Kinect May Be The Hot Item This Christmas Season

Now I have to admit, I chuckled a little bit when Kudo Tsunoda said that Kinect sales would, “blow away any of the sales you’ve seen with iPad.”  But, you have to admit that selling over 2.5 million units in 25 days is extremely impressive.  Moreover, it looks to be on track to actually be a good contender to blow out Apple’s impressive record with the motion controller. Furthermore, there appears to be a shortage… Read On »

Kinect’ing For The Holidays

Well, it’s officially winter in Southeastern Michigan.  The flurries are coming down.  My car is grumbling on the slick roads since I’ve effectively doubled it’s horsepower.  No fast driving for me for the next three months.  What to do…

In previous years, this has usually been the season where I stay indoors as much as possible, crawl under a blanket, and gain an extra 15-20 pounds from all of the holiday turkey and ham and fixins’.  Of course there’s also the holiday shopping, which I try to get done as early as possible to stay away from the hordes of last minute shoppers.

But this year is a little different.  Since I received my Kinect sensor, there’s been quite a bit less time on the couch, and much more moving around.  Unfortunately, I’m on a spending freeze for personal goodies since it is the holiday after all, and being married means that I have to leave something for my spouse to purchase for that wonderful day, December 25th.

So right now all I can do is dream.  And what am I looking forward to?

Video Games

Dance Central – Yes.  I’m looking forward to playing this one.  Behind closed doors and with the windows shut, of course.  But this looks to be a very fun game.

Kinect Sports – This is an exceptionally fun game.  I could see myself spending many hours playing Table Tennis, Soccer, Boxing, And Volleyball.

Assassin’s Creed II – Yeah, I know.  It’s been out for a while.  But with a pile of other games topping my list this last year, I just haven’t had time to sit down with it.  But now it’s on the top of the stack.  And as soon as I get done playing Mass Effect 2 for the billionth time (this time with all the DLC), I’ll be popping that in the tray.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood – As soon as I get done with ACII, this’ll be next on my pile.

Halo: Reach – Of course!  With the new Noble Map Pack out, I’ll be sprinkling some death from my DMR here and there throughout the winter.

Movies

Tron: Legacy – This is definitely my holiday topper.  I feel like I’ve been waiting 25 years for this movie to come out!

MegaMind – Going to see this on Saturday actually.  Can’t wait!

The Tourist – I’m intrigued by this one.  I’m a huge fan of Johnny Depp and I’m hoping this one is better for Angelina Jolie than Salt was.  Such a disappointment…

DVD/Blu-Ray

Despicable Me – releases on December 14th.  I saw this twice in the theatres and I still want more.  I’ll probably watch this a few hundred times over the next couple of months.

Red Vs. Blue: The Recollection – If you don’t know of Red Vs. Blue, then you don’t know what you’ve been missing.  Reliving the last three seasons is certainly going to be a treat.  Unfortunatley, there’s no Blu-Ray option yet, but I’ll still be enjoying this in all it’s DVD glory.

Back To The Future Box Set – Yeah.  It’s kind of nostalgic.  But hey, that’s me.

And of course, planning the next car project to make it better, stronger, and faster.

Kinect vs. Move – Round 2 – FIGHT!

Hot off the presses.  Microsoft has apparently sold 2.5 Million Kinect Sensors in 25 days (which is apparently better than the first month of iPad sales).  That’s an average of 100,000 Kinect devices sold per day.  Per Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Biz at Microsoft, “We are thrilled about the consumer response to Kinect, and are working hard with our retail and manufacturing partners to expedite production and shipments of Kinect to restock shelves… Read On »

I Am A Monument To All Your Sins

To say that Bungie’s swan song in the Halo universe, Halo: Reach has by far the most challenging campaign of all of the Halo games is a gross understatement.  To play the campaign on the highest difficulty setting, Legendary is for the most part, insane. Checking my Bungie.net stats, I started playing the game on Legendary – Solo on September 22nd.  Ironcially, seven days after the release of Halo: Reach (For those of you who don’t know, Bungie… Read On »

VGChartz Sales Data On Kinect Sparks Remarks From Greenburg

Yesterday, VGChartz released initial sales data for Kinect for the Xbox 360, stating that the device had sold almost 480,000 devices between its launch on November 4 to the week ending November 6.  For two days worth of sales, it’s not a figure to laugh at.  Especially considering that it took the Playstation Move four weeks to reach a similar number.

But Mr. Aaron Greenburg, Chief of Staff for Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, is indeed, laughing.  Per his post on Twitter, “LOL’ing at sales reports from VGChartz, why do people release info as official when there is no source or science behind the #s?”

VGChartz has come under fire before for the accuracy of the data that it reports.  Many times, their data will be corrected when groups such as NPD release their own tracking data.  However, with NPD no longer reporting their data to the public, VGChartz is the only source left for many bloggers, myself included, to gather semi-accurate sales data.

Brett Walton left a comment in the Kinect article stating, “I’m a little disappointed that a senior figure like Mr Greenberg decides to comment in such an immature way rather than maybe offer the actual figure for example.

As ever, it is entirely possible that our figures aren’t perfect (they are only estimates from samples afterall), but they shouldn’t be that far out.”

So is this another example of VGChartz guesstimates being way out of what the actual numbers are?  Or could Mr. Greenburg be clutching on to the real sales data because the true numbers aren’t as impressive?

Stay tuned.

~W75

October Sales Data – Christmas Season Predictions

Nintendo down 50%, Sony Leads The Month Sony led the month of October with over 990,000 unit sales pulling ahead of Microsoft by almost 230,000 sales in the last two weeks.  Two contributing factors to Sony pulling ahead were most likely the launch of the Playstation Move, Sony’s motion controller, and anticipation of Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360, with people opting to pre-order the Xbox 360S 4GB and 250GB bundles with the Kinect device. More… Read On »

Console News For Monday, November 8

Microsoft Bundles Alan Wake – Forza 3 In Holiday Bundle

For those of you who don’t want to be Kinect’d, Microsoft is releasing this year’s holiday bundle with core gamering goodness.  The new bundle will come with a copy of Forza Motorsport 3 and a token to download Remedy’s hit thriller, Alan Wake.  This bundle will launch at the $299 price point leaving gamers to decide, get Kinect?  Or go with a couple of core games?

Source: Major Nelson

Mass Effect 2 For PS3 To Receive Free Extra Content, Missions

PS3 users will finally be receiving Mass Effect 2 on the Sony console with some extra goodies.  It will be including all of the DLC missions that Xbox 360 users had to purchase this last year, as well as a new mission worth about six hours of gameplay and an interactive comic to walk them through the events of the first game, making key decisions that affect the outcome of Mass Effect 2.

It will be interesting to find out if Xbox 360 fans will have access to this extra six hour mission as later downloadable content.  It would probably be a good idea for EA to release it to appease the 2.12 million fans of the Xbox 360 version may feel a bit left out and disgruntled if it isn’t the case.

Source: GameRant

Kinect Technology Could Have Gone To Apple First

Apple Inc., a company whose dedication to innovating arguably stands above any other company could have had Project Natal, now known to the world as Microsoft’s holiday hopeful, Kinect, first.  But why would Apple, king of new technologies miss out on this huge opportunity to bring something unique to their own line of products?

Because, “Apple is a pain in the ass,” according to PrimeSense CEO Inon Beracha.

In an interview with Cult of Mac Editor, Leander Kahney, Beracha said that when Apple was introduced to the technology, it was the stack of legal agreements and NDAs that turned Beracha off to the partnership.

Interesting.

Source: Cult Of Mac

Microsoft Giving Away Free Xbox 360s With Purchase Of Win7 Phones In Toronto

As you know, Windows Phone 7 launches today.  And what better way to celebrate this event than getting a free Xbox 360 with your purchase of an HTC 7 Surround or LG Optimus 7?  People shopping at the Toronto Eaton Centre can get just such a deal.  But you better be quick, word is that numbers are limited.

Source: Wirelessly Obsessed

Coming This Week

I’ll be taking Microsoft Kinect For Xbox 360 for a test drive and writing down my thoughts, as well as with the new 360 Dashboard.  Also, my holiday sales predictions after last week’s numbers are posted.  Stay tuned.

~W75

Video Games Live Comes Back To The Motor City

I am a huge fan of Video Games Live.  And in Detroit, I’ve now had the pleasure of working as a volunteer at both concerts, this year and the one in 2008.  If you haven’t yet been to see this awesome concert in person, I urge you to go right now to their website and check for the soonest date that they will be in or around your city. Conceived in 2005 by founders Tommy… Read On »

Supreme Court To Hear Arguments On CA Video Game Ban Law

Today, the United States Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in  Schwarzenegger v. EMA.  This case will determine if the 2005 law passed in California banning the sale of violent video games to minors is constitutional or not.

The law overrides the ESRB ratings by requiring a seperate label be placed on video games deemed inappropriate for minors.  The point of contention in the law is the labelling of “violent video games” in the law makes it possible to label children’s games such as “Super Mario Bros.” as violent and require an 18+ label.  This of course could greatly affect video game sales, as well as the type of content that they could sell to minors.

As a parent, I agree with the restriction of sales of violent video games to minors.  However, I believe that the ESRB has created a robust system of ratings designed to catch the attention of parents and make it easy to decide whether or not a game is appropriate for their child.  I also believe that the ESRB’s retail partners overall are doing a good job of enforcing these ratings by refusing to sell Mature rated games to minors.

However, laws passed by the government are usually intentionally vague and are open to broad interpretation, usually doing more harm than good.  And instead of creating an arbitrary system to label games as the government sees fit to label as Mature or 18+, I think that any state government would be better off to partner with the ESRB in enforcing its already established ratings system as they already have 15 years of experience behind them.

~W75

Kinect Sold Out On Amazon/Best Buy – Resellers Taking Advantage

As reported earlier this week, Amazon and Best Buy appear to still be sold out on Kinect sensor pre-orders.  As a matter of fact, checking on Amazon’s list of sellers under “See My Buying Options” reveals that their third party resellers have now upped the price over $200 for their Kinect pre-orders.

Another check on eBay reveals that sellers are doing the same there.  Charging anywhere from $159.99 to $300 for a pre-order there.

Savvy Shoppers should know that if you instead go to sites such as Newegg, or Walmart with their $199, two game bundle, or Gamestop instead of these other third party resellers.

While I would like to believe that it’s the innovation in the new product and its easy to use interface, I’m much more inclined to believe that these sell-outs are largely happening due to the Oprah and Ellen effect.