If this line is to be believed
It's no secret that, in Japan, the Xbox 360 isn't the most popular console: in fact, it's regularly outsold by the PlayStation 2. You'd think this would have quelled demand for Kinect, but judging from this line awaiting the console's launch, you could be wrong.
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We've reported on Move as an important factor in growing the accessory sector at retail, but with hardware and software figures falling year-on-year why is the success of plastic add-ons so important?
For retailers, accessories are key: profits made from add-ons far outweighs the margin on a new game or piece of hardware, hence why sales assistants are so keen to sell you a new controller or headset. Profit margins on accessories can rival those on the sale of pre-owned games, but crucially the manufacturers see a slice of that profit, keeping everyone happy.Accessories Make Money
We've seen plenty of impressive PC concepts using Kinect in the past few days, particularly the Minority Report-style multi-touch inputs, and an equally advanced navigation system is shown in the video below.
Taking fun seriously
Kinect reaches Japan tomorrow, and gaming bible Famitsu has interviewed some of the country's leading luminaries to gauge their opinions on Microsoft's new controller, including Project Draco head Yukio Futatsugi.
The North American Mario Flipnote competition ended today, but Nintendo UK is now offering it to users of its free animation software Flipnote Studio.
Really interesting article on football match-fixing from the BBC. Worth a quick read even if, like me, you hate the game! http://is.gd/hrjLm
Keen on XBLA title for sensor
id Software's John Carmack is a legendary figure in the games industry having worked on some of the most important first person shooters of all time: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake and more. So when he says he wants to work on Kinect, you'd be expecting him to have an a solution for the sensor's first person shooter, but not necessarily.I have an itch to make a Kinect title for Xbox Live, but I don't even know what I'd want to do yet. I can't use Kinect for our real games; there just isn't a place for our current FPSes on there.With Carmack currently beavering away on Rage for iOS devices and consoles it could be a long old while until he can scratch his Kinect itch, but by that time there may indeed be a place for first-person shooters. If anyone could make the genre work on Kinect, we'd be pretty confident betting on Carmack.
It's Friday night, I'm home alone and I'm reading about the Famicom Disk System whilst wearing a pink Kirby hat. Life is grand.
If manufactured very, very cheaply
When the Wii was released we saw countless cheap knock-offs flood the market – remember the Vii? – and now it looks like Move is about to receive its own sincerest form of flattery in the form of the "i-dong". (Really, we're not making these names up.)
My name is James Newton, and this is my website - a collection of my writings about
videogames, music and all my other thoughts.