Apple may have to eat crow, if Guinness World Records has anything to say about it.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]Guinness has dubbed Microsoft’s Kinect the fastest-selling consumer electronics device on record, according to a report published by the BBC. The Kinect is a sensor bar that attaches to the Xbox 360 video game console, enabling users to interact with video games by waving their arms and hands rather than having to hold a controller.
According to Guinness, Microsoft sold eight million Kinects in the first 60 days of availability, and has sold more than 10 million since the product hit store shelves last November.
Apple sold about 15 million iPads from the time they first went on sale in April, 2010 through Apple’s most recently-reported financial quarter, which ended in December, 2010.
Apple’s iPad briefly held the “fastest selling consumer device” honor (appointed by analysts, not Guinness World Records), when the iPad’s adoption rate was compared to DVD players. That success has been repeated by Apple in its marketing of the iPad, most recently in the “iPad Year Zero” promotional video posted by Apple following the iPad 2’s introduction in San Francisco last week.
The Kinect’s success notwithstanding, the iPad has been a monster hit by any measure, and has far exceeded the expectations of just about any technology analyst who was asked prior to the device’s release.
Between the Kinect and Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has actually released two pretty damned nice products in the past year…which is the first time that has happened in my lifetime, essentially. I wonder if they can keep the momentum going.
I think they could have with a good tablet OS, but they missed it.
It’s sad that so many good ideas at Microsoft fall prey to close-mindedness and the red pencil.
I’d add the Zune to suzerain’s list; it was a good DAP, but Microsoft didn’t have the guts to bring it to Europe.
Seems that these are two very different items. The Kinect is an accessory for a game system. The iPad is a Tablet PC. While you do need a computer to activate and install firmware updates, you can use the iPad independent of a computer. While the Kinect is useless without an Xbox.
Sure. Just as the iPad and the DVD player, which it was being compared to in terms of speed of adoption, are two very different products aimed at different markets, but both fall under the umbrella of “consumer electronics.”
I wonder if that number will hold up after a year? I’m betting the iPad 2 blows the Kinect away. There are a much more limited number of people who will buy the Kinect, and I’m thinking that will dry up a lot faster than demand for the iPad will. So enjoy the limelight while it lasts, Microsoft. It could be fleeting.
Such as the success of WM7. If Paul Thurrott’s rants about that are any indication, that’s about to become a repeat of the Kin, only with a slower death.
I’m waiting for a tell-all book by a former Microsoft executive that’ll describe the internal politics and poor decision-making at the company.
This will be a long book, but one worth reading.
I’ve been to Microsoft’s site in Cologne, a beautiful office building — shaped like the MS Office cubes incidentally — it’s prime real estate, directly along the Rhine.
They held a promotion event for students of my university, trying to whet out appetites for a carreer in MS. They did a good job and boy the building was packed to the roof with new and innovative tech.
Problem is; even there we were told by two senior employees —head bowed — that most of this awesome stuff is never going to make it to the market.
From what I was able to gather it wasn’t even stuff that would need large investments to be brought to market, it was close-mindedness and plain cowardice by people on the C-level.
It’s the same thought pattern we hear about on the podcast so often: If it’s not useful for me, how could it be useful for anybody else.
That’s always sad to hear.