Microsoft Wants to Sell 5 Million Kinect Units, Targets Core Audience

Microsoft has just revealed that it plans on selling 5 million Kinect units this holiday season, as the new motion detection peripheral system will also please the Xbox 360's hardcore fan base, not just casual gamers.

Microsoft is betting big on the new Kinect system, as the new motion detection peripheral will revitalize the existing Xbox 360 console by adding new features and introducing a new control paradigm besides the existing, regular controller.

Now, just as the Kinect was launched in North America, and before it will be revealed in the rest of the world, Microsoft has upgraded its sales estimates for the upcoming holiday season to 5 million units, from the original 3 million forecast.

Besides the upgraded sales prediction, Microsoft has once again pledged to its hardcore fanbase that the Kinect isn't just a gimmick to lure in the Nintendo Wii's casual audience, and that it will still cater to the need of the core gamers.

"We understand the need to target a broad, younger, older, more female audience," Microsoft's European VP of Interactive Entertainment, Chris Lewis, revealed. "By necessity that means we are targeting those people through different media, and working in new ways with our online and print campaigns. And that requires us to spend significant sums of money to achieve the awareness we crave."

"That said, we are still committed to the core gamer. That is the audience that defined us. It is not about moving from the core to the broad. It is about 'and' not 'or'. Halo: Reach, Fable III and Gears of War are fabulous blockbuster titles for that audience and there will be more to come."

Microsoft's Kinect motion detection system is looking pretty good in terms of popularity, but its pretty steep price of 150 U.S. Dollars, the necessity to have a big living room in order to make it work properly and the lack of titles available on launch might make quite a lot of people wait until they commit to buying the new peripheral.