Sony pips MS with 4.1m motion controller sales
Nah, nah, na-nah, nah
Sony has said that it has sold 4.1m PlayStation Move controllers around the world.
The claim comes hot on the heels of an announcement from Microsoft this morning that it has sold 2.5m Xbox Kinect add-ons.
The Move was launched in September, a couple of months ahead of the Kinect introduction, so it would be surprising indeed if Sony's sales didn't exceed Microsoft's.
Still, it's worth noting that MS' number covers sales to consumers, while Son has counted sales to the retail channel. The market being what it is, most sales to retail become soon enough sales to punters, but you can't compare the two vendors' figures directly.
Sony said particularly popular Move titles include Sports Champions - which isn't surprising - but also Start the Party, EyePet Move Edition and SingStar Dance, suggesting Move is either being favoured by a new demographic.
Or that twentysomething male gamers are buying this stuff because they have nothing else to play.
Fear not, guys: Killzone 3 is coming next year and it has Move support. Time Crisis: Razing Storm is out now for shooter fans. Here's a list of other just-out and upcoming Move titles. ®
COMMENTS
WOW
Pips it how exactly?
2.5 months move sales vs 25 days kinect sales..
$150 addon vs $40 controller
Trouble is
It's not entirely comparable, is it?
PS Move came out in mid September, Kinect came out early-mid November (2 months later)
PS Move needs a controller per player, Kinect can handle up to 4(?) players
Re: Kinect can handle up to 4?
No, the advertisement shows 4 people dancing in front of the TV but only the one at the front is playing the game.
The rest are just dancing in positions that roughly reflect the dancing background characters, just for the hell of it or is it carefully crafted to mislead? What do you think?
You may not be aware, with the Dance Central game, you have to copy the character on the screen and you get points based on how well you do it. You don't control the dancing character with your body movements at all.
I've said it before and i've said it again, Kinect can't do half the things that people have been lead to believe it can. if you boil it down, its a con, classic case of Emporor's New Clothes.
Question for Sony's PR
"Sony has said that it has sold 4.1m PlayStation Move controllers"
Is that just Move Controllers or do Move Navigation Controllers count separately? Also, what about PlayStation Eye? Moreover the Move Starter Pack (contains one Move Controller and PlayStation eye but lacks Navigation Controllers).
Also, some games need two Move Controllers for single player; two player games might need two or four of them.
Not quite comparing apples to oranges -- unless one knew how many PS3 were "move enabled" versus how many 360 are "Kinect enabled"
Sales and SKUs
Sony has reported SKUs moved, not controllers. A box set or bundle is 1 SKU, not 3 sales. The 4.1 million number likely includes 2-2.5 million boxed sets (they don;t break down the numbers), so somewhere around 5-6 million move or navigon controllers sold. This is a channel sales number, but that is because Sony does not enforce on enough of their partners to report back on units moved out to consumers (aggregating that data from tens of thousands of sellers, most of whom buy through the channel and not from Sony direct, is a monstrous task, especially when sony has literally tens of thousands of SKUs.
Microsoft equally stresses this is "sold" units, but at the same time, no guarantee can be made of that. Most of this is pre-order sales, so it;s pretty reliable, but it is still very far from guaranteed.
only Apple, Dell, and a few others, who sell mostly direct and very little through partners and retail outlets, report highly accurate numbers.
As other people pointed out, Sony made a fairly soft launch of Move, rolling out to new nations every few days, and making little fuss other than in blogs and articles, and only in the last 30 days or so pushed a TV marketing campaign to higher levels. Microsoft came out with a bang, and millions spent a day in marketing this thing both before and after launch. Sony also has a smaller user base by about 20%
Given 4.1 million skus (~5-6million devices) we're probably looking at between 2 and 2.5 million houses adopting it. Not too shabby. better still for Sony, move is getting rave reviews, while kinect is getting laughed at in viral videos and ripped by analysts quoting its limitations more than its fun-to-play aspects. People are saying kinext is nice to add if you like Wii, Move is what you get if you don't like Wii or think it;s limited in game options. If the trend continues, Sony is going to win this, even though i thin they have made a much slower start and might not be getting the attention it deserves. I'm personally not a fan of either (though i have done write-ups on all 3 platforms and spent many hours with each), and I own no console other than a PS2 and won't say which i feel is the better product. They're both good, in their own ways.
