E3 2010: Microsoft’s Kinect Aimed At Wrong Audience?

The Microsoft conference brought us Kinect (ex-Natal) being used in a number of forms. Pushing the no controller line Microsoft unveiled an exclusive deal with ESPN but this seemed the one of the only use typical ‘hardcore’ gamers would use it for and watching sport isn’t even gaming. There are a number of ways Kinect is aimed away from ‘gamers’ and towards casual player which is a saturated market.

During the conference the phrase of “bringing people in the room into the game” being used. Their reasoning was that “as they don’t need to learn a controller anyone can use it” this moves the target audience away from gamers who have no problem learning controls, almost ruling out hardcore players. Why stress at ruling out the typical gamer? Casual players and families are more likely to buy Wii being cheaper and a larger catalogue of games.

When showing the sports game for Kinect one of the biggest features was being able to cause a Mexican wave or set fireworks off while may be fun once or twice it will soon become another unused feature. Following this they showed other sports playable one being football, kicking an imaginary ball around the pitch is where I personally draw the line and it begs the intriguing question can you play while sitting down?

Along with ESPN another feature that typical gamers may use is the steering wheel for games such as Forza. Well they may but I doubt it will take off, turning their hands on stage to control the in game cars left them looking slightly foolish. The typical gamer aged 25 and male would certainly not like to sit in front of their mates waving their hands around, especially the other Kart racing game shown on stage.

To prove the target audience Microsoft brought out a number of casual gamers including a young girl entertained the crowd with Skittles her pet tiger, but even better was the video chat between two ladies one of which was on stage. I’d like to know if Microsoft who claimed this was a new feature had seen the video chat feature on the PlayStation 3?

With noticeable lag and being aimed at casual gamers who will already own a Wii I currently see little market value for Kinect, but let’s hope for Microsoft many people disagree.