Microsoft Exec: Better Buy Kinect This Week If You Want One For The Holidays
On stage during “The New Geography Of Gaming” panel at Web 2.0 Summit, the topic of conversation between Kleiner Perkins partner Bing Gordon, Activision's Robert Kotick and Microsoft's Don Mattrick focused on how amazingly engaging today's games are.
Context & Ripple Effects
Kinect hit stores just two days before this panel — Microsoft launched the $150 depth-aware camera peripheral on November 14, 2010 — so Don Mattrick's advice to 'buy this week' is a demand signal from the company's own games chief, delivered on stage rather than in an ad.
The setting matters: at the Web 2.0 Summit's 'New Geography Of Gaming' session, Mattrick shared the stage with Activision's Robert Kotick and Kleiner Perkins' Bing Gordon around a shared premise that games have become remarkably engaging. Framing Kinect as scarce converts that engagement story into holiday urgency.
First-order effects
- Holiday shoppers who want a Kinect face a genuine sell-out risk — when the executive responsible for the product says buy now, two days after launch, he is confirming supply is running behind demand at the $150 price point.
- Microsoft turns limited inventory into free marketing: every retail stockout reinforces the perception of a must-have gift heading into December.
Second-order effects
- Retail shelf space becomes the bottleneck metric for Microsoft's holiday quarter, and any sustained shortage pushes margin toward resellers rather than toward Microsoft or its retail partners.
- Mattrick's public warning raises the bar on Microsoft's manufacturing ramp — under-delivering against his own statement would convert a scarcity message into a customer-relations problem in January.
Third-order effects
- If Kinect sells through at $150 — a premium price for an accessory — it strengthens the argument inside Microsoft and across the industry that new interaction models, not just software lineups, can drive hardware demand in a mature console cycle.
The trend: Console competition is shifting toward interaction as the differentiator, with hardware availability itself deployed as a marketing lever during the make-or-break holiday quarter.