We have the first official sales figures of Microsoft’s Kinect game controlling system for the Xbox 360 and honestly, we must confess to being very impressed indeed. According to a release we have got from the big M, Kinect sold has so far sold 2.5 million units, about 25 days from its global release. To put things in context, Sony’s PlayStation Move sold one million units in the first month after its release, while even the Apple iPad (which is not a gaming device, but heck, is one of the most wanted gadgets around) sold 2 million units in its first two months.
Yes, the sales of the Kinect have undoubtedly been boosted by the fact that it was launched in the month which also had the Black Friday sales weekend, but even factoring for that, 2.5 million units is a VERY impressive figure. Of course, the real challenge for Kinect would be to sustain these sales in the coming months. Microsoft has already talked of selling five million units in this holiday season, and considering the fact that it is already halfway there, it would be foolish to bet against it.
To be fair, Microsoft has a huge Xbox base to sell the Kinect to, iPad was a new entrant making a new market.
But certainly, Kinect sure is a innovation that would go down in history as one of the best we saw in this decade.
The interesting thing is that in spite of having an installed base, the stark fact is that a person would have to spend (at least in India) almost as much as the price of an Xbox 360 arcade edition to buy the Kinect and of course, you would need to buy games for it too. As an accessory, the Kinect is not the cheapest and yet it has sold these numbers. Impressive. Of course, comparisons with the iPad are odious – two entirely different devices in different price segments, but still…