It may be in the Guinness book of records, but is Microsoft's XBox Kinect the success story they're telling us it is?
To be quite honest, we’re not sold on the Xbox Kinect. Sure, people tell us it’s plenty of fun, and Microsoft were all too quick to tell us it was going to revolutionise gaming when it was first released – along with a particularly patronising image of gamers as ‘sweaty thirty year olds in Metallica t-shirts’ – but whenever we see footage of people playing it, we’re just not feeling it…
But according to a release that landed on our desks this morning, we’re in the minority, as the Kinect has taken up a spot in the Guinness book of World Records for being the fastest selling consumer gadget of all time, with 10 million units Kinect sensors now having been sold worldwide, and 8 million being sold over the first sixty days of release – between November 4, 2010 and January 3, 2011.
But wait! That’s not all. Microsoft have also seen sales of over 10 million standalone Kinect games sold worldwide to date.
Which is great. Until you do the maths and figure that those figures seem to indicate that for every Kinect unit sold, buyers bought an average of one (1) game, between November 4 and now. Over a period of four-and-some months, one game purchased per unit doesn’t strike us as an overwhelming success story, in terms of the longevity of the platform.
And those unit figures – while certainly initially impressive – also have us raising the odd eyebrow (or even eyebrows, for those of us who can only do both at once). 8 million Kinect units sold in the first two months of release, over the Christmas period, which is always a boom time for console sales. But in the two months since then? Only another 2 million units have been sold (if the 10 million total is up to date). Again – not such great news for the longevity of the platform.
Of course, it’s still a lot of unit sales, and 2 million in 2 months is nothing to sneeze at – but it doesn’t indicate a platform that is growing in popularity, so much as one that hit big on launch and is now leveling out. And, we wonder, how many of the folks who make up those 10 million sales wanted a Kinect specifically, and how many wanted an Xbox, and ended up with a package? A cursory look at a few major Australian retailers seems to suggest it’s actually pretty hard to get your hands on an Xbox 360 these days without getting a Kinect thrown in for very little extra.
We might just be a little too attached to our keyboards and hand-held controllers and, well, sitting down while gaming. Or we might still be carrying a grudge after those launch comments. Or maybe we are just cynical. But in any case, we’re just not convinced that – Guinness World Record or not – the Kinect is actually the future of gaming in any meaningful way.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012