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Xbox One and PlayStation 4 contributed to Amazon's biggest pre-order week ever, with as many as 2,500 next-gen console purchases per minute funneling through the online retailer. The week of E3, which saw PlayStation 4's hardware and Xbox One's software unveiled, saw a 4,000% increase in console purchases compared to last year's (next-gen-free) E3 week.
In addition, the day-one pre-orders for PS4 and Xbox One were "nearly two times that of all video game sales on Black Friday last year."
IGN has asked Amazon for more specifics and will update this story with any extra information it provides. If you're interested, Xbox One pre-orders are back in stock on Amazon, and PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles come in a bunch of different flavors.
They're pretty much not ever gonna come back outside niche Japanese stuff. EA/Activision salted the earth on that.
Rhythm games with novel mechanics may come back, but plastic guitars and drums are probably consigned to the sands of time.
They had a pretty good run, though - two console generations for accessory-driven games is pretty damn remarkable.
It wasn't really two though...I mean Guitar Hero popped up on the PS2 in what...2005? That was the tail-end of the sixth generation there.
Guitar Freaks by Konami started in 1999 I believe. Also Drum Mania. And I guess we could also loop in Dance Dance Revolution with the dance mat around the same time.
Xbox One and PlayStation 4 contributed to Amazon's biggest pre-order week ever, with as many as 2,500 next-gen console purchases per minute funneling through the online retailer. The week of E3, which saw PlayStation 4's hardware and Xbox One's software unveiled, saw a 4,000% increase in console purchases compared to last year's (next-gen-free) E3 week.
In addition, the day-one pre-orders for PS4 and Xbox One were "nearly two times that of all video game sales on Black Friday last year."
IGN has asked Amazon for more specifics and will update this story with any extra information it provides. If you're interested, Xbox One pre-orders are back in stock on Amazon, and PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles come in a bunch of different flavors.
I'm REALLY hoping this is just a sign the developer sucks and this isn't an overall indication of where this next gen is headed.
Those guys made Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though, right? Although they might, of course, split their assets between multiple projects.
What strikes me is that Deus Ex was a rather meditative game, and hit a lot of sensibilities that would translate well to Thief. The way Stephane Roy talks about Thief is like a robot who has been given just the right inputs. Narrative through gameplay. Player variety without sacrificing any audience. Freedom, yet sufficient restriction. Choice. Control. So from that I would infer a game that is using the Bioshock template, and the way other games have extrapolated upon it, and building their game on it. Yeah, that might be the next gen. That might be why we desperately need indies, because these types of games will get old soon. There's so much power in gameplay, that somehow, game designers today don't even seem to care about (I know that publishers have a good deal to do with it, too).
But I'm not invested in Thief, anyway. During that E3 trailer I thought what awful writing. During a trailer, where expectations are already at their lowest. It was really awkward and generic.
Still not spouting the doom of all gaming.
Same studio, different team. This team have been working on Thief since around 2008 and apparently the game and the studio itself are a complete mess. There was an article about the clusterfuck just a few months ago, I'll see if I can find it. But from memory, it involved former Ubisoft Montreal employees joining the studio and basically trying to take it over by only hiring other former Ubisoft employees.
The Thief reboot began in 2008, first as a series of conceptual meetings, then as a vertical slice from a team within Eidos Montreal. "Vertical slice" is industry terminology for a condensed demonstration of a game's potential art, design, gameplay and tone. A vertical slice is made by small team and helps the publisher decide whether a project should enter full production.
...
Backed by a large AAA budget, the Thief team expanded rapidly. While the project attracted a few designers, programmers and artists from across the globe, many came from other Montreal studios. A number of senior team members previously worked together at Ubisoft Montreal, and were quick to recruit local colleagues. According to one source, collegial favoritism began to divide the office.
The lead and senior design roles were fluid, with some team members departing after less than two years. According to one source, each new lead and senior designer would come with a new vision for the game. Old ideas — including stages and mechanics — would be rebuilt or scrapped. In March of this year, the same month as the game's publicity push on the cover of Game Informer magazine, Lead Game Designer Dominic Fleury left the studio.
Sources emphasized the high level of talent and enthusiasm of team members, many of whom came to work on Thief because of their love of the franchise. Those same sources cited team politics and conflicting visions as cause for many departures and setbacks.
Over the past few years, Square Enix has become increasingly concerned with the status of the game, now half a decade into development. A source says Eidos Montreal turned to a German investment firm for additional funds, something superiors within the studio claimed to be a common strategy in the industry and not cause for concern.
The current version of Thief barely resembles the initial concept, says a source. The vertical slice doesn't load inside Thief's current heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3. Many programming tricks were necessary to run the current demonstration, like turning off non-playable character AI — the engine has trouble when too many characters are on screen.
They're pretty much not ever gonna come back outside niche Japanese stuff. EA/Activision salted the earth on that.
Rhythm games with novel mechanics may come back, but plastic guitars and drums are probably consigned to the sands of time.
They had a pretty good run, though - two console generations for accessory-driven games is pretty damn remarkable.
It wasn't really two though...I mean Guitar Hero popped up on the PS2 in what...2005? That was the tail-end of the sixth generation there.
Guitar Freaks by Konami started in 1999 I believe. Also Drum Mania. And I guess we could also loop in Dance Dance Revolution with the dance mat around the same time.
A vertical slice is a portion of a game which acts as a proof of concept for stakeholders before they agree to fund the rest. It is not the same thing as a prototype in that it is expected to look of final quality and play like the final game. It is like asking to see a piece of the final cake before agreeing to pay for the whole.
Requests for vertical slices are a key sign that your stakeholder (publisher, investor, whomever) has no idea what game making actually involves and is likely harboring many misconceptions about the process. The reason is that what seems like 10% of the content and therefore 10% of the effort is actually more like 70% of the effort.
Those who desire to see vertical slices make the mistake of thinking of game development as a pure production exercise, which of course it is not, and will likely misunderstand what further development will entail. Vertical slices are also simply not achievable in many kinds of game.
You'll see this happen a lot in industry stories, where the teams are brow beaten for VSs to prove what they've got and then waste tremendous amounts of time and effort to create something that will never be used at any point. Something similar happened with Aliens CM, where they would just keep wasting time on VS production that led to creating stuff that wasn't actually doable
A vertical slice is a portion of a game which acts as a proof of concept for stakeholders before they agree to fund the rest. It is not the same thing as a prototype in that it is expected to look of final quality and play like the final game. It is like asking to see a piece of the final cake before agreeing to pay for the whole.
Requests for vertical slices are a key sign that your stakeholder (publisher, investor, whomever) has no idea what game making actually involves and is likely harboring many misconceptions about the process. The reason is that what seems like 10% of the content and therefore 10% of the effort is actually more like 70% of the effort.
Those who desire to see vertical slices make the mistake of thinking of game development as a pure production exercise, which of course it is not, and will likely misunderstand what further development will entail. Vertical slices are also simply not achievable in many kinds of game.
You'll see this happen a lot in industry stories, where the teams are brow beaten for VSs to prove what they've got and then waste tremendous amounts of time and effort to create something that will never be used at any point. Something similar happened with Aliens CM, where they would just keep wasting time on VS production that led to creating stuff that wasn't actually doable
Not entirely accurate. A lot of teams use vertical slices to find the core of their games. Once you've got something that's fun, you can then expand and build your game around it. It's actually a design process that was created by Mark Cerny and you can see examples of its success in a lot of games nowadays.
Not quite. Aliens: CM was a blatant lie using a vertical slice that wasn't even in the game, we don't know if Thief's the same. It's not out of the ordinary to have rigged demos for public showings though.
Xbox One and PlayStation 4 contributed to Amazon's biggest pre-order week ever, with as many as 2,500 next-gen console purchases per minute funneling through the online retailer. The week of E3, which saw PlayStation 4's hardware and Xbox One's software unveiled, saw a 4,000% increase in console purchases compared to last year's (next-gen-free) E3 week.
In addition, the day-one pre-orders for PS4 and Xbox One were "nearly two times that of all video game sales on Black Friday last year."
IGN has asked Amazon for more specifics and will update this story with any extra information it provides. If you're interested, Xbox One pre-orders are back in stock on Amazon, and PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles come in a bunch of different flavors.
GameStop:
Well that's good news for Sony.
Kind of funny that whoever took that photo cut off whatever the Xbox One news was.
That's the first instance I've heard of using vertical slice as anything but a pejorative, but I actually kind of like it. Good design tool, bad production goal.
The point is that Vertical Slices only work in very specific instances, and sometimes it's not worthy the effort. And it sucks when a suit asks for it.
Xbox One and PlayStation 4 contributed to Amazon's biggest pre-order week ever, with as many as 2,500 next-gen console purchases per minute funneling through the online retailer. The week of E3, which saw PlayStation 4's hardware and Xbox One's software unveiled, saw a 4,000% increase in console purchases compared to last year's (next-gen-free) E3 week.
In addition, the day-one pre-orders for PS4 and Xbox One were "nearly two times that of all video game sales on Black Friday last year."
IGN has asked Amazon for more specifics and will update this story with any extra information it provides. If you're interested, Xbox One pre-orders are back in stock on Amazon, and PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles come in a bunch of different flavors.
Well, it's still not certain yet, but I guess we can put to rest fears that this entire new generation is going to be fucked. Hopefully, the Wii U's poor sales can be blamed on that system alone and not something that will be seen across the board.
I mention this because the game was the highest-profile of the very few non-console-exclusive games shown at E3 that wasn't already cross-gen.
Man, that's a lot of bet-hedging. And a lot of nervousness about the new machines...
Thief 4 was developed as a current-gen game that's coming to next-gen because Square Enix has spent a mint developing it. Thief and Deus Ex began development at the same time.
The Thief reboot began in 2008, first as a series of conceptual meetings, then as a vertical slice from a team within Eidos Montreal. "Vertical slice" is industry terminology for a condensed demonstration of a game's potential art, design, gameplay and tone. A vertical slice is made by small team and helps the publisher decide whether a project should enter full production.
Around the same time and in the same building, a different Eidos Montreal team began production on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which would go on to be a critical and financial success. In early 2009, Square Enix acquired Eidos Interactive and its numerous brands, including Thief and Deus Ex. Ensuring the completion and promotion of Deus Ex: Human Revolution demanded much of Square Enix's attention, so the Thief team created its vertical slice relatively free of supervision. After nine months, the project was finished. Happy with the result, Square Enix greenlit Thief.
The lead and senior design roles were fluid, with some team members departing after less than two years. According to one source, each new lead and senior designer would come with a new vision for the game. Old ideas — including stages and mechanics — would be rebuilt or scrapped. In March of this year, the same month as the game's publicity push on the cover of Game Informer magazine, Lead Game Designer Dominic Fleury left the studio.
The current version of Thief barely resembles the initial concept, says a source. The vertical slice doesn't load inside Thief's current heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3. Many programming tricks were necessary to run the current demonstration, like turning off non-playable character AI — the engine has trouble when too many characters are on screen.
The next-gen versions are the hedge, not the current gen ones.
In fact, here's the game on Eidos Montreal's site back in 2009, when it was called Thief 4.
Xbox One and PlayStation 4 contributed to Amazon's biggest pre-order week ever, with as many as 2,500 next-gen console purchases per minute funneling through the online retailer. The week of E3, which saw PlayStation 4's hardware and Xbox One's software unveiled, saw a 4,000% increase in console purchases compared to last year's (next-gen-free) E3 week.
In addition, the day-one pre-orders for PS4 and Xbox One were "nearly two times that of all video game sales on Black Friday last year."
IGN has asked Amazon for more specifics and will update this story with any extra information it provides. If you're interested, Xbox One pre-orders are back in stock on Amazon, and PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles come in a bunch of different flavors.
GameStop:
Well that's good news for Sony.
Kind of funny that whoever took that photo cut off whatever the Xbox One news was.
Nah, the original post is on GAF. The photo was cropped when posted here. The X1 news is just that they have more allotments and not to exceed them.
I have to imagine Sony lifted those pre-order limits almost entirely to get people 'locked in' on the system, no matter their ability to produce said system this fall. MS's backflip made the XBO a lot more viable for some people. Best nip that in the bud.
Well, it's still not certain yet, but I guess we can put to rest fears that this entire new generation is going to be fucked. Hopefully, the Wii U's poor sales can be blamed on that system alone and not something that will be seen across the board.
I'm pretty sure the Wii U set pre-order records as well at a number of establishments.
While the Wii U has been selling out all over the US over the past week — including Target, Best Buy, and Toys ‘R Us — GameStop always seemed to have some units left. Not anymore. Not only has the company announced that the Wii U is completely sold out, they sent out a statement saying the “demand for Wii U has been off the charts”.
GameStop didn’t say how many consoles they’ve already sold/pre-ordered. For a while now, GameStop had only the Basic set available for pre-order, since the Deluxe set had sold out within days. GameStop has now created a waiting list for their “PowerUp Rewards” members, where they can join a list for free and get notified once the Wii U becomes available for pre-order again.
Last week, Nintendo said that Wii U pre-orders were “very strong“. We now know how strong they are: the console is effectively sold out everywhere as of now. If you wish to pre-order today, your best chance is to get on the list of one of the retailers and hope for the best.
Xbox One and PlayStation 4 contributed to Amazon's biggest pre-order week ever, with as many as 2,500 next-gen console purchases per minute funneling through the online retailer. The week of E3, which saw PlayStation 4's hardware and Xbox One's software unveiled, saw a 4,000% increase in console purchases compared to last year's (next-gen-free) E3 week.
In addition, the day-one pre-orders for PS4 and Xbox One were "nearly two times that of all video game sales on Black Friday last year."
IGN has asked Amazon for more specifics and will update this story with any extra information it provides. If you're interested, Xbox One pre-orders are back in stock on Amazon, and PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles come in a bunch of different flavors.
Well, it's still not certain yet, but I guess we can put to rest fears that this entire new generation is going to be fucked. Hopefully, the Wii U's poor sales can be blamed on that system alone and not something that will be seen across the board.
Depends on how many units are being offered. Selling out only sounds good if you don't know the allotment of units was 100,000.
Well, they aren't saying they're sold out. They're saying it's twice the size of all video game sales on Black Friday. 2500 units being preordered per minute. Those are hard numbers and not percentages.
Of course, it could still mean nothing. But hey! It's a good sign and one that should make us happy, right?
Well, they aren't saying they're sold out. They're saying it's twice the size of all video game sales on Black Friday. 2500 units being preordered per minute. Those are hard numbers and not percentages.
Of course, it could still mean nothing. But hey! It's a good sign and one that should make us happy, right?
Does this mean Sony feels confident in the availability of parts to meet productions runs?
Or is this going to be a case of people pre-ordering the first 24 hours get one on launch day while everyone else goes into a queue?
No idea, but I'll be amazed if they can wring enough chips out of TSMC to actually meet those quotas on launch day, TSMC is absurdly busy. Unless they're reducing allocations to non-gamestop stores to compensate or something.
I wonder if Sony is operating on an "it's easier to ask forgiveness" plan for this; take as many preorders as possible and then go "Whoops, sorry" when you run out.
I wonder if Sony is operating on an "it's easier to ask forgiveness" plan for this; take as many preorders as possible and then go "Whoops, sorry" when you run out.
Entirely possible, but Sony is also making a system with what amount to off-the-shelf parts (yes, I know that's an oversimplification of the process), so they're gonna have a much easier time getting those parts made. No unique processor, no new type of disc drive with production problems, just plain old PC hardware built into a dedicated unit.
I wonder if Sony is operating on an "it's easier to ask forgiveness" plan for this; take as many preorders as possible and then go "Whoops, sorry" when you run out.
Definitely. It's a great news story if they get to say "Demand is huge, sold out everywhere, waiting lists of weeks to get a console". That gets it onto the nightly news, and into papers for days. And makes people who wouldn't want a console think that they should go and get it if everyone else is.
it may make some fans mad, but they aren't going to cancel the pre-order.
Does this mean Sony feels confident in the availability of parts to meet productions runs?
Or is this going to be a case of people pre-ordering the first 24 hours get one on launch day while everyone else goes into a queue?
No idea, but I'll be amazed if they can wring enough chips out of TSMC to actually meet those quotas on launch day, TSMC is absurdly busy. Unless they're reducing allocations to non-gamestop stores to compensate or something.
I'd be very surprised if these APUs weren't being made at Global Foundries as well, but there isn't any way of knowing until chips start getting out there. Assuming yields are OK, I think shortages will be pretty minimal after we get out of 2013.
Does this mean Sony feels confident in the availability of parts to meet productions runs?
Or is this going to be a case of people pre-ordering the first 24 hours get one on launch day while everyone else goes into a queue?
No idea, but I'll be amazed if they can wring enough chips out of TSMC to actually meet those quotas on launch day, TSMC is absurdly busy. Unless they're reducing allocations to non-gamestop stores to compensate or something.
I'd be very surprised if these APUs weren't being made at Global Foundries as well, but there isn't any way of knowing until chips start getting out there. Assuming yields are OK, I think shortages will be pretty minimal after we get out of 2013.
I wasn't aware Global Foundries had any 28nm capabilities en masse? hm.
Does this mean Sony feels confident in the availability of parts to meet productions runs?
Or is this going to be a case of people pre-ordering the first 24 hours get one on launch day while everyone else goes into a queue?
No idea, but I'll be amazed if they can wring enough chips out of TSMC to actually meet those quotas on launch day, TSMC is absurdly busy. Unless they're reducing allocations to non-gamestop stores to compensate or something.
I'd be very surprised if these APUs weren't being made at Global Foundries as well, but there isn't any way of knowing until chips start getting out there. Assuming yields are OK, I think shortages will be pretty minimal after we get out of 2013.
I wasn't aware Global Foundries had any 28nm capabilities en masse? hm.
Does this mean Sony feels confident in the availability of parts to meet productions runs?
Or is this going to be a case of people pre-ordering the first 24 hours get one on launch day while everyone else goes into a queue?
No idea, but I'll be amazed if they can wring enough chips out of TSMC to actually meet those quotas on launch day, TSMC is absurdly busy. Unless they're reducing allocations to non-gamestop stores to compensate or something.
I'd be very surprised if these APUs weren't being made at Global Foundries as well, but there isn't any way of knowing until chips start getting out there. Assuming yields are OK, I think shortages will be pretty minimal after we get out of 2013.
I wasn't aware Global Foundries had any 28nm capabilities en masse? hm.
Hm, I wonder when they finished that, I remember TSMC touting they had the only-non Intel chip foundry at that size iirc. I guess it probably was ages ago, I don't remember.
You are in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused: If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences.
There's that new "feature". Dunno if you can just put the thing in the closet.
Rumor: Microsoft removing 'Kinect' requirement without Xbox One price drop (Photos)
Reversals. Reversals all the way down.
Im not sure i buy that just because....why? Without the price drop I can't imagine it'll help sales much. If its not worth the packin because, you know, nobody wants it then toss it and actually reflect that in the price.
If that's true, the One is getting closer and closer to becoming a 50/50 viability with the PS4 in my mind. At this point all I need is no in-box kinect, a competitive price (I'd want $375 but I wouldn't expect them to go below $400), and for MS to do a 180 on the treatment of indies and I would be completely flummoxed on which box to get this fall.
Imagine making my purchase decision based on exclusives!
Read the rumour. It's not saying that they'll come up with a Kinect-less SKU, it's just saying that the Kinect will not have to be plugged in for the XBO to start up. Even if true, they're unlikely to do that. But like I said in the XBO thread, it sounds like a mix-up but people are quickly jumping to conclusions.
It's a pillar of the system, and a lot of the compromises they made on the internal hardware make no sense unless they're putting the money towards getting a Kinect in every box.
Posts
Guitar Freaks by Konami started in 1999 I believe. Also Drum Mania. And I guess we could also loop in Dance Dance Revolution with the dance mat around the same time.
GameStop:
Well that's good news for Sony.
Same studio, different team. This team have been working on Thief since around 2008 and apparently the game and the studio itself are a complete mess. There was an article about the clusterfuck just a few months ago, I'll see if I can find it. But from memory, it involved former Ubisoft Montreal employees joining the studio and basically trying to take it over by only hiring other former Ubisoft employees.
So the office politics aren't as bad as I remembered reading they were but still, it's a mess.
Did Guitar Freaks make it to the US?
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
You'll see this happen a lot in industry stories, where the teams are brow beaten for VSs to prove what they've got and then waste tremendous amounts of time and effort to create something that will never be used at any point. Something similar happened with Aliens CM, where they would just keep wasting time on VS production that led to creating stuff that wasn't actually doable
Not entirely accurate. A lot of teams use vertical slices to find the core of their games. Once you've got something that's fun, you can then expand and build your game around it. It's actually a design process that was created by Mark Cerny and you can see examples of its success in a lot of games nowadays.
Not quite. Aliens: CM was a blatant lie using a vertical slice that wasn't even in the game, we don't know if Thief's the same. It's not out of the ordinary to have rigged demos for public showings though.
Kind of funny that whoever took that photo cut off whatever the Xbox One news was.
Well, it's still not certain yet, but I guess we can put to rest fears that this entire new generation is going to be fucked. Hopefully, the Wii U's poor sales can be blamed on that system alone and not something that will be seen across the board.
Thief 4 was developed as a current-gen game that's coming to next-gen because Square Enix has spent a mint developing it. Thief and Deus Ex began development at the same time.
http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/26/4269912/thief-reboot-impeded-by-office-politics-high-level-departures
The next-gen versions are the hedge, not the current gen ones.
In fact, here's the game on Eidos Montreal's site back in 2009, when it was called Thief 4.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090523053716/http://www.eidosmontreal.com/en/games.html
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Nah, the original post is on GAF. The photo was cropped when posted here. The X1 news is just that they have more allotments and not to exceed them.
I'm pretty sure the Wii U set pre-order records as well at a number of establishments.
EDIT:
http://wiiudaily.com/2012/09/wii-u-sells-out-at-gamestop/
Depends on how many units are being offered. Selling out only sounds good if you don't know the allotment of units was 100,000.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Of course, it could still mean nothing. But hey! It's a good sign and one that should make us happy, right?
But of course! Competition is great!
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Or is this going to be a case of people pre-ordering the first 24 hours get one on launch day while everyone else goes into a queue?
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
No idea, but I'll be amazed if they can wring enough chips out of TSMC to actually meet those quotas on launch day, TSMC is absurdly busy. Unless they're reducing allocations to non-gamestop stores to compensate or something.
Entirely possible, but Sony is also making a system with what amount to off-the-shelf parts (yes, I know that's an oversimplification of the process), so they're gonna have a much easier time getting those parts made. No unique processor, no new type of disc drive with production problems, just plain old PC hardware built into a dedicated unit.
Definitely. It's a great news story if they get to say "Demand is huge, sold out everywhere, waiting lists of weeks to get a console". That gets it onto the nightly news, and into papers for days. And makes people who wouldn't want a console think that they should go and get it if everyone else is.
it may make some fans mad, but they aren't going to cancel the pre-order.
I'd be very surprised if these APUs weren't being made at Global Foundries as well, but there isn't any way of knowing until chips start getting out there. Assuming yields are OK, I think shortages will be pretty minimal after we get out of 2013.
I wasn't aware Global Foundries had any 28nm capabilities en masse? hm.
They claim to have 28nm. I don't know if they've shipped anything on it yet, though.
Hm, I wonder when they finished that, I remember TSMC touting they had the only-non Intel chip foundry at that size iirc. I guess it probably was ages ago, I don't remember.
Reversals. Reversals all the way down.
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/privacy
There's that new "feature". Dunno if you can just put the thing in the closet.
Imagine making my purchase decision based on exclusives!
It's a pillar of the system, and a lot of the compromises they made on the internal hardware make no sense unless they're putting the money towards getting a Kinect in every box.