanatory, and it helps them avoid the whole Wii/Wii U naming nightmare. I also don't see why some people are bitching about the social and streaming features, they're somewhat interesting and are actually meaningful to the games that you're playing. At least it isn't some asshole giving a 15 minute presentation about how to use Facebook on a browser in my video game console..

Say what you will about what Microsoft is trying to do here but please stop defending it with the "BUT BUT BUT POOR PEOPLE" excuse. They still have to dish out the same amount of money over time and if they can't keep up with the monthly payments they get hit with a 250 fee (it's less depending on how long you've been paying) when Microsoft cancels their account.