Xbox Kinect Innovation Analysis
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
This innovation, originally developed by Microsoft under the codename of Project Natal, was finally released under the Kinect name on November 4, 2010 and entered the Guinness World Record Book by being the fastest-selling customer electronics device . Even though it was initially designed for video games, it now applies to real-world uses.
Kinect is a motion-sensing system based around a depth camera that enables the user to control and to interact intuitively, and especially without any in-between controller, by using an interface with speech and gesture recognition. We then become the controller.
Kinect was a combination of creativity and successful implementation of ideas into a marketable concept. Indeed, it all started when Don Mattrick got hired by Microsoft to manage the Xbox segment. He challenged the whole team to bring gaming to a whole new level by getting rid of controllers .
Kinect is a pure commercial product innovation (opposed to process, marketing and organisational innovation). It raised major strategic dilemmas to Microsoft because innovations are more complex than just inventions, as they necessitate the stage where the product needs to be taken to the market place. For example, this requires steps like designing the business model, choosing the right time to enter the market, protecting the innovation…
We can say that Kinect is now in the transitional phase of the product innovation. It puts the competitive emphasis on product variation with for example the adaptable software to Windows in 2012 or also includes one stable/dominant design.
Source: (Figure by Utterback & Abernathy 1975)
Kinect could be categorized, under Henderson and Clark’s typology (1990), as a radical innovation. Indeed, relatively similar technology existed through the PlayStation Move and Wii Remote but they both required using a controller. With Kinect, core components (integrating RGB and 3D depth cameras) were changed compared to
This innovation, originally developed by Microsoft under the codename of Project Natal, was finally released under the Kinect name on November 4, 2010 and entered the Guinness World Record Book by being the fastest-selling customer electronics device . Even though it was initially designed for video games, it now applies to real-world uses.
Kinect is a motion-sensing system based around a depth camera that enables the user to control and to interact intuitively, and especially without any in-between controller, by using an interface with speech and gesture recognition. We then become the controller.
Kinect was a combination of creativity and successful implementation of ideas into a marketable concept. Indeed, it all started when Don Mattrick got hired by Microsoft to manage the Xbox segment. He challenged the whole team to bring gaming to a whole new level by getting rid of controllers .
Kinect is a pure commercial product innovation (opposed to process, marketing and organisational innovation). It raised major strategic dilemmas to Microsoft because innovations are more complex than just inventions, as they necessitate the stage where the product needs to be taken to the market place. For example, this requires steps like designing the business model, choosing the right time to enter the market, protecting the innovation…
We can say that Kinect is now in the transitional phase of the product innovation. It puts the competitive emphasis on product variation with for example the adaptable software to Windows in 2012 or also includes one stable/dominant design.
Source: (Figure by Utterback & Abernathy 1975)
Kinect could be categorized, under Henderson and Clark’s typology (1990), as a radical innovation. Indeed, relatively similar technology existed through the PlayStation Move and Wii Remote but they both required using a controller. With Kinect, core components (integrating RGB and 3D depth cameras) were changed compared to