Kinect is fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history

I saw a demonstration of the Kinect at CES and I was impressed with the technology. The Kinect is a big win for Microsoft. Not only is it a commercial success, but it's also the first Microsoft product in quite some time that has captured the imagination of consumers.<p>Now Microsoft needs to leverage the success of the Kinect to further expand beyond the PC. An obvious direction is to use the Kinect to gain additional market share with the Xbox, since the Kinect is currently designed as a UI for this device. But I think focusing exclusively on the Xbox is a mistake. The Xbox (and other consoles and set-top boxes) may soon get enveloped and displaced by other technologies, particularly connected TVs.<p>I suggest that Microsoft leverage the Kinect as an element in a coherent connected TV strategy. Connected TVs are just emerging, and there is still time to match the developments of Google, Apple, and others in this space. To enter the connected TV market, Microsoft needs to quickly develop a connected TV OS, forge relationships with app developers, and acquire or partner with content providers (e.g., Netflix, OnLive.com). This is all feasible given Microsoft's significant software expertise and its existing relationships (e.g., with Netflix, game developers, etc).<p>Microsoft has been struggling to gain leadership in markets outside the PC. For instance, it's behind in smartphones, tablets, and portable media players. The Kinect could give Microsoft the edge to dominate the emerging connected TV market. The technology strikes me as an excellent UI for the 10-foot viewing experience, especially for interactive media. It can then leverage success in this market to gain further ground in related connected device markets. I think there is a significant opportunity here. Thoughts?

I just bought one a couple of weeks ago, and I think it's a revolution in computer human interaction.<p>After the first few times you play with the Kinect, you stop thinking "Holy crap, I'm waving my hands, and the computer responds", and you simply start playing the games. On Dance Central, the interface is quite seamless. I'm eagerly looking forward to thinks like fightings games, although I'm going to have to get in much better shape. That is, in fact, my only hesitation that I have with the device: I get tired a lot faster playing games on the device.<p>I've heard rumors that they are going to be releasing an SDK for Win7, and the Win8 is going to have drivers built in. I'll be first in line to buy an extra Kinect per PC if that happens.<p>There's still a ton of room for refinement, and the UI/UX designers are going to have a lot of room to learn, grow and play with a new interface, but as version 1.0 of a new way to interact with a computer, I think it kicks ass.

&#62;<i>"Microsoft sold 6.3 million XBox 360 consoles during the holiday season"</i><p>That's within about 10% of the number of iPads Apple moved during the same period. That seems pretty extraordinary for a consumer electronics product that's over five years old. Considering the additional sale of 8 million Kinects during the same period, the combined revenue number would appear to be in the same ballpark as those of the iPad (~$400-$600 per unit times 7 million units).

Jaron Lanier recently gave a talk at UCSB, and he mentioned that Microsoft is be funding a lab he's setting up in SF to explore new avenues of perception opened up by Kinnect. He mentioned using it to see the world as a lobster, or understand say perhaps a mathematical function by translating body movements to avatar changes.

8 million in 60 days isn't bad. That's 48 million a year. Well over half the estimated yearly sales of the iPhone (70 million).<p>This might be the fastest selling first 60 days for a new product, but it's an upgrade to an already popular platform.

I bought a Kinect release week and to me - its a &#60;Steve Jobs&#62;magical device&#60;/Steve Jobs&#62; that's just not quite ready yet - but it has absolutely enormous potential.<p>When I first hooked it up and put in the sports game there's a definite "holy shit" moment when you realize that moving to your left and right and aiming your kicks in the soccer game actually works. You can take two or three steps to the left, around a defender and then kick the ball with the appropriate foot, in the air or on the ground, etc and it works, well. As someone who writes software for a living it was a feeling I haven't had with a hardware/software combo in a long time.<p>On the other hand there are parts of the experience that just aren't there yet. One of parts that seemed to have the most potential was the 10 foot interface - controlling ESPN and your dashboard without ever touching a controller. Unfortunately this just isn't very good. Its finicky and much less efficient than just using a controller. I tried it for a few days before going back to a normal controller or the occasional voice command. To me - this is the part of the experience that needs the most work.<p>I can easily see the Kinect being a revolutionary technology as it evolves and improves - it already is one for games, but its not quite there yet in my opinion.

by what metric?<p>I assume it's average sales over a period of time, but who decides on the period? 1 week, 1 month, 2 months or 1 year?<p>assuming all these 8 million were sold to consumers (and not just 'in the channel'), then that's a bit over 133k/day which, while still a massive amount, is still less than what the iPhone 4 is selling<p>I'm not trying to downplay these figures, just saying if you're going to award yourself an accolade like that, you need to be able to specify how you measured it

Is it a possibility that Peter Klein is pulling this out of his ass? I've yet to see a Kinect at a house / dorm, but when Furbys (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furby" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furby</a>) came out, boy were they everywhere.

I wonder how many of these were sold to anxious hackers :)

While the Kinect is very cool technology indeed, it seems a bit deceiving to me when they trumpet a peripheral as the fastest selling electronics device. Were it not for the install base of Xbox 360s, it would not likely have such an rapid adoption rate.<p>Again, it is phenomenal technology, I do not mean to demean it on a technical level, and it is still a great achievement, but it seems a bit sensationalist to me when they laud a peripheral like it is a standalone device when in this case, the high sales volume can be largely attributed to the existing consumer device on which it piggybacks to inflate sales. Just my thoughts though.

My roommate has it at home, for fitness related games I think it's a godsend, but then again the Wii has already taken that with games like Wii Fit. Being a video game aficionado I'm scared that this is going to replace controller-based games with the advent of Move and the WiiMote as well. I might have to go to the handheld market for less gimmicky gaming depending on what the next gen holds.

I think it is also fair to say the kinect is revolutionizing computer vision.<p>And as someone addicted to Minecraft I have to think that kinect controls forcing you to make swinging full body motions to dig would provide <i>quite</i> a workout.

And yet, anecdotally, I know several people who have Xboxes, but none who have the Kinect (including myself).

I am waiting for the Kinect to be helmet-mounted and become night-vision goggles. It can craw a 3d representation of what you see in the night - and can identify human forms, which can be tied to a targeting system.<p>(think robocop, where he enters the warehouse and targets all the thugs really quickly)<p>Given the Israeli company that created the kinnect - and all the autonomous robots it has already been mounted to, this is not far off.