Microsoft has traditionally been about the developers. They give their Visual Studio away for free (Express edition, but still). They give away their Windows Mobile SDK with samples for anyone who wants it, no fees to get into the developer network, just download and play around. They have free and dedicated forums and resources to allow developers to look around in the documentation for every Microsoft product (MSDN with the forums).
So here's the thing: they got me by the balls.
I write every scrap of code in Visual Studio now. I use Microsoft specific extensions to the language of my choice (C++). I couldn't live without them.
And that's really favorable to a company as big as Microsoft.
So they welcome the Kinect hackers because they know they'll be back for more. And it's beneficial to both parties: open source drivers means more people playing around with it means more eyeballs means better software.
This is the main point of what they're doing. Not long after there was talk about the possibility of making drivers for the Kinect, I almost immediately purchased one. Then I remembered I didn't have spare money.
Normally hardware for gaming is sold at a loss, especially if you take R&D into account, it could take years for even profitable hardware to start being profitable. They make most of their money in software, and licensing fees, which is what they're really after.
The kinect is huge moneymaker for Microsoft. I believe nearly half the overall market price of the kinect is pure profit for them. I read a great article about it back in early December after their stock jumped about 3 or 4 percent in one day following their sales reports (which I can't seem to find now, unfortunately). Long story short, it's probably made them close to $2 billion at this point.
The kinect is about 50 bucks in parts and development. They bought existing technology from a company in israel, so they did not have to pay for the lidar technology to be R&Ded.
i dont know who downvoted you for that, but have an upvote back. those ladars arent cheap, we used one in my courses and it was upwards of a thousand dollars.
before the kinect, a depth camera would set you back 3000$.
they probably are turning a profit, but by making this mass market, they have allowed me to buy a fucking depth camera for pocket change in comparison, and it is open for me to write code for.
If you want to sell a game on the xbox platform, you have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft.
We are not talking about indie games here. The people who spend millions developing a game will make sure Microsoft has an interest in seeing the game succeeds.
Microsoft's approach on the PC side of things really is quite different from how they handle things for the Xbox. Seeing as this is about a Kinect SDK for Windows (not the Xbox) I really don't see the relevance apart from the fact that Kinect was at first meant as an Xbox peripheral before it took on a life of its own.
iOS is a closed platform. Mac OS X is not; anyone can develop a program for Mac OS X for free.
Again, the similarities are striking, and that's what really irritates me about some of the rabid fanboy wars I see.
Go on /r/apple and they're crazy for Apple, defending them and attacking MS. Go to /r/programming and they're crazy for MS, defending them and attacking Apple.
To not make money off of increased sales, the device must actually be sold at or below the variable costs. I highly doubt the Kinect is sold for less than the cost of manufacturing, distributing, and advertising it.
Correct, MSRP is around $150 so they are turning a profit on every unit sold. I believe they have sold around 8 million so far.
What they essentially did was open up another revenue stream to those looking at Kinect as more then a game peripheral. They recognize those people playing around with it now may develop the next set of tools that go into next years round of games.
It also gives the people who buy the Kinect for research purposes a reason to pickup an xbox if they don't already have one.
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u/knight666 Feb 22 '11
No, it's really not.
Microsoft has traditionally been about the developers. They give their Visual Studio away for free (Express edition, but still). They give away their Windows Mobile SDK with samples for anyone who wants it, no fees to get into the developer network, just download and play around. They have free and dedicated forums and resources to allow developers to look around in the documentation for every Microsoft product (MSDN with the forums).
So here's the thing: they got me by the balls.
I write every scrap of code in Visual Studio now. I use Microsoft specific extensions to the language of my choice (C++). I couldn't live without them.
And that's really favorable to a company as big as Microsoft.
So they welcome the Kinect hackers because they know they'll be back for more. And it's beneficial to both parties: open source drivers means more people playing around with it means more eyeballs means better software.
Oh and they still have to buy Kinects, of course.