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Kinect smashes sales targets with 8 million sold

Helps drive Xbox 360 sales over 50m; Xbox Live hits 30m members; Avatar, Hulu Plus and Netflix get Kinect support

Microsoft has announced that motion sensing camera Kinect has sold over 8 million units in the 60 days since launch, smashing the target of five million set before release.

The success has helped push Xbox 360 sales to more than 50 million units sold worldwide, said CEO Steve Ballmer at CES in Las Vegas yesterday, and the Xbox Live service now has over 30 million members.

"A new member joins Xbox Live every two seconds," said Ballmer. "Kinect and Xbox Live have helped drive consumer demand for the Xbox itself. Xbox 360 has been the number one selling console every month for the last six months here in the United States. And sales for the Xbox 360 are now over 50 million units worldwide.

He added: "As many of you know, we predicted that we would sell about five million of these Kinect sensors by the end of the holiday season. We beat that forecast. In the first 60 days we sold over eight million Kinect sensors worldwide. This has been the biggest holiday and the biggest year ever for Xbox."

Microsoft also showed off a new social application for Xbox 360, Avatar Kinect, that allows users to interact using Kinect and their own Xbox Live avatars, promising to map facial expressions. Due in Spring, Avatar Kinect will be free to Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

Ballmer also revealed that the Netflix service on Xbox Live will get Kinect support in the Spring, as will Hulu Plus, later this year.

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Matt Martin

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Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.

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