The Kinect is Microsoft’s big gun for the Christmas season, with the company hoping the motion control peripheral will capture the imagination (and cash) of Xbox 360 owners around the world. What if it all goes wrong though? What if people think it’s complete rubbish?

Well, Microsoft Studios chief Phil Spencer has pledged a “long term commitment” to the Kinect no matter what happens this festive season. He even mentioned that there will be no repeat of the infamous Sega 32X debacle in the mid-‘90s, should consumers greet the Kinect with a frosty reception.

Comparisons were being drawn between the projects as the Sega add-on was, like the Kinect, designed to elongate the shelf life of the original console. However, while most Mega Drive owners dodged the 32X, Microsoft feels the addition of the Kinect could help the Xbox 360 fly out of stores for another five years.

“[Kinect's] a long term commitment from us, it’s not an accessory,” Spencer said. “This is us adding to our platform, just the way we added live to the platform, and now it’s pervasive across everything we do, Kinect we expect to show up in exactly the same way. It will not be the 32X.”

As CVG reports, Spencer said it was “possible” that every new Xbox 360 buyer would also pick up Kinect after its launch in November.

“That is absolutely possible,” he commented. “One thing though when we started with Kinect, we have over 40 million Xboxes out there, and we have an investment in that consumer.

“They are partners with us in this journey, and we didn’t want to tell them they had to go buy a new box to use Kinect, nor did we want to make them buy a new box because that was the only way to get Kinect, because it was all bundled.”

Who’s looking forward to getting Kinect-ed (sorry) then? In fact, while we’re at it, did anyone actually go for the 32X when it arrived?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Oh….