[electromagnetic]

I think it takes a mixture of product quality vs hackability vs popularity. There's little point in being huge in any if you don't have all three.

Kinect is insanely popular - by its sales figures. It appears exceptionally hackable - given how quickly and how many hacks have come from it. Finally it appears to be of exceptional quality (at least for the $ value) for these hacks to actually be using it so innovatively.

[pyre]

Also, it doesn't require dangerous procedures that could brick your device to add the ability to hack on it.

[mike-cardwell]

What proportion of people buy it to hack on rather than to play existing games? 0.001%?