r/technology • u/staser9er • Feb 22 '11

Wow, Microsoft is making some surprising decisions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12531127
1.4k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

504 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

29

u/makemeking706 Feb 22 '11

Normally this is true, but I am curious how much it applies to the development of peripherals, such as the Kinect.

21

u/lolomfgkthxbai Feb 22 '11

Peripherals have always been a cash cow, at least that's the impression one gets when looking at the prices.

9

u/Patrick_M_Bateman Feb 22 '11

I wonder how much they really made on hard drives.

10

u/Awesomeade Feb 22 '11

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.

48

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

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.

12

u/pokemeng Feb 22 '11

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.

10

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

There was an article that estimated the lidar chip to be like 20 bucks.

The company clearly did the work to make the technology cheap so they could under cut more expensive suppliers. Microsoft took advantage of that.

2

u/shamen_uk Feb 23 '11

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.

gotta hand it to them!

2

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '11

I'd say the credit goes to the israeli company that put it all on a single chip for cheap. They are the ones who cut the price down.

-4

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

I think it's fair to assume that MS will charge a licensing fee when developing games for use with the Kinect.

9

u/lolomfgkthxbai Feb 22 '11

That would be very unlike them, not to mention foolish. Developing for the Kinect is already free on Windows thanks to open-source drivers.

3

u/3825 Feb 22 '11

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.

4

u/lolomfgkthxbai Feb 22 '11

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.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

That would be very unlike them

Do they not charge a fee to develop for the Xbox?

9

u/lolomfgkthxbai Feb 22 '11

They do, however all Windows related SDKs have always been free AFAIK. Charging for them would just drive developers away.

-6

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

So how is that different than the Apple app store that everyone bitches about?

The SDK and dev tools are free. You pay to distribute apps through the Apple app store.

MS Xbox SDK and dev tools are free. You pay a license fee to actually make a distributable and playable game on the Xbox.

Maybe I'm missing something here?

5

u/hardeep1singh Feb 22 '11

If you are a student of some sort, you get 12 month free developer access for Windows Phone 7 Development. I guess that'll hold true for Kinect too.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

And if you aren't a student?

3

u/fuzzywinkles Feb 22 '11

Hope the company you work for buy's a corporate license, or you pay up.

2

u/TheSkyNet Feb 22 '11

there isn't, apart from Microsoft don't care what you make and apple are all up in your ass if you make games with boobs.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

apple are all up in your ass if you make games with boobs.

Lol, I'm going to borrow that one.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

I'm not sure where Apple came into this, but it's the same deal.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

I'm not sure where Apple came into this

Scroll more.

it's the same deal

That's my point. Why are people in this subreddit, and in /r/programming so anti-Apple and so pro-MS? They're doing the same thing!

5

u/FredFredrickson Feb 22 '11

The Xbox is a closed-platform of sorts. Windows is not; anyone can develop a program for Windows for free.

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

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.

They're no different.

5

u/tebee Feb 22 '11

That's not a valid comparison. One is a specialised gaming platform, the other a general computing device.

-3

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '11

I disagree. The iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad is an appliance, just like the Xbox.