Well This Is Certainly a Hell of a Day for a New Fantasia: Music Evolved Trailer

Well...this is awkward.

Yeah, not a great way to maintain goodwill with those studios that have been busting their asses to bring something compelling for Kinect users.

Seems a little weird that an ex Harmonix employee is posting trailers for Harmonix games

Would it make you feel better if Brad posted it? -_-

The story here is the awkward timing of Harmonix releasing a trailer for a Kinect game the same day MS puts out a press release saying that you no longer need Kinect. I feel bad for those guys.

Imagine the meetings before Xbox One launched where Microsoft was promising developers Kinect would be in every box...

UR ONLY SAYIN THAT CUZ YOU WORKED FOR THEM

ATTICA! ATTICA!

As big a waste of space as I think the Kinect is, I do feel badly for developers trying to make something compelling that utilizes it - especially Harmonix, as they seem to be one of the few that can actually do something interesting with it. Although I don't know that, as a developer, I would have bet on Kinect 2.0. I mean, wasn't it obvious that this was going to happen eventually?

Where can we send John T. Drake a Diet Coke or a hug?

(I have no idea what to send Pope.)

ALEX IS ILLUMINATI

Somewhere, at Harmonix...

"Well, shit."

Scenes from Harmonix's morning meeting today:

I almost wonder if there was some form of breach of contract with Harmonix that happened when MS decided to pull the Kinect out. Surely they had been under the impression that everyone would be able to play their game because everyone would have a Kinect. Hopefully for them, that was explicitly stated in their contract and they can maybe get a kickback on potential lost sales. The game looks pretty cool, but I wouldn't buy it for $160.

Also, Rocket Man and In Your Eyes are both great songs. I 'm getting closer to believing Drake when he said it was the best soundtrack they've ever had on a game.

Poor Harmonix :(

Talk about awful timing, yikes.

I feel for the duders at Harmonix, the timing of all this Kinect nonsense really sucks for them.

John Drake is gonna hit the bottle... of diet coke.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/harmonix/amplitude

Whelp, now more than ever is it a good time to kickstart Amplitude!

Sorry Harmonix. MS fucked ya good. Now Drake will be left destitute in an alley, on top of a pile of Diet Coke cans if Amplitude doesn't come through.

Oh, I had completely forgotten about that, thanks!

I sure hope Harmonix has a contract with MS that gives them compensation for MS pulling the rug out from under them.

:(

@cloudymusic: Oh jeez....

Humanimals

"You like that Elton John song, Rocket Man"

"I only ask because that's you. You're the Rocket Man!"

Time to get the glass bottles.

damn 10 days to make that much. :(

e: went with the $15, last one! (supposedly) hope they make it

-goes on and on about how it's stupid the Kinect is a forced buy with the One-
-upon news of a non-Kinect package, has nothing but snarky things to say-
/theinternet

In less depressing news, fuck yes Rocket Man.

Damn that bittersweet Sir Elton John.

The idea of playing a video game by standing in front of my television waving my arms around is so incredibly unappealing.

That was just the weirdest trailer.

@fushichou187:

But you never needed Kinect, it could be unplugged 100% of the time. Seems like people with unplugged Kinects weren't the target market for Fantasia anyway...

Harmonix games are usually excellent, but I'm really struggling to see the attraction with this one.

Lets build controller support in for this game i'll guess.

Looks like a neat experience, but I STILL don't know what the hell is happening. You wave your arms to set off fireworks, save a monkey in a space ship, then Peter Gabrial sings you off?

Well... Hey there, Harmonix... Yeah...

You mean Harmonix? Because they're the only ones who have tried to do anything of worth with Kinect.

I haven't seen anything about this game that doesn't make it look incredibly dull. If they are expecting another Rockband-sized hit, I don't think they are going to get it (recent Kinect developments aside).

Bad news for Kinect devs, good news for potential customers.

What a strange trailer. It makes me not want to play this thing.

Harmonix has built their dynasty on the backs of peripherals. They just went from ones that worked 80% of the time to 30% of the time.

@cloudymusic said:

Woof, what bad timing for this news and trailer to hit on the same day...

I have to imagine that even if Harmonix wasn't notified beforehand that they would have seen Microsoft dropping Kinect coming, at the very least? They're smart people, and it was an almost sure-fire bet that Kinect would be pulled from the box at E3... They had to be preparing for that, at the very least, right?

But man, what shitty timing for them on this. The day of their trailer, this announcement happens. It means the trailer is buried by news...and news that is actively detrimental to the product the trailer is promoting. And that people are actively talking about that news on the comment threads for the trailer itself. Yikes.

Why is everyone saying MIcrosoft is dropping the Kinect? They're just offering a kinect-less package, right?

Good question.

I think people are seeing it that way because after 6 months of the console being on sale, nobody has released a Kinect-justifying product.

If something was already retailing that created a compelling case to own a Kinect then this story would seem less like hardware abandonment.

Ultimately if great Kinect products turn up down the line that are worth consumers money then the hardware can always be bundled back together again as well as being retailed separately.

@james_hayward:

I think that the Kinect interface with the system itself was supposed to be the justification, rather than kinect gimmick games as in the last generation (I saw Patrick's video, I know that doesn't totally work).

The thing is, singling out the Kinect as the one piece of hardware that hasn't had software to justify its existence is kind of unfair. You can make the same argument for the PS4 and the Xbone, assuming you don't think 400-500 dollars is a reasonable expense to play Infamous 3 or Titanfall

It is a little unfair but not horribly so.

There's been about 45 Xbox One releases in the opening six months (compared to 60ish in the opening six months of the 360). Some of them are good. It is a stretch to say that they are good enough to justify buying a console but still.... some would make that argument.... and the point is that there are hardly any among these 45 that are Kinect-specific games (or even games with a heavy design use of Kinect features).

And the ones that are can only really be said to be mediocre at best.

Once a week I need to haul out the 360 from the closet of consoles past so my wife & step-daughter can play Dance Central so you would think they'd look at bringing an existing IP to the new platform first. Disney has weight as a brand but Fantasia?

I really don't get the impression that anyone was going to buy this game anyways.

I mean I'm HUGE Harmonix/Kinect/DanceCentral fan with a wife and child and even I haven't considered it beyond a possible bargain-bin grab.

Why a new Kinect was released without a new Dance Central makes no sense to me.

"I have a living room just like that!", said no one.