
Kinect is fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history - mjfern
http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/27/microsofts-kinectified-game-business-grows-55-percent/
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mjfern
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.

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.

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).

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?

~~~
regularfry
They won't be able to do any of this, or exploit _any_ of the frankly enormous
potential of the device, unless they can pry the Kinect out of the clutches of
the Entertainment division. They only care about selling Xboxes.

~~~
pedalpete
The entertainment division operates WP7 and consumer software (as stated in
the article), so what makes you think this division only cares about selling
XBox?

Microsoft (from my understanding) doesn't have exclusive rights to the Kinect
tech, just for it's use in certain applications, but with the relationship
that Microsoft has PrimeSense (the company which created much of the kinect
technology), I'm sure groups outside of just the Entertainment division are
looking at ways to leverage the tech and relationship.

The brilliant hacking that is going on with kinect show just how valuable this
tech can be in different uses. I'm sure microsoft will be leveraging much of
this for ideas. Hopefully they'll be getting into the acquisition game and
picking up some of these hackers to continue to create great experiences with
kinect on platforms other than xbox.

~~~
regularfry
> The entertainment division operates WP7 and consumer software (as stated in
> the article), so what makes you think this division only cares about selling
> XBox?

Chatting to a 'Softie who was complaining about this specific problem.
Specifically that they're only interested in Kinect applications which will
sell Xboxes, because that's how the ownership is organised. I didn't query too
much further, it all sounded too painful...

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iamelgringo
I just bought one a couple of weeks ago, and I think it's a revolution in
computer human interaction.

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.

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.

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.

~~~
bruceboughton
As a Kinect owner, the one thing that bugs me about it at the moment is the
inconsistency of the menu UX between games. Kinect Adventures has the best
menu interactions (you hold your hand out, palm towards the TV, to select menu
items and hold to confirm, a.k.a. using the force). Kinect Sports's menu UX is
not quite as good and Dance Central is so-so. Sonic Freeriders, however, has
one of the most appalling menu systems ever to be invented by mankind, to the
extent that it takes minutes to navigate the menu. This, coupled with its poor
body tracking, makes the game frustrating and unplayable.

Obviously, this is a completely new era of menu design, and it will probably
settle down soon to a standard-ish menu design, but I wish the game publishers
would resist the temptation to come up with whacky UI metaphors just because
they can.

~~~
mortehu
> palm towards the TV

This sort of wording was what lead me to believe the Kinect could actually
track hands. I tried three games, and none of them tracked my fingers or the
rotation of my hands at all.

~~~
bruceboughton
Kinect loves hands. It seeks out hands in everything it sees. If you look at
the greyscale video box, the moment a hand is in view it will glow white.

It might not be down to the finger level yet (I don't know) but it can
certainly recognise hands to a great level of precision. The Kinect Sports
bowling game, for example, is very accurate at tracking the path of your hand.

~~~
mortehu
Are you talking about the orientation of the hand relative to your lower arm,
or the position of your hand in space? An easy test is to twist your hand
while moving no other part of your body. If the Kinect game tracks your hand,
this should be reflected in your avatar.

I suspect many games fake it in this fashion:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbLOFGSEDo>

edited to add: quote from someone on the Kinect Sports team:

 _And while designers admit that, unlike Wii MotionPlus bowling, the game
can't track spin based upon a twist of my wrist—instead you exaggerate the
motion within the entire scope of your swing—the flexibility keeps me
immersed._

[http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-xbox-360-kinetic-
is...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-xbox-360-kinetic-is-
wonderful-2010-6)

~~~
theBobMcCormick
This was a _huge_ disappointment to me when trying out Kinect Sports bowling.
Wii bowling's ability to accurately track wrist twists made if _feel_ a lot
like real bowling. Kinect bowling doesn't feel like bowling at all. :-(

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brudgers
> _"Microsoft sold 6.3 million XBox 360 consoles during the holiday season"_

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).

~~~
Tycho
If only the 64DD had been so lucky!

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scw
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.

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wisty
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).

This might be the fastest selling first 60 days for a new product, but it's an
upgrade to an already popular platform.

~~~
j18490
That's not a good comparison. iPhones don't belong to the consumer electronics
category. Also, the majority iPhone sales are on an upgrade of a previous
version as well.

~~~
tjogin
Kinect _upgrades_ the Xbox 360, while iPhone _replaces_ the previous model.

~~~
bruceboughton
I bought an xbox for the Kinect (not the other way round). I'm sure I'm not
alone.

~~~
stcredzero
I'm considering it too.

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thecoffman
I bought a Kinect release week and to me - its a <Steve Jobs>magical
device</Steve Jobs> that's just not quite ready yet - but it has absolutely
enormous potential.

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.

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.

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.

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cubicle67
by what metric?

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?

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

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

~~~
vannevar
I agree, the claim sounds like PR hype. It's a great device but the initial
market is primarily XBox owners which is by definition a limited pool. The
article suggests XBox sales last year were largely driven by the cheaper XBox
slim, not by the $150 Kinect. It'll be interesting to see how it drives 360
sales this year, particularly after the inevitable price drop to $99.

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makmanalp
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
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furby>) came out, boy were they everywhere.

~~~
Encosia
I've got one - my first console purchase since a Sega Dreamcast in the 90s. I
think the more people that experience playing them, the _more_ they're going
to sell.

~~~
amccloud
So... you have a Kinect with no Xbox?

~~~
Encosia
[http://www.xbox.com/en-
US/Xbox360/Consoles/Bundles/Xbox36025...](http://www.xbox.com/en-
US/Xbox360/Consoles/Bundles/Xbox360250GBwKinect)

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

~~~
nowarninglabel
If you are subscribed to the kinect-hacks mailing list you would estimate a
large number.

~~~
kabdib
But not in the millions. I'd be surprised if more than 10,000 sales were to
people doing "hacking" of the device.

[Not that there's much to "hack" -- all you have to do is open up streams on
the thing. It just took someone to replay the initialization and grok the
stream format.]

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vaporstun
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.

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.

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TheBranca18
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.

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bioh42_2
I think it is also fair to say the kinect is revolutionizing computer vision.

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 _quite_ a
workout.

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

~~~
gloob
In fairness, I know _scads_ of people with fingers, but only one with an iPad.

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phlux
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.

(think robocop, where he enters the warehouse and targets all the thugs really
quickly)

Given the Israeli company that created the kinnect - and all the autonomous
robots it has already been mounted to, this is not far off.

