Xbox Kinect wins T3 gadget of the year award

By Tom Warren, on 11th Oct 11 11:25 am with 7 Comments

Microsoft's Kinect Xbox 360 accessory

Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect device picked up the prestigious T3 gadget of the year award on Monday evening.

Microsoft’s Kinect gadget beat competition from the likes of Apple iPad 2 and iPhone 4 devices and Nintendo’s 3DS to claim gadget of the year. The software giant also picked up gaming gadget of the year for Kinect, beating Sony’s move device. Kinect’s win was a shock result given its strong competition but it highlights the huge success of the Xbox and Kinect. “The Kinect is not only an amazing gadget for today, it’s a mouth-watering technological prospect for tomorrow too,” said T3 Editor and Awards judge Luke Peters. WinRumors was in attendance at the glitzy awards ceremony in London on Monday evening and the Kinect was clearly popular amongst audience members at the bash.

Microsoft launched its controller-less console accessory for the Xbox 360 across the world in November. The Kinect sensor is a horizontal bar that sits at the base of your TV. The device has an RGB camera, depth sensor and multi-array microphone which runs proprietary software. Kinect allows for full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition, and voice recognition. Owners will be able to interact with games titles using just their body. Pausing TV and fast forwarding movies can be achieved using a mix of hand movements and voice control.

Microsoft’s Kinect accessory broke a Guinness World Record earlier this year too. Guinness World Records officially named Kinect for Xbox 360 the fastest-selling consumer electronics device, which sold an average of 133,333 units per day for a total of eight million units in its first 60 days between November 4, 2010 and January 3, 2011. Microsoft’s Kinect sensor has been a phenomenal success story for the company. The console accessory sold out across a number of retailers during the recent festive season and Microsoft smashed its own estimates of 5 million units in 2010 by shipping 8 million devices by the year end. The device is now available at more than 60,000 retailers in 38 countries.

Microsoft is planning to overhaul its Xbox dashboard in November to provide Kinect features across the entire Xbox experience. The software maker is also planning to enable Windows Phone integration with Kinect in a number of new Kinect titles.

  • Anonymous

    Take that!! This is what we called an innovation.

  • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

    *stares at the people who proclaim that Microsoft is “dead”*

    I use mine everyday.  Not just for gaming either as I love being able to tell my Xbox to do something.  Particularly useful when watching Netflix or a movie through Zune.  Beats having to find a remote that might have dead batteries.  Kids love it also since they don’t have to fumble with a complicated controller or buttons.  Also, more than once I’ve used it to stop a movie when it was bedtime for the kids.  XBOX STOP! Boom! Love it. :)

    I really look forward to the dashboard update so it can control more functions. :D

    • Monkey D Black

      I think that’s an advert in the making. lol.

    • Anonymous

      But I thought Kinect was only for gaming!

  • Anonymous

    I will get one (or two) for the coming holidays ;-) .

  • Abc

    I want to get one just for dance central, thats great fun and decent exercise. But I cant warrant the cost just to do that. Maybe when one or two other games come out for it that work or are desirable.

    Also be interesting to see if its implemented into other games well. I barely use the dashboard or any other features on teh xbox so really I dont have that much use for it.

  • http://profiles.google.com/george.pavlou George Pavlou

    Kudos to Microsoft for making a product that is “Magical”, “Phenomenal” and “Amazing”. The market loves this kind of inovation and will follow. Just can’t wait to make it mainsteam on PCs. Like attaching it to new laptops! To my opinion this is the natural evolutuion. And who knows, maybe this will be the new HOT in smartphones in a while. THAT will be a comeback for MSFT.