Kinect Will Be Big Holiday Winner

The market research firm Ipsos has stated that the Kinect motion tracking system from Microsoft for the Xbox 360 will be “the big game winner for U.S. 2010 holiday season”, managing to edge out the PlayStation Move system from Sony.

Ipsos has surveyed consumers about the two motion tracking systems and has seen that Kinect is leading the Move when it comes to both uniqueness and to believability.

Consumers are rating the unique element in Kinect at 3.6 out of five with 44 percent of those asked saying that they believe the Microsoft device will be working as advertised.

The Move scored 3.0 when it comes to uniqueness and only 29% of those asked said that they though the motion tracking would work as intended.

The Move purchase intentions stood at 11 percent, with the Kinect going up to 13%.

Ipsos also found that the overall buzz for Kinect is higher than for the Move, most likely because the no controller concept of the Microsoft device is seen as more revolutionary than the Move, which still has buttons and a wand like hand held physical presence.

A statement from Ipsos says, “While there are a lot of factors other than consumer appeal that influence demand, the underlying potential for Xbox Kinect looks very good”.

The company added, “The strength of Kinect lies in its simplicity of use. If Microsoft can keep its communications simple and single-minded, it looks to have the lead in next generation controllers.”

Analysts who are watching the video game market say that Kinect, which is set to be launched on November 4 in North America, has the potential to sell more than 4 million units before the end of the year, while Sony has said that Move managed to deliver more than 1 million devices in both North America and in Europe.