The 360 is turning into more of an all-purpose living room machine, and the Kinect is blowing up. That’s the takeaway from the Ballmer keynote here at CES. They’ve sold a huge amount of Kinect — 8 million, far more than the 5 million they predicted, and which we were all skeptical of. But it’s a surprise hit and I think that’s indicative of both its unique appeal (even the haters have to admit it’s unique) and the growing importance of a powerful box in the living room.
Avatar Kinect? A fancy toy, and I’m not buying it. But I’m not the target audience. I’d rather have the hands-free media control. Either way, though, it’s more stuff the 360 can do, and the central hub for media, games, and communication is obviously becoming a popular and contentious product category.
There was also another demo of the new Surface we saw earlier, but I’m disappointed to see that it’s being reserved for commercial applications, like the first one. My god, Microsoft! You’ve got something genuinely original and fun to use, and you’re restricting it to casino lobbies!
The keynote wasn’t much of a blockbuster, though to be honest Microsoft has rarely attempted to bust blocks. They’re about building platforms, and then building on those platforms. What do you do when your platforms pass out of vogue? Xbox still has room to grow, but WP7 will never achieve the reach of Windows Mobile, the popularity of iOS, or the increasing ubiquity of Android. What about Windows? It’s selling like hotcakes, but as I argued, they need to change or the decline will be apparent.
The expansion to ARM and SOCs is a little late but still savvy for Microsoft. It’s something that needed to happen eventually, and hopefully we’ll see it pan out. The Wintel hegemony has been around for a long time, and it’s long past due for disruption. I won’t say they’ve disrupted themselves, but at least they didn’t wait until they were completely backed into a corner. The moves they make at those times tend to be like those a cornered animal makes: desperate and savage. Like Windows Mobile 6.5.
It was more, as it usually is, a “state of Microsoft” than a blast of new stuff. The advances Ballmer described will make some ripples, but when will they make waves again?
They sold me on the Xbox with those demos! I really am thinking about getting one now. The Wii is just not moving fast enough; it has the potential to be so much more.
Yeah, once again techcrunch doesn’t know it’s ass from a hole in the ground.
I don’t know if it was me or did MS just added the ability to invite friends and have the whole crap stream live to other xbox members, who have nothing else to do in life.
it will be kinda like those stupid videos shows\daily diary, wanna stars, post on youtube. if thats the case MS has one up the thing, now even the ugly looking can have the stardom, that too live (or not).
But nevertheless tracking facial emotion is nifty.
MS FTW!
What Netflix streaming are you talking about? The one it’s had for over a year now? Or is Kinect support going to be added to the Netflix app.
And any more details about when Hulu will start rolling out? ok, just for a moment imagine that Hulu had been added to AppleTV and rewrite the article. Not asking for the five that would have been written if it was Apple related.
I guess that phrasing is a bit ambiguous. It’s Kinect support that’s being added to the Netflix streaming functionality the 360 already has, whereas Hulu plus is being added.
Yeah, read elsewhere that it’s Kinect support for Netflix whats new. Personally, after having used Kinect for Zune, I still prefer the Xbox remote for navigation. Too much work to scan a list or say ‘Next’ multiple times. But once the playlist was playing, I did enjoy using the voice commands to skip to the next song instead of searching for the remote. It would be nice if you could search for movies using voice commands, but Kinect appears to recognize a fixed set of commands at any point.
Naysayer!
Xbox is Gr8 . WP7 is cool. Goin to get one only after the coming upgrade . I like the idea of snapping photo even when phone is locked. Thats quite practical use . Live tiles looks cool and better than dumb tiles on Iphone or android. Office suits are really handy too . Good job MS.
Sounds like a Microsoft employee that can’t spell putting in a plug to me…
hmm sounds like a jealous MS hater
Great news.. If this is a service from Microsoft then without a doubt it would be great. Have to take a look on it.
Look how goof Ballmer looks is oversized shirt. And he’s the role model for this company?
Yah, he should be wearing a black turtleneck and boring jeans, right?
piss off
Still can’t stream Last.fm radio in the background though…
David – This article does not contain any depth or insight into the Xbox announcements. I dont quite understand whats new or was announced wrt Kinect. Maybe you do more justice, like you do with other vendors? Or just dont cover MSFT if you’re so un-enthused! Pardon my sarcasm….but as a layman, I just want to understand what MSFT announced.
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