Are The Kinect's Sluggish Sales Cause For Concern?

Are The Kinect’s Sluggish Sales Cause For Concern?

Microsoft’s Kinect may have gotten off to a roaring start when it was released to the world in 2010, but with one year passed, and sales having died down for the motion peripheral, some industry types are concerned with Microsoft’s seasonal success.

Industry Insiders Worried About Kinect in the Off-Season

Microsoft's Kinect may have gotten off to a roaring start when it was released to the world in 2010, but with one year passed, and sales having died down for the motion peripheral, some industry types are concerned with Microsoft's seasonal success.

As Tony Key VP of Marketing at Ubisoft points out in a recent interview: "It's not healthy to just sell in the holiday, or 90% of your units in the holidays. We would really like to see them have some major launches during the non-holiday part of the year."

With no true "system sellers" on the docket for this holiday season that utilize the Kinect in any meaningful way, Key may get his wish when Mass Effect 3 and Ghost Recon release next year. If you can remember from this year's E3, both will feature some sort of Kinect functionality within the games. 2011 saw many games released for the Kinect, but few if any had the broad appeal to the Xbox 360's core user-base.

By Al McCarthy on November 23, 2011

Did you this story? Please share it with your friends

Cool dude

@Tony Key….. Sluggish sales?

Geez, take a look at its competition and YOU tell me whos having sluggish sales.
Silenthawx

lmao the kinect could only sell so much, but Im surprised it already reached its prime. Guess consumers are starting to learn that a gimmick is outwearing its welcome
the1

i want my money back, M$ sold us a lie and a piece of kit that is very limited with what it can actually do!!!

Unless they support kinect on 720 at a much better level then i may head back to the other dark lord from japan or maybe ill just stick to p.c’s from now as the games are normally better quality anyway!
Tbone

Kinect, move, bunch of gimmicks. But at least the kinect was a system seller and money maker, hopefully those profits continue to go towards upgrading live and development of the 720.
Frank

LOL Cool Dude, yes, Kinect sells more, but Move has sold at a consistent rate since its launch. Plus, Moves software is FAR superior to that of Kinects. You’re still stuck playing dancing games while we can play games of every genre! How did Blackwater turn out for you guys?! Bad Game=Bad Sales. Why is this a surprise?
- Cool dude
  
  Lets do the math shall we??
  
  Kinect sold 2 million in 6 months…
  
  Move sold 0.3 million in six months…
  
  Ummmm…. consistent???
- MK
  
  Umm well Cool Dude…its hard for you to agree when you presented no sales.
  
  Present a graph or some decent data and I will support your opinion.
njb

Frank has a point. The games on ps move are clearly better. And they can be played just as well as a dual shock. Plus AAA gamesgames like socom, resistance an killzone.

Only game on kinect that looks like fun is rise of nightmares.

Difference is that ms have to pay or tell developers to add kinect features. Developers willingly want to use ps move in their games. New Bioshock for example.

Simple fact is kinect appeals.to.kids and.families. And most of.the kinect games cant get it right. Dance games yes but thats it. Kinect has potential but currently you need some sort of physical control. Wii works. Ps move imoroves on the idea.
- Cool dude
  
  You obviously dont know your gaming stuff do you?? SOCOM sucked bro. I rented it. It was really really bad.
  
  Kinect had two out of four nominated games in the “VGA best motion game” category… MOVE had nothing…
  
  YOU tell me who has better games.
  
  Im sorry, but your delusional.
Fact

People finally came to their senses!!
pete

its a fun setup, but they failed to push out real games, they mostly feel novelty with a couple exceptions. i think its going to take some time before some developers figure out some new type of solid gameplay, using only motion and voice control.

some of the things the open source community has been creating, on the other hand, have been incredible, and puts microsoft & co’s work to shame : )
njb

Socom 4 doesnt suck, you rented it and played it for.a.few.hours. The whole point of.Socom is clan.warfare. It got hated on by reviewers but the main point is.online. Thats why we play socom. So what if IGN didnt like.it. Simple fact is.you can play socom, killzone and resistance fully.with the move. You cant play any AAA exclusive.or.game.on the kinect unless its been.specifically.designed. Most kinect games r.just copies. Kinectimals is a copy of eye pet. Fighters uncaged copies.The Fight. Many more as well. Even hard core xbots or xbox gamers hate the kinect. You.realise ms use it to.spy on u. Hidden advertisements. Try to.sell u stuff. U basically.have a cctv in ur room
- pete
  
  “You.realise ms use it to.spy on u. Hidden advertisements. Try to.sell u stuff. U basically.have a cctv in ur room”
  
  You realize you sound like a moron right? And last i checked both use cameras. And if you really want to argue it, a playstation is FAR riskier with all the hacks lately, you trust a camera in your home on psn?
Tbone

The move has a great list of games, but the issue is it’s initial fun wears off and your back using a controller for killzone.

Not to say kinect much better, but the move does not succeed at party/casual games and it’s use in hardcore is not long term.

Playstation forums are filled with just as many people as xbox ones talking about these units collecting dust. Motion is meant for casual, kinect succeeded in that market.
Titan

No one plays KZ3, SOCOM, or MAG competitively with the move. It’s something you enjoy for a week and then pull your controller out. Of course you then spend months bragging about it to kinect owners while it’s gathering dust.

Both units are fails for hard core.
reality

I love how PS Move has ‘better games’ but next to no games specifically for it. Killzone, SOCOM, and Resistance are tacked on Move titles. Meaning you are not required to have the Move to play them. So with that in mind you can’t include those games weak sales figures when comparing to Kinect titles. Shouldn’t it say something when a Kinect title can sell more than PS3 exclusives?
- Frank
  
  LOL Yeah, it means M$ knows how to advertise. Didn’t they get Justin Bieber to use Kinect on the Ellen Dgeneres Show? Plus, sales don’t mean shit dude. Wii Sports sold more than any 360 exclusive, so yeah.
- Cool dude
  
  Wii sports has been bundled with the wii. DUHHH.
  
  And yeah, sales means something Frank. People buy more products that they want.