Kinect sells 26,000 in Japanese launch weekend

@mrmobius yeah! there is a reason why the ps2 slim was invented!

@mrmobius Funy I was thinking that it was selling pretty good in Japan, that's one Kinect for every Xbox sold.

@Liquidfingers
I've heard this claim before, and while on a cursory glance it may seem that way, I think there are three issues here.

1) The Japanese are a very loyal people. Nintendo and Sony have dominated Japan for so long the people associate gaming with those two companies. They don't like Microsoft not because its from America, but because they stick with what works and don't have a need to go a different route.

2) Microsoft has done a horrible marketing job with the 360. The Japanese think the only games on the 360 are FPS. Sony fanboys make that claim too, but they are just as ignorant.

3) The Xbox 360 isn't a strong international console. It does really well in english-speaking countries, but thats about it. Just look at the controller - the buttons read in english "A,B,X,Y" and not universal symbols like the Playstation controller.

@Fermie Prime

MS had a lot of games created just for the Japanese market, a bunch of jrpgs, all the stuff they like over there, there's even a brain training game for Kinect. The A, B, X, Y argument is really silly though, Nintendo always used A, B, X, Y and they're the most popular console by far.

@Raffi256
OK, but the question remains. Why don't the Japanese like the 360?

@Fermie Prime

both you and raffi make good points. i do recollect a time when microsoft was heavily pushing jrpgs, thinking that would bolster sales on their console, hence the deal with mistwalker for blue dragon and lost odyssey. not to mention eternal sonata, tales of vesperia, and star ocean were all timed exclusives. they also had the fairly recent release of monster hunter, which actually did boost sales of the 360 for a little while.

while i was (somewhat) joking about the japanese all being racist, i can't help but feel like it's true to some degree. they have always been reticent to buy in on american products despite what they may bring to the table. maybe they still hold a grudge from world war ii? who knows?! but if that's the case, shouldn't we be holding a grudge as well? we weren't nuked, but we did lose a shitload of men and they did torture prisoners of war, which is a very, very, very low thing to do.

anyway, it doesn't really matter. it's just interesting to think about.

@mrmobius

I don't think it has anything to do with grudges or racism, when you think about it, loyalty is the biggest part of what makes them disregard 360. Don't forget that 360 is the first console made outside of Japan.

All the arcade classics were made on Japanese consoles from Atari to Nintendo, 3DO, all of them more or less....well at least all the successful ones anyway. So if you are renowned for bringing about the birth of gaming, it would be a little difficult to accept another country's console jumping into the market and trying to push out the ones your country made and the games your country makes along with it.

There is a constant recent theme of gaming going in a western direction and of course that isn't great news for Japanese gamers as there is less of what they loved and more of what Americans and Europeans love.

There are reasons why the likes of Monster Hunter for example sells like hotcakes in Japan and Capcom doesnt change it to suit Americans and Europeans, I'm sure Capcom would if it wanted to, but to alienate the Japanese gamers? Is it worth it?

I think the racism card is a little extreme and it's been brought up too many times in this generation, so I wouldn't bring it back up, favouritism is the word you're looking for. And to be honest, you can't blame them. If Russia for example started leading the games industry in future and changing gaming to what they preferred, it probably wouldn't be what we in Europe and America want either.

@Spunky Monkey 190906
I never bought into the whole racist Japanese thing, although it is quite peculiar how the sole non-Japanese console is virtually ignored by Japanese consumers. But I think you're right in attributing it to favouritism.

@Liquidfingers

says you, the true racist.

Do you want me to bring up the stupid post you made again?

yeah thats what i thought. dont you go pointing fingers .

@Fermie Prime Because it's an American designed game console, Direct competition to Japanese designed game consoles. Something that the Japanese "Owned", but no longer.

I Think MSFT should solely focus on America and Europe. Forget about Japan. Let them fall behind and focus on psp and Ds games.

They fell behind "next Gen" wise, MSFT should just drop them.

@Fermie Prime

Considering Japan eats up just about everything American, racism and nationalism isn't a valid argument.

@LaughingTarget
Yeah I agree. I think it comes down to brand loyalty (favouritism) and marketing. Its not about racism. Case in point: the Japanese love Apple products just like we do (or most of us do).

@nighttime
And why the PS3 sold so poorly at the beginning.

@nighttime
And why the PS3 sold so poorly at the beginning.

@Tereso Must of been sitting on that zinger for months, eh?

@Tereso yea beacuse that thing ACTUALLY got support for it there...which is more than I can say for the PSEye thus far,......Sony really has to step it up!!

@Tereso yea because that thing ACTUALLY got support for it there...which is more than I can say for the PSEye thus far,......Sony really has to step it up!!

@Tereso yea because that thing ACTUALLY got support for it there...which is more than I can say for the PSEye thus far,......Sony really has to step it up!!

@Chris D

The PS Move is not support?

@Tereso

People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw ... uh .... gaming peripherals.

this damn comment system has been failing me the last week or so


and while Move COULD be seen as support for the PSEye....it pretty much isn't getting used for anything but tracking....and the few "tech" demos that have been released

Yeah, I guess. But I think Sony realized that it wasn't getting much support, so this is their way of putting it to use.

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi
I thought it was less then a mill still.

@The Aquacharger thought I read somewhere a while back on here that it broke a million....could be wrong....it may have just been 500k

@Credge Its not really "funny" or strange, its more that the information you previously read is incorrect.

@SheppyReturns
I think this even beyond the trivial install base 360 has in japan is the largest factor. If it has trouble in many (most?) america living rooms, the average japanese living space is going to be impossible due to walls let alone furniture. It literally will not fit.

@SheppyReturns
BIG COMFY COUCH I used to watch that show all the time

@JCDoe

But doesn't the skeletal tracking just use the built in camera? I was under the impressing the skeletal tracking was just an awesome software layer inside the camera that translate what the camera sees into a working skeleton. That's why it often loses track of joints when you make weird shapes or put one body part in front of the other at times.

Also, even cheap webcams can do more than just headtracking and blue-screening. Though it's usually fairly poor, they can track the position of your eyes, mouth, nose, head/hair, ears, etc.. Software like WebcamMax uses this to apply various overlays on your webcam feed (so you can "wear" different eyes with shades on top, a cowboy hat, a beard, earrings, and more, all in their proper place and properly sized/rotated to fit on your head).

@JCDoe

I bought Kinect bundle for my sister's family. Instant hit for at least 2 days I have been up in my sister's place. Dance Central and Your Shape are worth the investment if you don't already have a gym membership. It just has so much more potential. I think one of Sony exec talked about how Sony has had the technology and determined that it's not good for game. It just proves that one man's trash can be another man's gem. Microsoft has done tremendous job to stir interest in Camera based technology (I know it's not the same, but whatever). I hope more games will come and utilize the Kinect properly.

And Microsoft should give up in the console business out in Japan. It should tackle Korea and China as the next big things and culture the developers out there. Japan's console business is imploding and a lot of Japanese console games are too focused on Japanese boutique tastes. Nintendo probably is the best console game developers, but it doesn't care about just selling contents: it's about selling contents on top of selling gimmicky family toys.

@JCDoe

The people who seem to think the technologies are the same are delusional, but more advanced doesn't always mean more fun.

For example, go play Antigrav on Eyetoy. It's a racing game that only tracks your face for movement, ducking and whatnot, and can tell when your hands are out to grab things on your left and right. It works very well and the game is pretty fun.

Now play Sonic Freeriders, a similar Kinect game which instead uses the far more advanced IR patterning to track your entire body, including your hands that you can, like antigrav, grab things to your left and right. The issue? The game's control is terrible and I had absolutely no fun with it, only frustration. It's a case-by-case basis, sure, but after all I've tried, I need more convincing.

I hope things will improve with Kinect; we'll have to wait and see. So far I'm very thankful game rental stores exist.

@Jacksons

Ok, regarding facial tracking software first. Yes, webcams can track heads/faces/etc. But the problem is that they only have data in two dimension (no depth). So skeletal tracking wouldn't really fly with an eye toy.

It is the IR projector/ camera that gives kinect its depth tracking potential, which in turn allows the kinect to track skeletons.

The software is the real "magic" in the kinect, true, but without the hardware to collect three dimensional data, no amount of software sorcery could do what kinect does.

Regarding the potentials, they are there. I have heard that the dancing game is tremendously fun and well made. But I have a hard time seeing other games working well, since most human activities involve tools of some sort (steering wheels, guns, fishing poles, etc). Unless people are comfortable pantomiming, these other games won't fly.

Kinect does skeletal tracking on the depth information, the webcam is completely ignored, you could cover it up if you wanted. It's just there for auxilary features like taking photos during gameplay, video chat, face recognition.

Also you can combine the color information from the web cam with the depth information to create a 3D projection of the player and their room, should be capable of really deep augmented reality stuff.

@huffhuffhuff Nintendo make games for kids and casuals. They "expect" 3rd parties to make games for the hardcore. because of this, I refuse to purchase the next Nintendo console. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

@StarcasM

Are you crazy? Sure, Nintendo's games aren't for mature audiences only, but their games are /still/ among the best of the best. Even the N64, Nintendo's worst performing traditional console, had some amazing Nintendo developed titles: Two Zelda games, Mario 64, Paper Mario, Star Fox 64, Mario Cart 64, and Smash Bros (I'm not even mentioning 3rd party titles).

If you only play games with an M rating, then I'm truly sorry for your loss. There's some great stuff out there that you're missing.

@Misfit Toy

They just don't know how to move on in anything. they're more into staying traditional than adapting to changing times. That's why PS2 still sells over there, they won't let it go. So in about 5 - 10 years when MS or Sony comes out with a virtual reality device that can input you into the game, Japan will adopt Kinect.