My Wife, Her Friends, and Xbox Kinect

[jack583]

only reason i haven't gotten a kinect is because there is not enough room anywhere in my house that meets the systems requirements.
i do have a 360.
and if more people become gamers then it will finaly be accepted as a normal medium, like books and movies.
and maybe then people will stop ranting on games and treating them like gateways to hell.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

It's a fad, like the Wii it'll soon blow over and we'll be left with just a couple of good games and many many MANY video-toys.

Dance Central is one of those good games.

Nope, at best it's a party game like guitar hero. It has a gimmick, a wide enough one to sell quite well and that it. You could argue that most shooters are like that too but I don't really like them so go on and argue that, I won't stop you.

 

[timeadept]

I actually kinda thought that the Wii had already cornered this market and that there was no way that people were going to buy an X-Box just to play kenect. Odd thing is that i thought i'd be mad to be proven wrong, probably case i was thinking along the lines that this was just an attempt to take a piece of the pie that Nintendo was baking. Looks like Microsoft made their own pie though.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I actually kinda thought that the Wii had already cornered this market and that there was no way that people were going to buy an X-Box just to play kenect. Odd thing is that i thought i'd be mad to be proven wrong, probably case i was thinking along the lines that this was just an attempt to take a piece of the pie that Nintendo was baking. Looks like Microsoft made their own pie though.

They stole Nintendo's pie, frosted it up real good and took away your plastic spoon, sure, you now have to dive face in to eat pie...but it's real good pie! You wanted to always be able to dive in and that spoon was inconvenient anyways

 

[migo]

It's a fad, like the Wii it'll soon blow over and we'll be left with just a couple of good games and many many MANY video-toys.

Dance Central is one of those good games.

Nope, at best it's a party game like guitar hero. It has a gimmick, a wide enough one to sell quite well and that it. You could argue that most shooters are like that too but I don't really like them so go on and argue that, I won't stop you.

You're just being prejudiced.

 

[omega 616]

I'm almost as fascinated as the guys over at Penny Arcade at the success of the Microsoft Kinect, though I really shouldn't be. I knew it would appeal to a certain demographic of gamers, but I never could have guessed the extent that this product's tendrils have reached, specifically into the female and completely non-gamer demographic. Allow me to provide my own anecdotal example.

Last year around September my wife mentioned that maybe we should plan on buying a Kinect. She did this of her own volition, with no provocation from me, with me never even mentioned what a Kinect was. She found this information out for herself and decided she wanted to try it. Part of my Christmas gift was a Kinect, and we both (despite my best efforts to be a curmudgeon) have been having a blast with it. Dance Central is just plain fun, and Fitness Evolved is the only thing that has got me to exercise willingly in the past 5 years.

Now to the real point of my story. Eventually my sister wanted to try it, and after her first round at Dance Central she's been over to my house 4 times to play. She now owns her own 360 and Kinect with Dance Central. My wife had a group of girlfriends over the other night, and somehow they got around to playing Dance Central on the Kinect. Three of them are now buying brand new Xbox 360s, Kinects, and their own copies of Dance Central.

I'm telling you guys, this shit is uncanny. It's contagious. I feel like I'm patient zero. But this is 100% a good thing. Video Games are becoming mainstream, and that will lead to their legitimacy as an art form. I don't mean 'mainstream' like Halo is mainstream, I mean mainstream like the majority of households in the United States will have a video game console in them very soon.

What do you think about the success of the Kinect?

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! Thou shalt be exiled from gamer kind!

On a serious note, while it is good more people are going out to atleast dip there toe into gaming, I doubt many of them are going to be pouring 300+ hours into the next big rpg.

I think it will be a novelty for a few months, then quickly packed up and back to the local game store for a part refund or something.