SEATTLE — Microsoft said on Monday it has sold more than 1 million of its new hands-free Kinect gaming systems in the first 10 days since launch, putting it on track to beat its target of 5 million sales by the end of the year.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

The world's largest software company is hoping the Kinect will help revitalize sales of its Xbox game console this holiday shopping season and counter competing motion-based gaming systems from Nintendo, which makes the Wii, and Sony, which introduced its Move product two months ago.

"It's a strong start," said Don Mattrick, head of Microsoft's game unit, in a telephone interview on Monday. "Consumers are loving it."

The Kinect — a sensing device you plug into the Xbox which allows you to play games just by moving your body and speaking commands — is priced at $150 for a standalone unit and $300 bundled with a 4-gigabyte Xbox console.

It went on sale in U.S. stores Nov. 4, although many customers had pre-ordered units, likely causing a spike in early sales.

More than 30,000 U.S. stores are selling Kinect in the United States, including branches of Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop and online at Amazon.com. It went on sale on Nov. 10 in Europe and is due to go on sale in Asia on Nov. 18.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40201887/ns/technology_and_science-games/?

Wait.

MS are complaining about VGC numbers of 1.3 Million sold within 10 days... When MS have just admitted selling "more than 1 Million"?

What?

Anyway.

It's obviously below 1.5 Million, and VGC numbers are probably VERY accurate... Unless these numbers are of course shipped. Then it's probably overtracked some.

1m shipped, and 1.3m VGC sold... awesome. No wonder they had to amp up the production, they're selling more than they've shipped.

so sold to customers should be around 750 K- 850K

IN AMERICA!

Well a lot of Kinect are soild twice. Once in the store and again on E-bay ;)

It is not 1 M shipped, it is 1m sold to consumers.

I'd reckon since this is Mattrick interviewed, the 1m refers to the USA only. So it would be pretty much in line with our figures as Brett included Europe in the recent update.

So you think MS is planning to ship 5 million Kinect just in America nby the holidays?  Of course America would have bought most of the miilion units since it's been out longer.