Some people might be down on the prospect of Kinect, at least at launch with its $149 price tag, but Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian is of the belief that we’ll see 4 million Kinect devices sold in the fourth quarter of 2010 alone. Lazard’s previous estimate had Kinect pegged at 3 million units during the same period.
Sebastian points to what will likely be a huge ad campaign targeted towards casual gamers as one reason for the increase. He stated in an investors note (via GameSpot), “Our checks indicate that the Kinect build is on a pace of ~2M units per month, and we now believe that the mix of Xbox 360 shipments for the holidays will be more heavily weighted toward the Kinect bundle. As such, we are increasing our Kinect unit sales expectations for Q4 to 4 million worldwide, up from 3 million units previously.”
Like many, however, Sebastian sees the current price as a hurdle in Microsoft’s plan to get Kinect into people’s homes in a big way. “While launching at $149 as a stand-alone device, we believe the better value is the Xbox 360 bundle for $299,” he said. “We continue to believe that $99 would be a ‘sweet spot’ for Kinect, and production quantities suggest that Microsoft may be leaving open the possibility for price promotions on Kinect next year.”
