Microsoft Kinect Sales Soundly Beat Company Forecast
Microsoft (MSFT) beat its 2010 sales forecast for its Kinect motion-sensor device by 60%, outselling Sony's competing Move device, research firm iSuppli said Monday.
The Kinect works with the company's Xbox video-game console to enable players to control games with body movements instead of with controllers. Last year, Microsoft sold about 8 million Kinects, handily beating its forecast of about 5 million units, according to iSuppli. Global retailers in turn sold about 6.4 million Kinect devices in 2010.
The world's largest software company aggressively marketed the new product as technically superior to Sony's Move controller, which costs about $100 less than the Kinect. About 5.2 million worldwide customers purchased Move controllers last year, iSuppli said.
The Kinect launch has helped drive Xbox sales too. Microsoft sold out of the Xbox during the holiday season, reaching record unit sales in December, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. The Xbox was the only video-game console to boost December sales from the previous year, but it still trailed Nintendo's (NTDOY) Wii console, which sold 2.3 million units that month.
Get info on stocks mentioned in this article:
