Microsoft Predicts Kinect Sales to Hit 5 Million This Year. Good luck with that.

Kinect, Microsoft’s counter to the Nintendo Wii and Playstation Move, will be going on sale tonight at midnight, and Microsoft’s Don Mattrick is predicting it will be bigger than anyone is expecting. Microsoft has just announced that they are increasing their predictions for Kinect sales for 2010 from three million to five million. While most analysts have been predicting sales in the range three million, Microsoft’s original predictions for the release was in the four to six million range. Perhaps Microsoft is just trying to bring up a little more hype for its new toy?  While it is the holiday season, the Kinect will only have two months to sell five million units. That’s certainly doable, but it’s not going to be easy by any means.

For comparison, the Playstation Move sold over 2.5 million units world-wide in its first 30 days, and we all know the Wii is so far ahead in sales it’s not even funny. While the Move and Kinect’s sales aren’t directly comparable (an individual might buy up to four moves for a single console, while the same person would only buy one kinect), one has to imagine Microsoft doesn’t want to see Sony’s numbers to be too much larger than theirs. With all three mainstream consoles now heavily invested in motion controls and the Playstation 3’s total sales starting to approach those of the Xbox 360, Microsoft must be starting to consider the possibility that they will be finishing last in this generation’s console race.

If you’d like to learn more about the possibilities for how the Kinect will do, check out our article on why Kinect might succeed or fail.