Home Gaming Xbox One sales have doubled since the Kinect was dropped

Xbox One sales have doubled since the Kinect was dropped

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Kinect-E

Ever since Microsoft debuted the Kinect a couple if years ago, it’s been a hard sell for the company. The pinnacle of wiggle tech, the response to the device by gamers hasn’t exactly been overwhelming. And it received a less than enthusiastic welcome when the Xbox One initially bundled the hardware with the console. Times changed, and Microsoft eventually dropped the Kinect as a mandatory Xbox One organ. And that’s had a positive effect on sales.

In news that should surprise no one at all, the unbundling of the Kinect and $100 price drop has resulted in sales that have “more than doubled”, according to the Xbox Wire and its internal sales data. Of course, these stats only apply to the US of A sales, although it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine similar results.

Since the new Xbox One offering launched on June 9th, we’ve seen sales of Xbox One more than double* in the US, compared to sales in May, and solid growth in Xbox 360 sales.

We’ve got a pair of consoles boasting price parity now, which means competition. And competition is good. The Xbox One finally launches locally on September 23, at an attractive price of R6299 without the Kinect. My spider-senses detect that this might be the more popular version available. Still, it should be interesting to see how the console does.

South Africa has always been a PlayStation country, but the Xbox 360 made some decent headway during its lifetime here. Personally, I’d dig to have a Kinect for one and one game only: That new Ubisoft fitness game.

Last Updated: July 17, 2014

50 Comments

  1. Umar Fong Wong

    July 17, 2014 at 07:43

    I always pictured Kinect to be used for some Minority Report shizz. Wave your hand at over stylized GUIs + voice commands in conjuction with the controller would be cool. But nope….We get Get Fit with the least popular Spice Girl

    Reply

    • Martin du preez (D4RKL1NGza)

      July 17, 2014 at 07:57

      Too bad this happened

      Reply

      • Umar Fong Wong

        July 17, 2014 at 08:11

        LOL! See, now I wanted the Xbox to call me big daddy and give me nice UIs. Nope…Milo lied to us

        Reply

      • CJ

        July 17, 2014 at 14:19

        Only if they don’t calibrate it correctly. My Kinect understands me in my natural speaking voice. It understands me better than the Bluetooth in my car.

        Reply

  2. Jonah Cash

    July 17, 2014 at 07:55

    As soon as they release a slim model 2 years down the line(but the way MS has gone so far with the ONE it might be next month) I will buy me one. Just like I did with the PS3 after owning a Xbox 360 for 5 years!!

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Saxon

      July 17, 2014 at 07:55

      OR, get a PC and never have to get rid of your games!!!!

      Reply

      • Jonah Cash

        July 17, 2014 at 08:03

        I get rid of my games to buy new ones!!! My gaming habit isn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination!!! R899 per game is rough on a bank account!!
        My wife would leave me if I get another platform to play games on!!!

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Saxon

          July 17, 2014 at 08:05

          I paid R899 in the last year for games, and got about 30. Your bank account will be safer!

          Reply

          • Jonah Cash

            July 17, 2014 at 08:08

            And I’ll be single??? That would cost me more than my gaming habit!! Alimony is a bitch!!

          • Admiral Chief Saxon

            July 17, 2014 at 08:09

            Why would she divorce you if you spend less money????

          • Jonah Cash

            July 17, 2014 at 08:14

            But I will be playing even more games, and she already thinks I play way too much….

            She doesn’t know that Destiny is back and it is here for two weeks… She is going to be pissed when I start it up later today!! Hahahahaha
            I was lost to her and the world when the Alpha launched for those 4 days!!

          • Admiral Chief Saxon

            July 17, 2014 at 08:17

            Balance, you must have

          • Jonah Cash

            July 17, 2014 at 08:19

            I have balance: I work my ass off through the day so that I can escape reality at night through gaming 🙂

          • Admiral Chief Saxon

            July 17, 2014 at 08:20

            God, wife, kids, family, gaming, work.
            In that order 😉

          • Hammersteyn

            July 17, 2014 at 09:03

            Where’s booze?

        • Hammersteyn

          July 17, 2014 at 08:07

          Same here, the only old games I play are from the 90’s that I buy on GOG

          Reply

        • CAE9872

          July 17, 2014 at 08:49

          You bunch of amateurs – I have like just shy of approx 1 000 games (no lies!) with 2 kids, oh and a wife :). And I work…

          Come on you whippersnappers!

          Sheesh I sound like my dad back in the day!

          Reply

          • Praise Lord GabeN

            July 17, 2014 at 08:59

            Ja but how many of that 1000 have you finished?

          • CAE9872

            July 17, 2014 at 09:22

            Oh hell almost none – but I am working on it!

          • Jonah Cash

            July 17, 2014 at 09:08

            Hahaha!! Not all wife’s are equally understanding good sir!!

          • CAE9872

            July 17, 2014 at 09:33

            No doubt your wife is like mine “Why you playing FIFA again!” In my case its Halo. Sigh they just never understand!

  3. Kensei Seraph

    July 17, 2014 at 07:57

    • Hammersteyn

      July 17, 2014 at 08:01

      What’s in it? The tears of a thousand virgins? Or maybe a little unicorn meat?

      Reply

      • Kensei Seraph

        July 17, 2014 at 08:05

        No idea, someone mentioned it on the Warframe forums and I just stared at it for a bit wondering if someone had accidentally put 3 numbers after the decimal place.

        Reply

  4. Hammersteyn

    July 17, 2014 at 08:00

    • Kensei Seraph

      July 17, 2014 at 08:06

      Not enough turning around.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        July 17, 2014 at 08:06

        LOL

        Reply

    • Admiral Chief Saxon

      July 17, 2014 at 08:20

      Can’t stop watching this!!!!

      Reply

  5. Sir Rants A Lot Llew

    July 17, 2014 at 08:00

    Well what did they expect? People didn’t want the kinect with their 360’s to start with. What made them think that people would want it with the XBone? Epsecially since the PS4 was cheaper due to it.

    The marketing and market research teams really fluffed this one

    Reply

    • Jonah Cash

      July 17, 2014 at 08:04

      No wonder that some of them are in line to lose their jobs!! MS screwed up big time with the ONE’s release and PR around it was mediocre at best!!

      Reply

  6. Martin du preez (D4RKL1NGza)

    July 17, 2014 at 08:05

    Can’t wait for the NPD results to come in and see the Xbox blown the fuck out again by the beast that is the PS4

    Reply

  7. iAmWeasel

    July 17, 2014 at 08:07

    Not sure where Darryn gets his info, but I don’t think it’s fair to say Kinect has “always been a hard sell”. 24 million units sold and holds the record for fastest selling consumer electronics device. Perhaps more accurate to say a hard sell among “core” gamers.

    Reply

    • Jonah Cash

      July 17, 2014 at 08:13

      Yes but you see the problem is that out of those 24 million only 2 million will be caught out again!! I count myself in the 22 million that won’t ever buy one again!!!

      Reply

      • iAmWeasel

        July 17, 2014 at 08:19

        I also made the mistake of buying the thing, which I’m eternally regretful about. Just saying that there is clearly a market for these kinds of devices, as one can see by the success of the Wii and the Kinect itself. Its just that early adopters who are buying an X1 right now don’t generally fall into that category.

        Reply

  8. MakeItLegal

    July 17, 2014 at 08:13

    “at an attractive price of R6299”

    wish i was making money like that

    Reply

    • Jonah Cash

      July 17, 2014 at 08:15

      What he probably meant was coupled with an attractive interest rate at your bank it would only cost you R12 000 over the next two years…

      Reply

      • Brady miaau

        July 17, 2014 at 09:25

        Or just buy it FROM you bank using the reward points on offer (SB and FNB I think only)

        Reply

      • MakeItLegal

        July 17, 2014 at 10:36

        Lol

        Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      July 17, 2014 at 08:38

      I think it’s R8000 with Kinect

      Reply

    • Marc

      July 17, 2014 at 16:49

      I know, who does the maths at MS SA? $500 = R8000 ??? That does not seem attractive at all!

      Reply

      • MakeItLegal

        July 18, 2014 at 14:37

        Matric pass rate down to 30% maybe ?

        Reply

  9. oVg... what castle?

    July 17, 2014 at 09:09

    Microsoft head of marketing.

    Reply

  10. Ryanza

    July 17, 2014 at 09:22

    Xbox One sales for May was so low and bad, that saying the numbers have doubled is not saying much at all.

    Reply

  11. YeahBaby

    July 17, 2014 at 10:20

    Ok, which one of you bought the other XBOX One, come on, own up!

    Reply

  12. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    July 17, 2014 at 13:03

    What’s really funny about Microsoft blowing their PR trumpet about “nearly doubling” May’s NPD results, is that they did extremely poorly in May. Selling well under 100k (with the Wii U almost beating the Xbone). So doubling that figure, isn’t really impressive at all, and especially so given that June was supposed to be about the cheaper boner (without the kinect) – with price parity with the PS4..

    The plot thickens….

    http://i.imgur.com/bqtaclZ.gif

    Reply

  13. Brian Murphy

    July 17, 2014 at 16:12

    Yeah, doubling May is 154K sold, that’s still pretty horrid. There’s a reason why Microsoft preempted NPD, and it’s not because the numbers are great.

    Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      July 17, 2014 at 16:15

      It’s because Sony beat them again. If they took the number one spot their PR machine would have gone on overdrive.

      Reply

      • Brian Murphy

        July 17, 2014 at 16:29

        Aye, it’s also because it was only ‘double’ May, in a 5 week month (may was 4 weeks). There’s really not much at _all_ to be psyched about these numbers for. Especially considering how quickly the sales bump from the kinectless SKU dropped off. July’s going to be back to ugly numbers again.

        I expected allot more actually, the May numbers were crazy low due to them announcing the price cut a month in advance. I expected higher.

        Reply

  14. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    July 18, 2014 at 01:19

    Lol turns out Microsoft was blowing smoke up our asses.

    http://i.imgur.com/SnIv0PQ.png

    Reply

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