More Than 8 Million Kinect Systems Sold in First 60 Days—Microsoft

LAS VEGAS -- Sales of the Kinect for Xbox 360 motion-sensing system totaled more than 8 million globally in its first 60 days available, passing Microsoft’s revised forecast for selling 5 million through the end of 2010, CEO Steve Ballmer said in a CES keynote Wednesday. The company in November boosted its Kinect sales forecast for 2010 to 5 million from 3 million.

Global Xbox 360 console sales, meanwhile, passed 50 million, Ballmer said. Kinect and Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, which now has about 30 million members, are driving Xbox 360 sales, he said. Microsoft also said it will add Kinect gesture and voice command capabilities to the movies and other content that Xbox Live members can view via Netflix on their Xbox 360 consoles. The same Kinect capabilities will also be extended to Hulu Plus viewing on the 360 in spring, Microsoft said.

The Kinect sensor can now also track users’ facial expressions, which a new Avatar Kinect feature will take advantage of, Ballmer said. Avatar Kinect will enable Xbox 360 users to record their avatars for Facebook posting and take part in chats with friends in virtual rooms on Xbox Live. The feature will be made available for free this spring to paying Xbox Live Gold members, Ballmer said.

There was no Windows 8 announcement as some had expected. But Microsoft demonstrated Windows running on a new system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture announced earlier in the day. The next version of Windows will support SoC architectures including ARM-based systems from partners Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, Microsoft said. Intel and AMD will also “continue their work on low-power SoC designs on the x86 architecture that fully support Windows, including support for millions of x86 applications worldwide,” Microsoft said.

Ballmer announced new features for Windows Phone 7, including the addition of copy and paste, and improved loading time when shifting between applications. There are now more than 5,500 applications available for Windows Phone 7 users and 100 new apps were being added each day, Ballmer said. More than 20,000 developers also registered with Microsoft to make Windows Phone apps, he said. Microsoft “will continue to invest in” Windows Phone “aggressively,” he said.