The Microsoft Kinect is two weeks away from commercial availability and the company is expected to spend up to $500 million advertising this new touch-free body-as-controller interface for the XBox. Motion control of a computer interface is likely to spread far and wide and today we see the first TV commercials that will aim to bring this kind of technology into the lives of everyday people.
The videos below are compelling. The consequences of a big splash by this $150 peripheral device could go far beyond the XBox, though.
The Boring Way to Look at Kinect
“The key challenge for Microsoft Xbox at this point in the console lifecycle is to reignite stagnating Xbox 360 sales and that is easiest done by expanding and extending the Xbox footprint beyond the hardcore gamer segment,” wrote Martin Olausson of Strategy Analytics this Summer when the Kinect was unveiled. “Hence it is focusing on the social gamer segment with the Kinect platform. Strategically we believe Xbox has made the correct decision in focusing on non-traditional segments with Kinect (while at the same time strengthening the roster of hardcore games to appease the traditional segment) as this approach has the greatest potential for expanding its console footprint.”
Olausson focuses on the short-term business implications for Microsoft and the company’s marketing strategy. Do you think the videos below do a good job of speaking to the types of people Olausson says are being targeted?
The Very Excited Way to Look at Kinect
Some people look beyond the XBox right away, though. “Kinect is to multitouch user interfaces what the mouse was to DOS,” Forrester’s James McQuivey wrote this week in a post titled Get Ready For Kinect To Completely Change Our Lives. “It is a transformative change in the user experience, the interposition of a new and dramatically natural way to interact — not just with TV, not just with computers — but with every machine that we will conceive of in the future. This permits us entry to the Era of Experience, the next phase of human economic development.”
Could this kind of technology be an important interface for the Internet of Things? That’s an interesting argument.
Ready?
