John Dvorak on the 11 Stages of Kinect for Xbox 360

Longtime PC Magazine columnist and receiver of crank emails from PC Magazine Labs analysts (not me…okay maybe it was me…but I had help) John Dvorak recently posted a really fascinating column about the 11 stages of Kinect for Xbox 360. I highly suggest reading it. It’s an interesting, though highly arguable, view of the gaming world through a longtime tech pundit.

According to Dvorak, Kinect is currently in phase 10. My favorite part is how he called out Microsoft’s PR people for pushing a weak and unimaginative message on what Kinect can do. Check it out:

The Kinect is now in phase ten and new uses are being ascribed, mainly 3D telecommunications. You can spot the hand of the PR folks involved by the repetitious and redundant messages seen in far too many of the stories. In this case, it’s that 3D Kinect is “now cooler than Skype.”

To see how ridiculously obvious and transparent this is, try Googling “Kinect Cooler Than Skype” and see the exact same headline and phrasing over and over and over in various publications. It’s kind of pathetic since this sort of thing should be subtle.

Dvorak’s prediction for Kinect isn’t the rosiest, but I’m not convinced it has jumped the shark (yet). Dude has predicted lots of things over the last few decades. He has been right a lot and he has been wrong a lot. He initially predicted that Kinect would fail and he was very much wrong about that. If anything, its popularity is still growing. Kinect Dance game are still popular, titles like Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster and Kinect: Disneyland Adventures are hits with the mainstream, and I believe (perhaps naively) that a creative developer will make a cool Kinect game that resonates with enthusiast gamers.

Of course that’s just my opinion. What about you America (and other countries…especially Iceland)? Do you think Kinect will languish? Or will its untapped potential be realized?

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Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

10 thoughts on “John Dvorak on the 11 Stages of Kinect for Xbox 360”

  1. I don't think kinect is much different than the music genre, especially when Dance Central is boasted.

    So no, it won't ever be a desired input method for leisure purposes related to gaming.

  2. Define fail. Is it a certain amount of products sold? Is it a certain amount of penetration into households? Is it measured in revenue from sales or profits? Depending on the definition, Kinect can be classified as either a success or failure.

    To be more specific; if the goal of Kinect was to replace or be a suitable alternative to the Xbox controller, then it is a big, steaming pile of fail. If the goal was to use the device to come up with a unique way to play and interact with games, then there are some games that made that into a success, but other games would make it look like a failure.

    -M

  3. "The 11 Stages of Kinect" sounds like it's own video game or recovery system fo video game addicts*.

    *For those who don't know, organizations who believe that religion has nothing to do with addiction employ an 11 step program since one of the steps in the standard 12 step program is "Accept Jesus as your Lord and savior". Yes, these are the same programs that American court systems force people into by law.

    How I turned this into a PSA against the war on drugs is beyond me as well.

  4. You know, we have one and we like it. We also have a 4 year old. I'm not sold on it's hardcore applications in the least, but if it wears my kid out enough to take a nap and give me a break in the middle of the day, I'm all for it.

    1. I've begun to not mind it, but then again I don't use ours much at all. My wife is the one who uses it, and almost exclusively for dance games (dance central, just dance 3, and soon enough dance central 2). The thing I find interesting/annoying about Kinect is that it is the product aimed at the "casual" gamer or consumer, but everyone who comes over to our apartment and plays Kinect cannot get it to work properly. Perhaps our friends simply have poor spacial skills, but for a product that is supposed to cater to people who aren't gamers it sure takes some skill to use it properly.

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