Array of Platforms Subject to Marketing Blitz
The New York Post reports Microsoft will spend half a billion dollars, $500 million, to market the launch of XBOX 360′s Kinect peripheral in North America. Even famed movie director Steven Spielberg is getting in on the action.
Microsoft plans to plaster Kinect everywhere; Americans may see spots next week while watching Dancing with the Stars or Glee. Space has been taken out in People and InStyle magazines as well. In addition to traditional print, broadcast and Internet advertising, Kellogg’s cereal, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Burger King will also help promote the motion control add-on. Microsoft is planning a Times Square gala that will see several Kinect ads on surrounding billboards. All this will complement midnight launches of Kinect on November 4th at 7,000 retailers across the country.
All of this is in the hope of Kinect selling 3 million units worldwide during the busy Holiday season. For reference, Microsoft also spent $500 million promoting the launch of the original XBOX. That worked well–do you think this will? Tell us in the comments section. Games like Sonic Free Riders will be crucial to aid the initial success of Kinect, and if nothing else, it will be exciting to see how much a return Microsoft sees on an investment like this.
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heh…
sadly I’m not getting Kinect because:
1. Too expensive
2. I already have a Wii.
Sega needs to be a little smarter and not depend on Microsoft to give sales for our favorite blue hedgehog.
I will laugh my ass off when the Kinect fails. It wouldn’t matter if the games on the Kinect were a perfect 10/10. Paying $150 dollars for an add-on, along with games for it that costs $50 each, is pathetically stupid. If I wanted to spend that much money, I’d rather buy a whole console, or a handheld at least.
The marketing “blitz” might work for a while, but Kinect will fail in the long run, or at least under-perform. Exploiting the holiday season doesn’t mean shit. Fast selling a gimmick isn’t that hard (although such an expensive one might be) – keeping people interested is.
I wonder if they’re going to port 06 *shot*
There are some Kinect demos over in some shopping malls here in Australia, or just the one I’ve been to just a couple days ago. It’s basically just a number of games that were playable at E3, and by playable at E3 I mean, all they had were the E3 builds, so unfortunately I couldn’t play Sonic Free Riders
. But if my word means anything it’s that there is some marketing happening in Aussie here.
its already to late to released kinetic at this point when sony move have a head start of sales i don’t think sega won’t have any interest on 360 anymore since sega of america no longer exist they have move back to japan and the bad part japan is more toward to Sony and Nintendo market overall so that’s why we all seeing more released on wii than 360, Sega is making amends from their past mistakes and now allying with sony to released more ps3 games exclusive this time i think they want more climax to thier games since 360 have gave them none when cpu function high performance but basic process when the cell processor can function more advanced like GoW 3 to Killzone 3 it make halo reach as a basic simple fps with enhanced graphics.
@nega
The sad part is that, for some reason, Sega loves Nintendo, but doesn’t care about Sony or Microsoft (Seriously, compare Sonic rush to rivals). Not only did the ones on Microsoft consoles did bad with sonic, but sony as well compared to Nintendo.
@SpeedDemon
You’re right they did bad on ps3 more than 360, but they thought 360 games where their masterpiece of work than on the wii for example they spend a fortune to make sonic 2006 on 360 and make a bad port on ps3 since they don’t care about Sony during that time, their concern was on the 360 to make more sales since the console made profit in Europe and North American with majority pie than Japanese made ps3 but in japan its another story but you already knew that, in 2007-2009 the wii’s is rising in japan throughout the world and overtake the 360 and ps3 market this gets tricky for Sega since they got one more chance to make another perfect masterpiece work and its not another overestimated game like sonic 2006 but this time they made hedgehog engine and spend twice its cost to make sonic 2006 but their thinking was still based on 360 perfect hardware but not realizing sony ps3 become the new slim and more games starting to release on that console alone so they made another bad ps3 port on purpose no accident this time to make ps3 look bad but it backfire on them since the sales was almost better but overall poorly resulted since more people purchase wii’s and ps3 than 360 since their faulting console RRoD appears more often, now in 2010 Sega made a radical decision to closed sega of american because of their failure to produce result on sales to make a dent like EA, activison, and other big name publisher, so now the Japanese division making decision now like start over releasing more exclusives on wii sonic colors and trying to make a apologize gift to Sony with sonic 4 better port than 360 and trying make amends like release Vanquish a perfect game on ps3 maybe better than 360 version but they look the same but sometimes ps3 motion feels lifelike than 360. This what happens when sega trying make ass of themselves believing 360 is the masterpiece console but its not!
@nega
I can see where your going with this (I think it was because of the fact that Sony was their competitor at one point.). I’m afraid if Sonic fans on 360/PS3 want more Sonic games, they’re just gonna have to buy more, otherwise there is going to be a point where Sega is going to snap.
@Nega
I’m sorry but I am afraid you are misinformed about a few things. SEGA of America is completely in tact. The only operations closed in the United States this year has been the development studio Secret Level, bought by the terrible ex president of SoA, Jeffrey Simon and some (not all) Gameworks arcades. You may also be confused about SEGA of America’s transition to primarily developing downloadable games and flash games ex. Wiiware, XBLA, PSN, iOS and social networks such as Facebook. This does not mean they do not exist any longer. It’s not like SoA has had any good development studios since the Sega Technical Institute went defunct in the 90′s (with the exception of Bernie Stolar’s purchase of Visual Concepts).
I like how this is about MS Kinect and it turns into a conversation about SEGA.
ANYWAY! I think this is an utterly pathetic ploy being used by M$ trying to cash in on creating a new fad. What a horrible idea. I see this failing very quickly. It’s more expensive than a Wii with a smaller library of many unrecognizable games except for Sonic Free Riders, which is only a spin-off game. I have a strong feeling after spending so much money on advertising they will make no profit off of this piece of hardware and major shareholders in the company will be pissed. Goldman Sachs has already downgraded their stock to neutral with MS. They are setting themselves up for failure with this move.
I would rather play a 32x, which is a notorious failure of an add-on. At least it had decent games for it, such as Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing Delux, Tempo, Knuckles Chaotix etc. So far its library is 95% shovleware and as far as I can recall the worst launch titles … possibly ever. Did SEGA CD launch with only FMV games? If so, that’s about equal. Lol
lol… Decent games. Knuckles Chaotix. PFFFFT! -giggle-