Top 5 Reasons Why Kinect and Playstation Move Will Fail

Four years after Nintendo’s Wii, which was laughed at by its competitors but has sold over 70 million consoles, Sony and Microsoft are hopping aboard the motion control bandwagon. Come this autumn, the Playstation Move and Xbox 360 Kinect will fail and prove that the Wii is lightning in a bottle, never to be caught again.

5. TOO LITTLE TOO LATE: the Wii’s sales are sagging. Is this indicative of the upcoming Kinect/Move launches? Possibly, but I reckon that most who want the Wii already have it, and those who do not care for it have strong reasons for their blase feelings –namely, that motion control gaming is hardly revolutionary. In other words, Sony and Microsoft should have capitalized on the Wii fad when people were naive. Now, they know better. You will have to convince them to part with their money.

4. TOO COMPLICATED: current PS3 and 360 games are incompatible with the Move/Kinect respectively, while the entire Wii library is built around motion control. Will the public want to learn all of the nuances of the PS3/360 and their attached peripherals? I am betting that grandma Betty will not.

3. FIRST-PARTY INGENUITY: the Wii depends almost solely on quality first-party, Nintendo franchises to keep it going. Good and successful third party titles are far and few in between. Where are Sony and Microsoft going to get Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Metroid, and Kirby? Will other developers be able to produce must buy Kinect/Playstation games using motion control technology?

2. COST: the $100 Playstation Move bundle and a $300 PS3 combined are twice as expensive as a Wii. Assuming the Kinect ships at $150, together with a cheaper Xbox 360 (slim) for $200, Microsoft’s package is $150 more than the Wii. Casual gamers have not gravitated to the PS3 or the 360 as they have to the Wii. Why would they flock to them now that they are substantially pricier than the Wii? They will need captivating games, and remember, neither Sony nor Microsoft has Mario or Zelda.

1. HARDCORE GAMERS: dedicated RPG, FPS, RTS, simulation, Madden, and sports gamers are seemingly lukewarm towards the Playstation Move and particularly the Kinect. Nothing that either has shown is inescapably compelling. At the price of the Kinect, gamers can buy about 4 desirable used games.

Here are my 5 reasons for why the Kinect/Move will succeed.