Anyone that doubted the prowess or popularity of the Xbox Kinect will be in for a shock today as the latest figures suggest Microsoft have sold an average 100,000 units per day over the past ten days in the UK and US alone – that’s 1 million Kinect units sold already.
An official statement was posted on Microsoft’s website which explained the companies target sales for the end of 2010. “We are appreciative of the response we have seen from consumers that has culminated in sales of more than 1 million units in the first 10 days on the market for Kinect for Xbox 360,” said Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft.
He continued “This is a great start to the holiday season, and we will continue to work with our retailer partners to keep pace with high demand and deliver against our plan to sell more than 5 million Kinect sensors worldwide by the end of this year.”
Microsoft recently announced a variety of Kinect enabled games including the new Star Wars title due to be released in 2011. The addition of these larger games should help strengthen the appeal of the kinect to more seasoned gamers.
Does the kinect appeal to you as a gamer?
The Kinect is a bit ahead of its time. Without much quicker responsiveness, real controller feedback or true facial or voice recognition, it will be relegated only to casual gaming. It will never make the leap to hard core games, because those require elements the Kinect can't deliver. Without a new controller to pair with the Kinect, the average core gamer will feel like an idiot using it.
It is selling well, because of Nintendo's success, not because of the Kinect itself. People are assuming that Microsoft's motion controller MUST be superior to the Wii, and is therefore worthy of a purchase, but soon it will be evident that it's only useful for casual gaming.
I suspect it would be more useful as a remote controller for television than for games. I also suspect that Nintendo is years ahead of Microsoft in motion control, camera and controller hybrid research. The sales will pay for its development costs but that's all.