Microsoft says sells 1 million Kinect devices - Reuters

Assistants demonstrate the game ''Kinect Adventures'' for Kinect for Xbox 360 during a media briefing at the Wiltern theatre in Los Angeles, June 14, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

SEATTLE | Tue Nov 16, 2010 3:20pm EST

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Monday it has sold more than 1 million of its new hands-free Kinect gaming systems in the first 10 days since launch, putting it on track to beat its target of 5 million sales by the end of the year.

The world's largest software company is hoping the Kinect will help revitalize sales of its Xbox game console this holiday shopping season and counter competing motion-based gaming systems from Nintendo Co, which makes the Wii, and Sony Corp, which introduced its Move product two months ago.

"It's a strong start," said Don Mattrick, head of Microsoft's game unit, in a telephone interview on Monday. "Consumers are loving it."

The Kinect -- a sensing device you plug into the Xbox which allows you to play games just by moving your body and speaking commands -- is priced at $150 for a standalone unit and $300 bundled with a 4 gigabyte Xbox console.

It went on sale in U.S. stores November 4, although many customers had pre-ordered units, likely causing a spike in early sales. Microsoft is hoping sales will stay hot as the day after Thanksgiving -- one of the biggest shopping days of the year, known as 'Black Friday' -- approaches on November 26.

More than 30,000 U.S. stores are selling Kinect in the United States, including branches of Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Target Corp, Best Buy Co, GameStop Corp and online at Amazon.com. It went on sale on November 10 in Europe and is due to go on sale in Asia on November 18.

Ultimately, Microsoft is hoping the new technology will help extend the role of its Xbox 360, which has sold 45 million units, and introduce a concept that is expected to feature in forms of electronics and computers in the next few years.

Microsoft shares were trading unchanged after hours, after closing down 7 cents at $26.20 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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Microsoft's Kinect Already Hacked? - PC Magazine

Has someone already won the $2,000 bounty for delivering open-source drivers that work with Microsoft's recently released Kinect motion-tracking system? Odds are looking good!

Here's the background. Adafruit Industries announced a $2,000 prize last week for anyone who managed to hack into the Kienct in an effort to unlock the device for use with hardware other than the Xbox 360. In short, here's the official challenge: "Upload your code, examples and documentation to GitHub. First person / group to get RGB out with distance values being used wins, you're smart – you know what would be useful for the community out there. All the code needs to be open source and/or public domain."

Well, user AlexP over at the NUI Group Community Forums has posted a video that appears to show a Kinect being controlled via a standard PC interface. That's the only background we have so far, so it remains to be seen whether the potential submission will actually fulfill all the criteria of Adafruit's contest.

Nevertheless, one thing is certain: Microsoft won't be very happy about the results.

"Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products," said a company spokesperson in an interview with CNet. "With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."

So why the challenge? Adafruit is hoping that the Kinect's "radar camera," as Make magazine senior editor Phillip Torrone puts it, can be unlocked for use with robotics. But as for specific purposes, the sky's the limit—Nintendo's gyroscopic Wii Remote, after all, has been transformed into everything from a VR head-tracking device to the controller of a 15-ton robotic arm.

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Why You'll Fall in Love With the Xbox Kinect - Fox News

I just lost 100 calories playing a video game! 

Microsoft's brand-new, much-hyped Kinect for Xbox is finally out -- in all of its motion-controlled glory. Forget the Nintendo Wii. Kinect is sure to be the biggest family-fun hit of the holiday season.

When Microsoft unveiled Kinect two years ago, I wondered to myself: Could a system really abandon the joystick controller and rely on the movement of our bodies to play games? The answer is a resounding yes! 

I've been testing Kinect -- or should I say, kickboxing, dancing, and rafting Kinect -- for about a week now, and I'm more than impressed. Remember how cool it was when you first used Nintendo's Wii controllers? Multiply that impression by a factor of 10 and you come close to the experience of Kinect. 

Kinect isn't a new system. It's an add-on to the existing Microsoft Xbox gaming console, one which plugs into any of the systems. It uses four microphones and three video lenses to locate your body. The setup is fairly simple. Once it scans your body to identify your height and facial features, you're off and running ... or jumping.

Kinect uses microphones to recognize your voice, letting you speak commands and navigate menus. Microsoft is really proud of this feature; I am not impressed. It sounds like a great idea but it's too clunky. Even in a small room Kinect had difficulty recognizing commands such as "Xbox: Play Kinect Adventures" or "Xbox: Sign In." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I ended up getting frustrated and often gave up, going back to using my arms in midair to navigate menu settings.

Nintendo hit a home run by including Wii Sports in the box with the Wii console. Microsoft took a page from Nintendo's playbook, including a copy of Kinect Adventures -- a series of five incredibly addictive games that are fun for the whole family.

Rally Ball is a lot like dodgeball, Reflex Ridge is an Indiana Jones-styled obstacle course, and Space Pop forces you to pop bubbles in midair. In 20,000 Leaks, you try to keep fish away from your undersea boat; in the amazing River Rush, multiple players control a white water raft through wild river rapids.

But my favorite game for Kinect is from MTV and Harmonix: Dance Central. It tracks your body's movement while you attempt to dance alongside professional dancers to some of today's hottest songs. Notice I said attempt to dance. The way I play this game can only loosely be interpreted as dancing -- let's just say I made sure the shades in my house were drawn before I started. 

If you want to lose weight, Microsoft Kinect has you covered too. Your Shape includes workouts created by Men's Health and Women's Health. I've been doing cardio kickboxing, yoga, and tai chi. While you're exercising you receive feedback from a personal trainer on the screen. And because Kinect is tracking all of your movements, it'll know whether or not you're doing the exercise correctly.

Beware, however, if you're thinking of getting one: Your existing layout may no longer work. You may need to mount your Kinect sensor bar on top of the television for best results. But for many people that's not an option, thanks to modern thin televisions that the sensor bar simply won't sit on. 

My television was too thin for the sensor bar, for example. I had to put it underneath the TV, and that's a problem because Kinect requires about 6 feet of space from the television to where you're standing in order to scan your body from head to toe. I live in a New York City apartment -- it's as small as you've heard such places are -- so the backs of my legs kept hitting my couch. 

I imagine this would be a problem for college kids in a dorm room, as well. My advice is to put your Kinect console in an area where you have plenty of space to move around.

But ignore those few annoyances. Kinect is a major advancement in gaming technology and one that's sure to be on millions of kids' Christmas lists this season. And adults' lists too! 

Clayton Morris is a Fox and Friends host and the tech godfather behind the Gadgets and Games show. Follow Clayton's adventures online on Twitter @ClaytonMorris and by reading his daily updates at his blog.

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MARKET TALK: Microsoft Raises Estimates On Kinect Device Sales - Wall Street Journal

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Microsoft Projects Huge 4Q Sales Surge for Kinect - PC Magazine

Microsoft said Wednesday that the company expects fourth-quarter sales of its Kinect motion controller to be 66 percent higher than previously expected.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, reported that Microsoft expects fourth-quarter Kinect sales to total five million units, versus an earlier sales projection of three million units.

Kinect goes on sale on Thursday. As a standalone product, Kinect costs $149.99. A bundle that includes an Xbox 360 250GB and the game "Kinect Adventures" is also available for $399.99. Sales of the bundle have already been popular and were a top 40 purchase on Amazon.com last week.

Last week, Microsoft revealed 17 Kinect-enabled games for Xbox. on the Nov. 4 launch, games like "Kinect Joy Ride," "Sonic Free Rider," and the "Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout" will go on sale. Five more games such as "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" and "EA Sports Active 2" will be released throughout November and December.

Kinect will launch in Europe on Nov. 10, in Australia on Nov. 18, and in Japan on the 20th.

Microsoft's projects far exceed the IDC/GamePro survey data published this week. IDC and a survey of 750 gamers by GamePro predicted that U.S. consumers will buy between 2.5 million and 3.0 million Kinect for the Xbox 360 sensors this holiday season, versus sales of between 2.0 million to 2.5 million sensors for the rival PlayStation Move.

PCMag.com will review the Microsoft Kinect in the near future.

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Kinect Dashboard: The beginning of the end? - Computerandvideogames.com

Is it wrong to let a Dashboard worry me? Should I really let a superficial, skin-deep tweak play on my mind?

I've always been an over thinker, maybe it's just me, but my beloved Xbox has changed.

Why have, bright, solid, green and yellow ribbons replaced the orbiting of a newly born, Planet Xbox eclipse on start-up, for example?

Where are her subtle curves? What's happened to the attention to detail and the way menus slide neatly behind each other and stretch back to the horizon?

Instead of a sleek, sexy, inviting welcome, now when I boot up my 360 I get bright but sharp-edged, straight, shallow hello. Something's up.

I know, I know, it's still the same machine it was yesterday. Today's Dashboard update doesn't change the fact that it can still play Gears - and in a couple of weeks I'll be hitting Black Ops with the rest of the world - but don't tell me it's just a backend. It's not.

It's the first thing I see when I boot up my console and it sets my gaming mood. Ok, up until now it was probably a subconscious thing, but you know what they say about not knowing what you've got 'til it's gone.

I'm not saying Microsoft has paved paradise exactly, but the Dashboard re-design has bigger implications than you might realise.

A console's boot-up menu is its shop floor, its front garden. That green gallery is the hotel reception of the 360. It reflects a brand; it's symbolic of the experience you can expect as an Xbox owner.

It's the same for the other two consoles. I can remember touching my PS3 to life for the first time and being intrigued by the operatic swell, the wave of light, flowing like a ribbon across the screen and a sophisticated, logo-less "Sony Computer Entertainment" fading in on the right of the screen.

I thought I was being lead into some sort of Hollywood movie but no, that's just the entrance to the XMB.

At first it struck me as odd but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. The PS3 is pitched at that slightly older section of gamers as more than a video games console. It wants to make the leap from the kids' bedroom to the living room as multimedia hub.

The PS3 XMB backdrop, with its standard jet black set-up, looks more like a Jaguar advert than a gaming portal.

The Wii dash is the exact opposite; pristine, solid white surfaces, baby blue trim, a nice big round button for mail. Every option is spread out in front of you across a wall of mini-screens for simplicity.

You don't need me to tell you that the Wii is going for a different type of gamer to the PS3 but look how the Dashboard reflects it. It's clean, friendly and Gran doesn't have to worry herself with tricky sub-menus.

The Xbox 360 has always sat in between the PS3 and the Wii. Of course, as a hardcore console its snuggled right up against the PS3, but where Sony's console might play more Blu-rays in some households than it does games, the 360, by and large, stays with the gamer.

It's one for the FPS lover, the racing nut, the football fanatic. The 360 is about the lads and lasses who gather round to compete. Sweeping generalisation? Maybe, but the 360 Dash of old pitched itself at gamers.

It was shiny and slick but it didn't take itself quite so seriously as the PS3. It was sophisticated but grounded in fun.

Of course, back when the dashboard I'm currently sticking up for was first unleashed, I did do a mini-sick in my mouth when I saw what were essentially Miis jumping about my screen.

I got over that, but this latest update seems like phase two of the move towards Wiiville. It's just too stark and simple.

And that start-up tutorial video, the one that tells us how to use the analogue sticks to scroll through the menu. Please.

And that's the problem. This isn't just a case of the Xbox sticking on a bland sweatshirt - with its flat, grey boxes - it's the dumbing down of a console in preparation for the casual gamer.

Granted it's only a visual dumbing down, and Microsoft would call it streamlining in preparation for Kinect users, who'll be swiping around the menu screens, but in a way that's worse.

With Kinect's starting line-up, bar a few potentials, it hasn't done a lot to convince me that it's going to cater for the hardcore sufficiently. I want the 360 to drag Kinect to the core, at the moment it looks like Kinect is going to push the console to the casual.

I'm sure that the 360 will provide more than enough for real gamers for a long time, but today it feels like my console is trying to impress someone - and that someone isn't me.

Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I feel like I'm losing my Xbox 360.

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