Year isnt done yet and the holidays have just begun.

Damn I was wrong! I thought they would create a teleportation machine before it ever reached that number!

So you think it will?

yep 2m undertracked sounds fair.

Doesn't make sense to have so much in supply the whole year long. More supply than 360s.

Ok heres the thing. I know we talk in sold to consumer but there really is no concrete way to calculate that. Shipped numbers are factual and concrete and tangible.

So if vgchartz shows Kinect having less then 20 million for Kinect Adventures I guess youll think your right? I dunno, cause now apparantly vgchartz is now officially undertracking kinect sales, because I doubt 3 million kinects are sitting on shelves. 1-1.5 million tops.

But I can say that if they shipped 20 million now, then they should have no problem clearing that stock in the next 2 months.

Well VGC numbers are the closest thing we have to concrete sold to consumers and I made that prediction based on the numbers VGC had at the time not the amount shipped. So of course I'll be right if VGC has Kinect at under 20 million by year's end. That's what the prediction was always about. Later in the thread I said I was certain Kinect would reach 20 million just not in 2012.

This Holiday has Halo 4 and no new Kinect games and so I don't see Microsoft focusing on promoting Kinect that much (at least not nearly as much as they did in the last 2 years).

With stores stocking up for the holidays, it's entirely possible that there are several million Kinect sensors, and X-Box Kinect bundles on store shelves.

I'm actually not very impressed by the Kinect. Microsoft was boasting that it had sold 8 million units just 60 days into the console's lifespan way back in 2010. So, this means that after selling 8 million in about 2 months, the Kinect sold another 12 million in something like 1 year and 9 months.

Whether the Kinect has been impressive or not really depends on your perspective. If we look at Kinect as a simple add on, it's done very well for itself. 20 million is nothing to sneeze at, and that puts Kinect in the upper echelon of add ons.

If we look at the Kinect as a console (which is not unreasonable considering the massive 500m marketing budget Kinect had), it's been unsuccessful. Overall sales of the device slowed down immensely, and the number of successful Kinect games post-launch can be counted on one finger. Software support in general is dying down, and most people seem to prefer their X-Box 360s to be Kinect free. Out of 180,000 X-Box owners who bought the console on the week of the 20th, only 36,000 chose to buy it with the Kinect. Bear in mind for people looking for the 4 GB option, the Kinect is only 50 dollars more than the standard 4GB and comes with multiple games in the US. The Kinect is actually selling slightly more than the PSP and less than the Vita. Maybe it's not entirely fair to compare the 360 to the Vita, but when you're looking at things from the perspective of a developer who needs an install base for their game, it kind of does make sense.

With all this in mind, I'm a bit baffled by the executive's comments. Does he actually believe that the Kinect is resonating with core gamers? Does he really think that the Kinect is the reason people are going to buy the 360? Does he still think that the Kinect is a device that will attract casual gamers to the Kinect? Because if he, and Microsoft, truly believe these things, Microsoft is going to be in some trouble.

They already shipped 19m at the end of May: http://windows.blog7up.com/2012/05/29/xbox-360-sales-hit-67-million-kinect-on-19-million/
Did the holiday stocking already begin there ?

Our todays Kinect numbers are even 1m below the shipment number of January.

On its own, Kinect probably hasn't been that much of a success, not with the huge investments in marketing, research & development, and the failure of most games outside the huge success of a select few. However, I think it's always been more important to Microsoft to achieve some measure of market penetration and brand recognition with this generation of Kinect in preparation for Day One integration with future generations.

Kinect as a core gaming device has always been a bit of a ruse. They did anything they could to get it into people's homes initially. I think they knew core gaming wouldn't be the future draw for Kinect but rather it's use to augment Xbox functionality. In other words, they want to use Kinect to expand the Xbox's place in the home as a multi-functional media box that appeals to a wide range of demographics. In that regard, I'm sure they're happy with it.

I said it's possible.  If they shipped 19 million by May, shipping another 1 million by now seems to fit in well with the figures that we have.  I honestly don't know how many units would on store shelves, warehouses, and Amazon warehouses at any given time. Last year on black friday week, there were 750,000 Kinect consoles/sensors sold, so at least 750,000 can potentially be in the pipeline at any given time.  I don't remember any mass sellouts last year, so the actual number was likely a bit higher than 750,000.  It doesn't seem unreasonable to have 2-3 million in stores or warehouses at a given time.

More importantly though, I don't think the the two or three million difference is very significant.  Regardless of the 2 or 3 million difference between VGChartz and Microsoft, the incredibly fast drop off between the "fastest selling consumer electronics product of all time*" and the mild level of success the Kinect is enjoying paints the picture of a fad product.  The bigger problems are that the software library of the Kinect is growing at a snail's pace, developer interest in the product is exceedingly low, software sales in general are sad, hardcore fans are not embracing the device, and the Kinect will not help Microsoft win fans over from Nintendo, it hasn't prevented Sony from rapidly encroaching on their market share, and it won't help them compete in the next generation.  Microsoft's devotion to this floundering technology can be detrimental to them over the next generation.