Microsoft: Kinect Has Sold Over 1M, Set To Beat Targets For Year

Microsoft announced today it has sold over one million units of its Kinect 3D camera controller for the Xbox 360, putting it on track to beat its target of 5 million sales by the end of the year. "It's a strong start," Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business SVP Don Mattrick said in an interview with Reuters. "Consumers are loving it." The sales for Microsoft $150 camera controller, which encompass roughly ten days of availability in the U.S. and five days of availability in Europe, seem to compare favorably with those for Sony's PlayStation Move. SCEE Chief Andrew House said that camera-based PS3 controller took a month to sell "on the order of 1.5 million units" in Europe. A Gamasutra analysis of U.S. Move sales estimates that the controller reached one to three percent of the American PlayStation 3 audience in its first 15 days of availability, putting the camera-based wand controller in much less than a million U.S. homes in that period. Sony said last month it had shipped one million PlayStation Move controllers in America. Kinect's European launch combined with that of Call of Duty: Black Ops to make for the industry's highest-grossing week ever in the continent, according to industry analyst group Chart-Track. A recent teardown of the Kinect hardware estimates that each unit costs Microsoft only $56 to produce, suggesting that Microsoft is making a healthy profit on each sale.