8 million Kinect sensors sold in first 60 days

Kinect for Xbox 360 sold a staggering eight million units during its first 60 days on sale, Microsoft announced during its CES 2011 keynote in the early hours of the morning.

“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,” said chief executive officer, Microsoft Corporation, Steve Ballmer. “In the first 60 days we sold over eight million Kinect sensors worldwide.”

He added: “This has been the biggest holiday and the biggest year ever for Xbox.”

The Xbox-related chest-pumping didn’t stop there, with Microsoft also announcing new milestones for Xbox 360 console sales and Xbox LIVE user numbers.

“Over the holiday season, console sales for the Xbox 360 hit 50 million, making it the No.1-selling console in North America for the past six months,” said David Dennis, group public relations manager for Xbox. “The Xbox LIVE community continued to grow in leaps and bounds last year, adding a new member every two seconds. Xbox LIVE has more than 30 million active members.”

As Kinect pre-orders began to come in towards the back end of 2010 most started to believe the motion sensor had a good shot at succeeding, but Microsoft’s five million sales target remained ambitious, possibly optimistic.

However, with eight million units sold, Kinect has proved to be more popular than even Microsoft had estimated, placing the platform in a strong position for the coming year.

Update: According to Bloomberg News Tech Reporter Dina Bass, the eight million figure refers to units sold to retailers not to consumers. However, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg says the sold-in and sold-through figures are essentially the same.

“We have no channel inventory, so essentially the same,” he tweeted. “Every Kinect we make we sell.”