KINECT LAUNCH GUIDE OPINION: PRESS PROBLEMS
Despite some negativity in the specialist press and from rival companies, Kinect is still selling out across retail
KINECTING WITH THE MARKET Has the specialist press let its feelings about Kinect’s first wave of titles cloud its attitude
towards the launch? Ben Parfitt accuses it of a dereliction of duty
WE’RE HERE for you, the reader. Any publication or website is. Without readers we die. But the relationship between a publication and its reader is complicated. And in no sector is this truer than in games.
Those of us who spend our lives writing about games tend to also spend chunks of it thinking, talking and playing games. We are hardcore gamers. But in recent years this devotion has worked to our detriment. The hardcore is now outweighed by another rapidly growing sector – the mass-market. And while the target audience of gaming has evolved over the last five years the specialist press hasn’t always done a great job of keeping up.
DIFFERENT STROKES
I’m not saying the consumer press should be reviewing Mastertronic’s America’s Next Top Model. But they should certainly understand their worth in the market – and sadly far too many don’t.
This is a problem for Kinect. For the time being it’s not for the core market. That’s not where it’s being
38 October 29th 2010
targeted. As a result its games are not what I, or most other games journalists, would want to play were it not in the job description. That in itself is not a problem by any means. That this has too often become a negative for Kinect in the eyes of specialist journalists, however, most certainly is. I’ve spoken to retailers about their Kinect allocations. There seems to be a belief in the industry that stock is hard to come by. And indeed, some retailers’ allocations are low. But others are high. Incredibly high. And these same retailers are desperately scrambling for more stock. There’s only one reason for this – the demand for Kinect is huge. But for whatever reason this truth appears to anger people. I’ve written lots online about the expected success of Kinect. And I’ve been greeted with scepticism. One industry veteran even called me “a willing pawn” in Microsoft’s PR assault.
OPEN-MINDED
Some of this is of course down to the negative reflex reaction toward any successful company launching a
The story MCV has been telling does not fit with the script that Kinect is expensive, has no good games and will fail. And this has angered people.
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new product. But much of it is simply because the story MCVhas been telling does not fit in with the script that many media outlets and rival companies have already finalised – that Kinect is late, expensive, has no good games and is destined to fail. Of course, we don’t know how things will pan out. Kinect could revitalise the market in very much the same way as Wii did or it could fall by the wayside and expediate the launch of the next Xbox. But the press has to keep an open mind. It should reflect the genuine mass-market hunger for what is an impressive piece of tech. There are no hardcore games for launch and yes, over a quarter of the launch titles are fitness games. Report that, by all means. But at the same time remember that for every Gears of War fanboy scoffing at Kinect Adventures there’s a dozen kids, office workers, mums and Wii owners reading about the ability to turn on their console by speaking to it and playing games with their arms and getting very excited. Kinect, genuinely, could be huge. Let’s give it a chance.
www.mcvuk.com
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