Microsoft sells 2.5 million Kinects in 25 days, with 5 million expected soon
The newest way of making yourself look like an idiot has already sold 2.5 million units in its first month on sale. Microsoft, never satisfied, wants to double that number over Christmas.
When it comes to selling stuff, we're usually sat here writing about how many quadrillion iPhones Apple has sold this hour. Today's selling lots of stuff news is about Microsoft and its exciting Kinect sensor thingummybob, which has sold 2.5 million units in its first 25 days.
Microsoft wants to sell 5 million Kinect add-ons in total over the Christmas period, so it looks like the goal is pretty achievable for the chaps over in Redmond. It's not, however, as impressive as it first seems when you realise there are 45 million Xbox 360 consoles knocking about on this spherical rock we call home.
Still, the more consoles there are, the more Kinects can be sold to go with them. The potential for this device is pretty significant, as long as people are prepared to pay the £130 asking price for it.
According to a Microsoft press release, Black Friday sales helped a great deal in the US. The same can't really be said in the UK, because although Amazon did offer Xbox deals, but they all sold-out within 2 trillionths of a second, so not all that many people got to nab a cheap deal.
Still, it's inevitable Kinect will be a 'must-have' gadget for many households this year. After all, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without someone in your family drinking too much and gesturing wildly at the TV and surely it's better to use that fist waving for gaming than just swear at a Queen who can't hear or see you.
As much as we like Kinect, we wonder if it'll ultimately end up like the Wii, which was the must-have gadget a few years back, but now largely sits gathering dust alongside an unloved balance board and that fishing attachment you could get for the Wiimote. Having said that, Kinect offers more than plastic attachments in the shape of guns, and frees you from the constraints of holding stuff that can smash a TV, so that must increase its longevity in some way.
Microsoft says it's selling Kinect in 38 countries via more than 60,000 retailers. We'll be very interested to find out what happens to sales once the system gets more games. Kinect certainly has the potential to change human-console interactions, as long as it doesn't just become another gimmick.