Microsoft: Kinect will be the biggest launch "in the history of the industry"

"This is, for us, the biggest platform launch in the history of the industry," said Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Game Studios, in a recent interview with EDGE. That's how confident Microsoft is about the upcoming launch of Kinect.

The motion control camera has been teased as a revolution (remember when the Wii was codenamed Revolution?) - something that entirely eclipses traditional controls, but now that it's actually here, all Microsoft has for us on launch day is a handful of titles that look like PS2 EyeToy games. But the marketing language has only gotten loftier.

"We are investing in this like we've never invested in a platform launch," said Spencer. "We'll have a huge launch portfolio, we want to sell more units than any console has ever sold in its first holiday, a new platform."


Above: When this is your killer app, should you really be hyping it as the most amazing thing ever in the history of the universe?

Microsoft has previously stated it expects to sell three million Kinect units in less than two months. That would be more than the number of Xbox 360s sold in the last five months. Is this justifiable confidence or blind arrogance? Developers - you know, the people who actually need to make games for this thing - have had largely tepid reactions to Kinect. With the exception of Peter Molyneux, of course.

Microsoft says its statements are based on data from retailers, but we find it hard to believe any sort of expensive peripheral could possibly be that important. We'll be more interested in seeing how Microsoft backtracks once initial sales fizzle out... or maybe we'll be surprised?

[Souce: EDGE]

Sep 28, 2010

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