This seems awesome, but I'm not sure why they would need a kickstarter project. With the people interviewed in this video, it seems like they would have no problem getting the funding that they needed. The reason in the video is that so they could "get it to developers as fast as possible", but I'm not sure how kickstarter would help speed the development process to get it an SDK released any sooner than if it was funded a more traditional way.
Low commitment pre-orders at that. The reasoning seems pretty simple and clear. Even if you plan on or think you might need to take a loan/investment later, since you already have the pitch ready, why not do the Kickstarter too?
Compare a focus group or poll where the results are based on whatever some random person says, in comparison with a Kickstarter where the participants have to actually make a financial commitment.
On a side note, I think Kickstarter is going to be as important as Google & Wikipedia in terms of the radical long term influence it has on human action. This completely reshapes the dynamic and monopoly that capital performs in the consumer marketplace. I continue to be blown away by how much money micro-niche, but legitimate, projects manage to raise in short time frames.
