Microsoft Kinect faster seller than iPad, says Guinness

Microsoft is celebrating a motion-controlled milestone: it has sold 10m Kinect accessories and a further 10m Kinect-able games on top of that. Since its launch in November 2010, sales of the device have gone through the roof, with Microsoft at one point selling five times more Xbox 360 Kinect bundles than Sony's PS3 Move. In …

[DominicT]

Strange comparison

Sales stats of the Kinect may be interesting, but is it really fair to compare the sale rates of all 'electronic consumer devices', regardless of value?

'100 quid gaming peripheral sells faster than 500 quid tablet computer for what could have been a tiny period of time' doesn't sound so impressive.

[Anonymous Coward]

US vs Global

and lets not forget that the original iPad was only sold in the US for the first 56 days.

The Kinect was selling worldwide much faster (EU followed just 5 days after US)

Guinness record sure, as a fair and relevant indicator not so much.

[DT]

penetration (of the market)

Whilst the cost of the ipad limits sales; by its nature the only market that the kinect is aimed at is xbox owners- a far smaller demographic. In terms of saturation and appeal, even conservatively, they've nailed it. That's not to comment on the greatness or otherwise of a product I've not tried.

Some folk want to have it both ways. That's ok. If you want to say that somehow it doesn't count if MS release the quickest selling O/S, quickest selling peripheral, back-scratcher, or whatever; then you're entirely welcome to do so. With the proviso that you concede that they're the "differently thinking plucky underdogs" and the other guys have inherited the mantle of mass-market-behemoths.

[Arctic fox]

@DT re Penetration of the market.

Highly relevant point. Seems that xbox owners (I am not one) are highly enthusiastic. That the sales of kinect within that market (xbox owners by definition) should exhibit a take-up that can be compared with other best-selling devices which do not require pre-ownership of another device is fairly eye-crossing. What will be very interesting from a marketing point of view is in what degree new xboxes are being bought with kinect and whether kinect will now accelerate sales of xbox per se. The combined package cannot be dismissed as a "100 buck peripheral", representing as it does a fairly significant investment in ones home entertainment system. We will no doubt have a clearer picture of that possible phenomenon by Q3 or so.

[Anonymous Coward]

in recent news

bottles of milk outsold iPads also!

[chr0m4t1c]

Sure about that?

I can't remember the last time I bought milk in a bottle - I haven't even seen it on sale in a bottle for quite some time.

[Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware]

Re: Sure about that?

I buy milk in a bottle every day. OK, the bottle is made of plastic, but it's still a bottle.

[Anonymous Coward]

High Kinect sales impacts?

So how many replacement Xbox360's have they shipped for the red ring of death?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with the price of fish?

Or this article, for that matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with the price of fish?

For those people employed by the microsoft service desk, and those who do not follow home technology.

The kinect has a nasty habit of turning functional Xbox's into plastic paper weights.

It would therefore be interesting to know if the additional volumes of people purchasing this kit has resulted in an increased number of replacement Xboxes being purchased, as this would go a long way to demonstrating the fallicy of Mictosofts arguments that the sudden red rings of death are nothing to do with crap design and build, and their deliberate ignoring of a known problem with their product.

Everybody who understood the point being made by the original post, please carry on reading the Register,

The rest of you go and get a copy of the SUN

[Raggs]

Not many good games right now, but...

Most developers were probably waiting on seeing how many folks bought this before commiting serious resources. Those that took the leap, didn't have the years most developers use to create a decent title.

Overall, I'd say it's encouraging, and with such large numbers (10 million shipped probably equals 8+ million sold), developers have now got a decent install base to work with, especially if they produce a "must have" game, also, there's a lot of folks waiting for just that game(s) to come out before also purchasing a kinect. I think we'll be getting a lot of announcements of kinect games coming soon. Lets hope there's some good titles amongst the inevitable shovelware.

Microsoft hit the jackpot in my eyes.

[Carol Orlowski]

Wait a minute...

This is no Guiness World Records saying this, this is Microsoft saying this, and Guiness foolishly taking what Microsoft say as the truth.

Last week iSuppli pointed out that Microsoft had only SOLD 6m and that there were 4m sat unloved in the over-stuffed retail chain.

EPIC MEDIA FAIL....

[Anonymous Coward]

Xbox viagra

Just shows how desperate Xbox owners were for extension solution that would

make their aging devices appear still useful.

Personally I'd rather have a pint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when there's a real comparison

So, let's see how many things we fail on here...

1) We're comparing sales of a £100 addon to an existing system with a totally different £500 device that is a quasi-addon to another system... and in different markets.

2) We're comparing over different times: Kinect was sold in the run up to Christmas, iPad was sold from the spring, hardly seems a viable comparison at this point.

3) If you're going to compare sales of one product to another, at least use the *right* product. Let's see, sales of a brand of television versus sales of a brand of laptop... sounds about the right level of equality... shock horror, the TV sold better than the laptop. Don't waste our time telling us that it outsold a product in a different market with a different purpose entirely, because it's irrelevant. If you want to explain how magnificent the sales of the Kinect have been, compare it to its rivals in its own market, i.e. the PS Move and if you're being unbiased maybe the Wii as well. This just looks like you're randomly bashing Apple because you don't know how to argue anything better.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's real enough.

1) A rather large number of the Kinect sales were including the XBOX as well. Whether that counts in the numbers quoted above or not, it really doesn't matter. You still have to have an XBOX, which means you should really include the price of that as well. Possibly a % of the TV as well, depending on whether or not one has a dedicated TV to it. Include a % of computer for the iPad as well if you want. Either way, it suddenly becomes very comparable in price.

2) Please. Apple just has to throw a bit of extra confetti in their Hype Machine and a product release day is practically a Bank Holiday - except it doesn't have to compete with anything. Considering the free news coverage, I'd say it's pretty well known.

3) It's electrical, it's mostly used for entertainment (movies - check, games - check, music - check) - so it's competing for the same $$ (see point 1). Your example of 'TV and laptop' is unreasonable. Neither are particularly unique devices (which makes Kinect and iPad a worthwhile comparison) and don't overlap nearly as much in function.

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, time for the response

1) And? Just as some Kinect sales would have included an XBox, so too would have some iPad sales. The fact remains though it's still a discussion of a £100 extension to a system that was already in place in the majority of cases, vs a product that had no competition and is in a different market entirely.

Kinect, while a new product, is still competing with the existing market forces of the Wii with its handheld controllers, and unlike the iPad, it's reliant on a specific device; an iPad is not reliant on a particular type of device (and in fact, it's not even explicitly reliant; I only plug it into my PC to back it up occasionally, most of the time I'm just browsing happily with it) and was a product without any competing market at the time.

2) Yes, the fanbois will be queueing around the block to buy it come release day. But the fanbois are not the majority of users, and I can bet had the iPad been sold at the same time, it would have done better than it did - the push to buy electronics at Christmas is always a big one, especially things that can lead to party games (which is likely one reason it was bought in a number of cases!)

It's not about the fact it was 'practically a Bank Holiday' come Apple release day, it's the timing - the run up to Christmas is when people spend far more money than they would during the rest of the year, generally.

3) Wouldn't really agree that they're competing on the same basis. XBox + Kinect is primarily a gaming platform, that happens to support movies and music. iPad is not primarily a gaming platform, it's a content consumption platform that happens to support some games. Hardly an apples vs apples comparison, really, so it's not competing for the same $$$.

How exactly can a Kinect and an iPad be 'overlapping in function' exactly?

[Kaltook]

Granny Smith vs Golden Delicious only?

You keep saying 'different market'. It's less so that milk and iPads. It's not an identical market, but artificially limiting it to 'peripherals that link to TV-game systems' makes for rather stale comparisons. I'd say the Apple fan base counts just as much as a 'system already in place' =)

Entertainment is entertainment. Money is money. Time is time. You only have so much to go around.

The release date could have hurts sales or helped them. It could just as easily said that bigger purchases isolated from other obligations are a safer bet. It's conjecture.

[Ted Treen]

Scraping the barrel...

...for another dig at Apple.

[John Bailey]

Nope..

Just providing the rope for them to tie themselves up in knots..

Have you seen the fanboy fury? I swear some of them are so furious they can hardly see to type.

If you want a dig at apple, just mention the Pown2Own contest, Apple first out again..