Kinect reportedly tallies 480,000 sales in first week

According to reports, Kinect sales are just about to jump over the half-million mark, just one week after it was released. Clearly there's early adopter interest in the peripheral, but will it keep up the pace?

The sales figures come from unofficial industry trackerVGChartz, and its computation of the number of copies of Kinect Adventures which have been sold. That's the game that comes packed-in with Kinect and isn't available as a standalone retail item.

If you've been listening to any sort of Xbox official at Microsoft, you know the company expects Kinectto sell through the roof. Microsoft has poured $500 million into a promotional campaign for Kinect, more than any Xbox product of the past. It alsohas saiditwants tosell more Kinectsthis holiday seasonthan any game console has ever sold in the same period of time.

So, in that context, is 480,000 all that amazing? It's nearly on par with the pace of PlayStation Move, which currently tilts the global sales scales at around 2.5 million. The Move was released in September.

VGChartz also shows that about 30% of consumers are buying additional games for their Kinect. The most popular of those is Kinect Sports, which has pulled down 142,991 copies sold, followed by Dance Central at 132,554.

When you look atCall of Duty: Black Ops, of which over 5 million copies were sold in 24 hours, Kinect is not an uber amazing sales juggernaut. It's a neat peripheral, though, and Microsoft's huge marketing budget has managed to attract some consumers' attention. It'll likely be a hit for the holidays, but it may not live up to Tickle Me Elmo proportions.

[Source:VGChartz]

Nov 11, 2010