MSFT Spending $1,000,000,000 on Kinect, WP7

[Griffolion]

[citation][nom]bpislife[/nom]Both will flop.[/citation]

Hey Steve, so nice to see you on Toms.

 

[DjEaZy]

... what a waste of money... the products should be a advertisement for them self... if the product will not perform, there is no matter, how moch you will spend... vista everyone??? My take??? Give WP7 an Kinect's away for the billion... and then see... maybe it will go viral... or may be not...

 

[DjEaZy]

... and... best iPhone 4 ad i ever seen...
http/www.tomsguide.com/us/atomic-tom-nyc-subway-iphone-4,news-8356.html

 

[Chris_TC]

[citation][nom]Tonya_H[/nom]If each Kinect device costs Microsoft $100 to make; then for that same $1B they could give 10 million 360 owners one of these for free.[/citation]
Which goes to show how massively this thing will sell, unless Microsoft's market analysts suck at their job really, really, really badly.

 

[Guest]

Face and voice recognition...thats all folks! The possibilities are endless. on the Oprah comments - Imagine your child 3-4 years walks onto the room, the Kinect identifies and loads a preset of games and activities which is operated by voice commands of the child! This WILL be a success doesn't matter what the cost was.

 

[wawa sxm]

kinect yes, i think its gonna do really good...wp7 i have little hope of any success before next year

 

[LongLiveRock1974]

That's disappointing. I got a MS cert a few weeks ago. Unlike CompTIA, MS does not send you a nice certificate. They expect you to buy it. How lame is that. $1 billion dollars for marketing a toy but, can't afford to send me a piece of paper.

 

[sviola]

[citation][nom]DjEaZy[/nom]... what a waste of money... the products should be a advertisement for them self... if the product will not perform, there is no matter, how moch you will spend... vista everyone??? My take??? Give WP7 an Kinect's away for the billion... and then see... maybe it will go viral... or may be not...[/citation]

The product can be the best thing since sliced bread, but if people don't know about it, it won't sell. Advertising and marketing sell products.

 

[twu]

Microsoft should spend 1 Billion to develop useful free apps for 3 years. That would make the device more attractive.

 

[cracklint]

good move, it is a know fact that women buy what ever their high preistess, Oprah tells them too. that's a few million sales right there.

 

[hellwig]

[citation][nom]ScoobyJooby-Jew[/nom]MSFT wants to get the hardware in the homes, and then crank out software.[/citation]
My point was that they will end up spending whatever money they would make on the software to push the hardware. Yes, the 360 has made Microsoft some profit (almost entirely from XBox Live and Halo no doubt), but the original XBox cost the company millions if not billions. Why you ask? Because they spent so much money to get the hardware into people's homes that the software couldn't save them.

If they're not careful, they're going to do it all over again. They've already eaten into the profits of their multimedia division with the worhtless Kin phone, now they're spending a cool billion from the same division to promote WP7 and Kinect, even Microsoft can run out of cash. It looks like the Office division might need to bail them out again.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Microsoft is thinking long term
WP7 will play XDNA games (XBox360 games)
Make XBox 360 popular
Make kids want to take their games with them (WP7)
Kids grow up, like microsoft products, buy MS O/S.

What's apples strategy for getting hold of the young market?...more iPods/iPads/iPhones with little to no innovation and a high entry price. But they do have a death grip here among the hip and cool trend setters.

 

[tidex]

1 Billion dollars?
For the love of god, why?
Kinect is doomed to failure just like the other motion control addons/games.

 

[darkstar107]

Ya, I have no interest in Kinect. They're just throwing away money in my opinion.

 

[beayn]

[citation][nom]tidex[/nom]1 Billion dollars?For the love of god, why?Kinect is doomed to failure just like the other motion control addons/games.[/citation]

It's half a billion on each product. Combining the two and calling it a billion makes it sound far worse than it is. Since we have no idea how much other companies spend in advertising, we can't really say that this is a lot. Can someone link figures on Apple's "I'm a Mac" commercials or the iPad / iPhone campaign?

Also, are you saying the Wii was a failure?

 

[guardianangel42]

[citation][nom]Anamech[/nom]Face and voice recognition...thats all folks! The possibilities are endless. on the Oprah comments - Imagine your child 3-4 years walks onto the room, the Kinect identifies and loads a preset of games and activities which is operated by voice commands of the child! This WILL be a success doesn't matter what the cost was.[/citation]

Are you normally this ignorant or is it just the weather? Face and voice recognition, really? That's all Kinect can do? So you are going to talk your way to a high score in Dance Central? How 'bout contort your face into funny shapes to make your arms and legs move around?

 

[husker]

I cannot believe that people still don't understand what the potential of kinect is. People who say it will fail would have said the same thing about the first personal computers. Yes, they were simple and seen as "toys"; but those that saw the potential of the early devices are now millionaires and billionaires. The kinect device is a combination of hardware and software that will continue to evolve and become something more that a silly console input device. The tech will be integrated into so many things that many will find it hard to imagine life without it.

 

[eddieroolz]

Hopefully, Microsoft will reap the rewards of heavy investment a few years down the road. Kinect still won't catch on with the serious gamers, however.