Live TV Coming to Xbox

One of the biggest announcements for Microsoft at this year’s E3 gaming conference involved the launch of Live TV on the Xbox 360. This will allow users to enjoy a variety of different things including live TV streaming, built-in DVR capabilities, voice-powered Bing searches and YouTube content.

"Quite simply we believe TV is more amazing with you as the controller," said Marc Whitten, vice president of Xbox Live.

The amazing thing about these new additions to the Xbox is that users will be able to control them with motion. The Kinect will help to power Live TV with both gestures and voice controlled commands. Users will be able to control Live TV content without the need for a physical remote.

It was also announced by Whitten that Bing would be featured on the Xbox as well. Users will be able to conduct voice powered searches on Microsoft’s Bing search engine and different Xbox content like Hulu Plus, Netflix and Xbox Live marketplace.

Here’s an example of how this will work: Say you want to watch Lord of the Rings. All you have to say is “Xbox Bing Lord of the Rings.” Immediately, Bing will pull up any Lord of the Rings related games as well as any movies stored on your console. Then all you have to do to watch The Fellowship of the Ring is say “Xbox Play The Fellowship of the Ring” and the movie will start playing.

Whitten also announced the new partnership with YouTube that will give users access to the top YouTube content from the console. Microsoft also said that they plan to greatly increase the number of its Xbox partnerships this year.

Lastly, Whitten confirmed that Live TV will bring local channels live-streamed to your Xbox to your TV.

Live TV will launch in the fall, Whitten said.

"This is our vision for the future of TV—effortless, approachable, because TV is more amazing when you are the controller," he said.

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"Fastest-selling Consumer Electronic Device"

On Wednesday, March 9 Microsoft announced that it has sold more than 10 million Kinect units for its Xbox 360. The device was launched by Microsoft on November 4 and has now become the fastest-selling device in the world.

On the very same day, the Guinness World Records reported that the Kinect now holds the title of the “Fastest-selling Consumer Electronic Device” in the entire world. It sold more than 8 million units in the first 60 days after its release. This statistic was released by Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer at CES in January. Between November 4 and January 3, the Kinect has sold an average of 133,333 units per day.

"The sales figures outstrip both the iPhone and the iPad for the equivalent periods after launch," Guinness World Records wrote in a blog post.
Then, between January 3 and March 9, Microsoft sold close to two million Kinect units. This is roughly the same number of devices that Microsoft sold within the first 24 days.

The Kinect has been one of Microsoft’s most successful recent products. The company’s 2010 fourth quarter revenues shot off the charts. There were rumors of a shortage of Kinects in January, and supposedly, Microsoft had to tap into February’s units.

There are more than 50 million Xbox 360 owners worldwide. Microsoft is hoping to snatch up users who don’t have a Kinect yet, as they add more than just gaming features. It now has features like controller-free Hulu and Netflix and there are hints of PC support.

"The community that has blossomed since the launch of Kinect for Xbox 360 in November shows the breadth of invention and depth of imagination possible when people have access to ground-breaking technology," Steve Clayton, director of cloud strategy at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. "Already, researchers, academics and enthusiasts are thinking through what's next in natural and intuitive technology."

There are also promises from Microsoft to release a non-commercial SDK free download for the Kinect in the spring.

"[It] will give academic researchers and enthusiasts access to key pieces of the Kinect system—such as the audio technology, system application programming interfaces and direct control of the Kinect sensor itself," Clayton wrote.

"Supporting this community and enabling creativity around natural user interfaces (NUI) is important to us, and our hope is that this SDK will ignite further creativity in an already vibrant ecosystem of enthusiasts," Clayton wrote.

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Decrease in Overall Gaming Sales, But Records Still Broken

Despite all of the new games, accessories, and improved gaming systems that were released this past year, gaming sales in 2010 definitely went down. Yes, there were huge accomplishments like Microsoft selling 8 million Kinect accessory packages in the first 60 days after its release, and the fact that the company sold more Xbox 360s this year than ever before, but sales numbers were still lower than last year.

On Thursday, January 13 the NPD Group published their December and annual reports concerning video games in 2010. The reports said that the total sales for video games in 2010 reached $18.58 billion. They went on to explain that this sales figure was less than the past two years. Sales in 2009 were $19.66 billion while video games brought in $21.4 billion in 2008.

NPD did offer an explanation for the drop in sales. They said that they could be attributed to the 13 percent dip in spending on console hardware and a 6 percent drop in new video game software sales. The firm went on to say that consumer spending for new and used games, as well as downloadable games, have dropped by one percent. Now on the other hand, the sales of video game accessories have gone up. In 2010 the sale of all video game accessories jumped a whole 13 percent above the sales numbers from 2009. For the month of December alone, sales reached $853.2 million.

One of the biggest contributors that even allowed the gaming sales numbers to be what they are for 2010 was Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Sales of consoles went up 42 percent in 2010 over what they were the year before. December was a record setting month for the five-year-old console. Sales numbers showed that Microsoft sold 1.9 million units, making it the best-selling month ever for the gaming platform.

Microsoft said that to accommodate the unexpected demands in December they had to make units available that had been set aside for January and February production runs. "Despite this, Microsoft still experienced out of supply situations in late December,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement that confirmed the news of the shortage. “It [Microsoft] expects supply constraint to continue in January and February as it works with retail and manufacturing partners to expedite production and shipments to replenish the channel."

Although Microsoft definitely had incredible sales numbers in December, the company with the top overall hardware sales for 2010 was Nintendo. The company sold more than 8.5 million DS systems for the year, as well as 7 million Wii consoles. For the month of December, the company sold 2.5 million DS units and 2.3 million Wii units.

Now everyone needs to remember that overall gaming sales also include PC gaming. In 2010 PC gaming has had a small increase since 2009. Its sales numbers grew an overall 3 percent over last year’s numbers in terms of selling software. NPD reported that consumers in 2010 seemed to spend more of their money on used games, game downloads, and digital copies of games. There were some new games in 2010 though that did definitely make a fine contribution to the PC gaming sales numbers. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft : Cataclysm expansion pack and the highly-anticipated Starcraft sequel, Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, combined to account for 14 percent of the total PC gaming sales for the year.

On the console side there were some new games that definitely upped the gaming sales this year. The best of these include: Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, EA’s Madden NFL 11, Microsoft’s Halo: Reach, and Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Of these games Black Ops definitely nabbed the top spot. In the first two months, more than 12 million copies of the game were sold.

Although gaming sales have declined the past two years, plenty of records are still being broken, and we can all definitely agree that gaming itself isn’t declining. There were some great accomplishments, broken records, and new games that we saw in 2010. Who knows what will happen in 2011, but I’m sure that there will be even bigger and better things to come.

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2.5 Million Kinects Sell in the First 25 Days

In the beginning, I can definitely say that I had my doubts about the new motion-based controllers that Microsoft and Sony were releasing for their game systems, but it is now obvious that I was completely wrong about these products. I thought that anyone that was interested in motion-based gameplay would have already purchased Nintendo’s Wii. I also believed that the Xbox 360 and PS3 attracted a crowd that wouldn’t really care about motion-based gameplay, but these assumptions were definitely off-track.

Xbox Kinect is in direct competition with Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s recently released Playstation Move. Although on Tuesday, November 30th Sony announced that they had shipped out 4.1 million Playstation Moves worldwide in the first two months of the Move’s release. Unfortunately for Sony, Microsoft announced on Monday, November 29th that 2.5 million Kinects were sold…in the first 25 days of its release.

"We are thrilled about the consumer response to Kinect and are working hard with our retail and manufacturing partners to expedite production and shipments of Kinect to restock shelves as fast as possible to keep up with demand," President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft Don Mattrick said in a statement. "With sales already exceeding two and a half million units in just 25 days, we are on pace to reach our forecast of 5 million units sold to consumers this holiday."

The Kinect and the Move both feature electronic motion sensing technology, but with the Move you need a wand-like controller to be able to direct the game. With the Kinect, as the commercial says about one of the dance games for the Xbox 360, you can “shake everything…except a controller.”

Microsoft reported that it was recording its Kinect sales figures by looking at the sales through consumers, while Sony said that its sales figures represented the number of Moves sold to retailers. They also said that they counted a Move controller as a sale if it was either by itself or if it was sold as a part of the two different Playstation Move bundle packages that the company shipped.

According to analyst Michael Pachter, Microsoft has sold 325,000 Xbox 360s and Sony has sold 250,000 Playstation 3s in October. It is unclear so far as to whether or not these numbers have been influenced by the release of the motion-based controllers.

Microsoft said that Black Friday really helped to kick off the holiday sales of Xbox Kinect. Vice president of merchandising at Target Nik Nayar said that the Kinect was a “top performer” at Target stores during the Black Friday weekend. "We expect Kinect will be a must-have gift this holiday season, so Target will continue to receive consistent shipments of Kinect throughout December," he said.

Although I definitely had my doubts about the Xbox Kinect, I have been proved wrong. Microsoft has a hit on its hands with its controller-free Kinect system. Selling 2.5 million Kinects within the first twenty-five days is quite an accomplishment and not exactly what I expected. I feel that Microsoft’s Kinect will definitely do better than the Move. I believe this because of the new technology that Microsoft has to offer. The ability to be able to control a game without needing any sort of a controller is extremely alluring. Microsoft is sure to do well with this product, and I’m sure that the holiday season will only cause Microsoft’s Kinect sales figures to spike even higher.

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PlayStation Move Surpasses 4.1 Million Units Sold

The good folks over at Sony revealed today that sales for the gaming group's motion control device known as PlayStation Move reached over 4.1 million units sold worldwide. This number comes just two months after the device's release in September for North America, Europe/PAL territories and Asia and only one month after its release in Japan. Sony is looking at these numbers as a clear sign of success for the new motion controller as well as positive momentum leading into this year's holiday season and 2011.

The PlayStation Move controller is used in conjunction with Sony's Eye Camera for the PS3 in order to detect the precise movements, angle and absolute position in 3D space of the controller and the gamer. This allows gamers to intuitively play certain games as if they are actually participating in the games themselves. The device also captures the gamer's image to offer new augmented reality experiences in certain games.

In two months Sony has unleashed more than 30 games that are either supported by PlayStation Move or completely dedicated to the controller. Among the many successful titles gamers will find such games as Sports Champions, Start the Party EyePet Move Edition, MAG, SingStar Dance and a ton more. Platform defining games for the PS3 like Killzone 3 and LittleBigPlanet 2 are set to be Move compatible which Sony hopes will "further establish PlayStation Move as the must-have motion experience for casual and hard-core gamers alike".

There are more than 41.6 million PS3 systems around the globe, and the company believes it is poised to set yet another year of record success, despite being a 5-year-old console. The PS3 is definitely making waves in the gaming community with the PlayStation Move as well as support for stereoscopic 3D. However, the PS3 isn't the only system with motion controllers. The Wii from Nintendo was the first to introduce the motion controller to gamers but tends to focus more on family games and casual gamers. The PlayStation Move's biggest competitor will undoubtedly be Kinect from Microsoft. Not only is Kinect a motion control device, it completely forgoes using a controller at all by instead making the gamer's entire body the controller.

Regardless of competition, the PlayStation Move is obviously doing well. However, I feel like we will not be able to get a true grasp of just how well it is doing until after this forthcoming holiday season. Until then, we will just have to sit back and enjoy what Sony has delivered thus far.

Source: Engadget

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