Analysts: 25 million Kinect units by 2014

Various analysts have given their opinion on how well Kinect will sell. The result? Very well, in a nutshell.

It’s fair to say that Kinect has been a hit so far, with Microsoft boasting of selling its first one million units in just 10 days. But will the Xbox 360′s motion control system carry on selling well for the rest of the life of the console?

According to Eurogamer, Screen Digest analyst Piers Harding-Rolls predicts Microsoft will sell 25 Kinect units by 2014, based on the assumption that the Xbox 360 will have an installed userbase of around 75 million by then (8 million consoles sold per year from here on in). Colin Sebastian from Lazard Capital Markets agrees with this figure in principal.

However, our favorite crystal ball-gazer Michael Pachter thinks it may be too early to tell because we don’t yet have all the facts at hand (which is most unlike him). His point being that Microsoft could cut the price significantly or even bundle Kinect with every new Xbox 360 sold. In which case the numbers could shoot up considerably. And he does, for once, have a good point. Mark the day in your diaries, folks.

Peter Molyneux is an ICO fanboy

Peter Molyneux is a very successful games developer with some classic titles to his name. But he wasn’t responsible for ICO, something he’s sorry about.

ICO is a truly great game. But it’s one that many people didn’t play for whatever reason. And that’s a real shame because it was, and remains to this day, one of the best games ever released for the PS2. Unlike many games from the last generation it still stands up to scrutiny to this day, and I urge anyone to get themselves a copy to see what all the fuss was/is about.

One man who agrees wholeheartedly with this positive appraisal of ICO is Peter Molyneux, who recently revealed a certain level of fanboyism with the game in a Eurogamer feature. He said:

You go back to that title and have a look at it

Fils-Aime: Wii 2 is coming, but not yet

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Wii 2 to arrive. 2012 is now looking the most likely year for it to be putting in an appearance.

Many of us are expecting Nintendo to unveil the Wii 2, or its next-gen console at least, in 2011. After all, the Wii likely has its best days behind it, with most people interested in buying one having already done so. Kinect and Move won’t help Wii sales either, as people have more than one option for motion control gaming.

However, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has insisted the Wii 2 isn’t quite ready for its debut, insisting that there’s life left in the original Wii yet. After stating categorically stating that the Wii 2 isn’t a definite for 2011, he told Kotaku:

As we sit here today we’re saying the Wii has many, many more units to sell. After we’ve reached an installed base of 45 million here in the U.S., we can have a conversation about the next generation.

45 million you say? The Wii is currently sitting on around 35 million units in the U.S. so it’s likely to take at least another year for that target to be hit. Which suggests Nintendo is eyeing 2012 as the year to release its next-gen console. Assuming the world doesn’t end by then, obviously.

Bioshock Infinite development is PS3 focused and uses Uncharted 2 tech

Bioshock Infinite is Irrational Game’s massive undertaking that has pushed the studio to rebuild its engine from scratch. As detailed by Irrational, the new engine which was built with the PS3’s architecture in mind also uses tech seen in Uncharted 2.
PlayStation 3 320GB System with PlayStation Move Bundle
The studio decided that the engine used for Bioshock 1 and 2 was not powerful enough to build the floating city of Columbia. Chris Kline, technical director of Irrational Games recently wrote:
We started out by taking a look at the original BioShock engine, and very quickly realized that the tools in that engine were too underpowered and unwieldy for the depth and complexity of the gameplay and narrative we had planned —
The studio built a heavily modified version of the UE3 to fit their needs from scratch. In order to do this the studio looked at implementing tech based off Deferred Lighting which is used by many Sony first party games like Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, and inFAMOUS 2.

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Kline writes:
To meet the aesthetic goals of our art team, our rendering gurus had to write a whole new renderer for BioShock Infinite based on Deferred Lighting (a technique used in Uncharted 2, CryEngine3, and Killzone 2), and on top of that they’ve developed a proprietary per-pixel dynamic relighting scheme that allows characters and dynamic objects to receive global illumination.

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According to Kline, Deferred Lighting allowed the team to move away from only utilizing the PS3’s GPU and onto the seven dedicated SPUs for rendering. Many of Sony’s first party studios have been using this strategy to offload most of the rendering aspects to the PS3’s SPUs on the Cell processor.

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Kline quells any concerns over a sub-par PS3 port of Bioshock Infinite by revealing that the new development process is based off the PS3’s architecture.  He also indicated that the engine has been optimized for the PS3 while giving a performance boost to the PC and Xbox 360.
He says:
So instead of declaring a "lead platform" and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3.
This means implementing a task-oriented task processor

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3DS games to cost more to develop than PSP games

Nintendo’s 3DS
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made waves at E3 with its
innovative glasses-free 3D display. However, if developers are looking to make a full investment into the device, they may want to look at its development costs.

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According to Industry Gamers, Marvelous Entertainment’s financial report revealed that the company estimated that the development cost for the 3DS to range from $599,000 to $1.8 million. This is supposedly three times higher than current DS development costs which start at $52,700. This probably includes initial costs to purchase 3DS dev kits and additional resources to program 3D logic.
Nintendo DSi XL Red Bundle with Mario Kart


Also, PSP titles are said to cost as much as $709,000 to develop. The bottom line is that traditional DS developers like 5th Cell, responsible for Scribblenauts will find development costs difficult to swallow.
This obstacle could provide an interesting shift in development support. Its not conceivable for small apps developers to move onto the PSP away from the DS. Also, large development houses could potentially shift away from the PSP and onto the 3DS as well. It will be interesting to see if the PSP and DS will switch places.

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Privacy concerns over Xbox Kinect collecting personal data

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Kinect Sensor with Kinect Adventures!

  It seems like privacy concerns over the Kinect camera actively monitoring you are legitimate as Microsoft details the possibilities. According to Microsoft the company has the ability to collect personal data that can be used to target advertising.

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Digital Trends reports that Microsoft’s COO, Dennis Durkin revealed that the Kinect is capable of collecting personal data such as which sports team you support by looking at the type of team jersey you are wearing.
He stated:
be more targeted about what content choices we present; what advertising we present; how to get better feedback and data; about how many people are in a room when an advertisement is shown; how many people are in a room when a game in being played.

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This is exactly the type of stuff Facebook go in trouble with watchdog groups and the Federal Trade Commission. Facebook started collecting personal data off user’s page and shared them with businesses to target marketing with ads.

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Using the Kinect camera to extract personal data from your living room is a whole new can of worms when compared to Facebook’s data gathering.

Xbox 360 250GB Console with Kinect

Kinect the X-factor in preventing PS3 from overtaking Xbox 360 in 2011

The once touted eight million lead the Xbox 360 had over the PS3 has now been reduced to a million or two. Analysts are now predicting the possibility of the PS3 overtaking the Xbox 360 in 2011.

According to reports, the PS3 managed to shave another 1.4 million in a span of six months this year. Its undeniable, the PS3 has been selling at a faster rate than the Xbox 360 since launch. However, it did take Sony almost four years to squash Microsoft’s one year or eight million unit lead.

Although you could argue that only Sony with its Playstation legacy could have survived the market with a console launch priced at $600. Even now I find it amazing that the PS3 is able to sell toe-to-toe with the Xbox 360, which also comes in a dirt cheap $200 configuration. You could probably attribute this to the slew of loyal Playstation brand fans accumulated over its 15 year lifespan. 

According to Industry Gamer, DFC Intelligence Analyst, David Cole stated that the Xbox 360 lacked diversity as it focuses too much on shooters. Cole also indicated that Microsoft should have focused more on Europe, which is pretty much Sony-land at this point.

We have been forecasting for the past 3 years that the PS3 would catch up to the 360 by 2011.  I think the big issue is that the 360 has been primarily the platform for FPS games and has lacked the diversity to appeal to a broader international market…mainly Japan and Europe where Sony is very strong.  The Xbox 360 was just much stronger in North America than it was globally. The main issue I think is Sony (and also Nintendo) being so strong in Europe and Japan.  I think in terms of doing things differently they should probably have focused more on Europe and just given up on Japan. They would have had a better chance in Europe.

Despite Microsoft’s attempt to go completely casual with the Kinect, Cole doesn’t believe it will help much. He stated, "Going forward I don’t know if there is much they can do.  They will try with the Kinect but I don’t see that working.  I think the PS3 will soon pass the 360 for good.