LAS VEGAS – Jan.

6, 2011 – The sales figures released at the 2011 Consumer Electroni

cs Show made it official: Kinect has connected with consumers.
Over the past two months consumers have snatched up Kinect almost as quickly as
retailers have stocked the shelves, according to sales figures Microsoft reporte
d Wednesday at 2011 CES. Since its release on Nov. 4, more than eight million Ki
nect sensors have been sold. That figure easily outdistances the five million un
it forecast the company had predicted to sell during the sensor’s first 60 days.
Kinect for Xbox 360 was a big hit with consumers over the 2010 holiday season, w
ith eight million sensors sold over a 60-day period.
Click for high-res version.

The wild ride to close out 2010 capped the “biggest year ever” for Xbox, said David
Dennis, group public relations manager for Xbox. Over the holiday season, consol
e sales for the Xbox 360 hit 50 million. It also was the No. 1-selling console i
n North America over the past six months. Meanwhile, the Xbox LIVE community con
tinued to grow strongly overall in 2010, adding a new member every two seconds.
Xbox LIVE now has more than 30 million active members.
Dennis said the announcements made at CES, including new Kinect-enabled entertai
nment experiences and new Xbox LIVE gaming titles, signal that the momentum behi
nd Xbox should continue through 2011.
“It used to be you would go buy this piece of plastic and put it under your TV, an
d five years later it’s the exact same thing that you bought at the store,” he said.
“I think Microsoft has shown the ability to innovate and bring new experiences li
ke Kinect as well as Netflix, Hulu, and ESPN, all leveraging Xbox LIVE, to conti
nue to reinvent what you think of as the Xbox. You turn it on, and we continue t
o update it, keep it fresh, and bring new features.”
Kinect Transforms Entertainment in the Living Room
Kinect is a prime example of how natural user interface (NUI) is transforming ga
ming by making it more social and approachable than anyone ever thought was poss
ible, but it’s just the beginning, Dennis said. Several CES announcements showed h
ow Microsoft will take Kinect’s controller-free experience beyond gaming and into
entertainment throughout the year. This spring, for example, Xbox LIVE Gold subs
cribers will be able to use Kinect to control Netflix on Xbox LIVE. Viewers will
be able to pause, rewind, and fast-forward streaming movies with only their voi
ce or gestures.
The company also announced that Hulu Plus will be coming to Xbox LIVE as a Kinec
t-enabled experience this spring. As with Netflix, subscribers will be able to u
se controller-free motion and voice capabilities to instantly watch full-screen
popular TV shows anytime in HD.
Also at CES, the Xbox team introduced a new social experience called Avatar Kine
ct that will use Kinect’s camera and sensor to bring a player’s avatar to life. It l
everages Kinect’s facial recognition technology to let a person control their avat
ar’s movements and expressions; when they smile, frown, nod and speak, the avatar
will do the same, Dennis said.
With Avatar Kinect, a player can invite up to seven friends to join them in one
of 15 imaginative virtual environments. One of those worlds is a performance sta
ge, where friends can record their performance and share with friends.
New Gaming Experiences Span Platforms
Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB) team’s focus at CES wasn’t limite
d to Kinect. It also highlighted its ongoing efforts at developing a strong port
folio of games across all its platforms, including the PC and Windows Phone 7.
Avatar Kinect uses Kinect’s camera and sensor to bring a player’s avatar to life. Wi
th Avatar Kinect, a player can invite up to seven friends to join them in one of
15 imaginative virtual environments, including a stage or a tailgate party.
Click for larger image.

“Windows is far and away the largest gaming platform in the world, so it’s an incred
ibly important part of Microsoft’s business,” said Letty Cherry, a senior group publ
ic relations manager with IEB. “Whether core games like ‘Age of Empires Online’ and ‘Fab
le III,’ or casual and social titles like we recently debuted on the new MSN Games
, more gaming happens on Windows than anywhere else.”
At CES, Microsoft showed off Ages of Empires Online and Fable III, which had pre
viously been announced. When the company started work to continue the two franch
ises, it looked at how people are playing games today – namely the social and conn
ected experiences players increasingly crave, Cherry said.
“We want to play with our friends, not just against them, to make the community a
built-in part of the experience,” she said. “It’s about being able to connect to the e
ntertainment we want, and sharing it with the people we care about.” With an unpre
cedented co-op experience in “Fable III” and an ever-changing online world in “Age of
Empires Online,” both of these titles deliver a rich, social games experience with
the LIVE service at the center, she said.
Since the release of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has been bringing the Xbox LIVE
service to a mobile phone. Now players can earn Achievements and stay in touch w
ith the 25 million Xbox LIVE members right from their phone, putting the power o
f Xbox LIVE in the palm of their hand.
Upcoming titles such as Fable III: Coin Golf, Game Room, and Full House Poker al
l made their debut at CES. All three were developed by Microsoft Game Studios, m
aking Windows Phone 7 the first mobile platform to be supported by a first-party
game studio.
“We’ve found that in a sea of apps, gadgets, and gizmos, the hardest part can often
be finding the games you want to play,” Cherry said. “With Windows Phone 7, we’ve take
n a fundamentally different approach, delivering a managed portfolio of high qua
lity games from the best minds in game development, whether it’s an AAA publisher
on the console or a great independent studio looking to break into the mobile sp
ace.”
Microsoft will continue to deliver new and improved gaming experiences throughou
t the year, Cherry said. Kicking off on Feb. 16 with “Hard Corps Uprising,” the seco
nd annual Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party will deliver five weeks of the best games
of the season available to instantly download and play, including “Full House Pok
er,” a new interactive game that features an inventive and exciting live poker gam
e show called Texas Heat and companion Windows Phone 7 game.