Sony milestones: 50 million PS3s, 8 million Moves
Company is still far behind Nintendo in console shipments and Microsoft in motion-accessory shipments.
Sony's PlayStation 3 console and PlayStation Move motion-gaming peripheral have hit milestones, the game company announced today.
According to Sony, it has shipped 50 million PlayStation 3 consoles worldwide since the console's launch in November 2006. The tally includes shipments through March 29. In addition, Sony announced that there are 75 million registered PlayStation Network accounts around the world.
Since Sony launched the PlayStation 3, sales have continually been on the upswing. A page on its corporate Web site reveals that Sony shipped 3.5 million PlayStation 3 units in its 2006 fiscal year, 9.1 million shipments in its 2007 fiscal year, 10.1 million in 2008, and 13 million in 2009. Last month, the company said it had shipped shipped 47.9 million PlayStation 3 units worldwide.
By comparison, Microsoft announced the worldwide sales milestone of 50 million Xbox units back in January. In a less direct comparison, Nintendo announced in December that it had sold 34 millions Wii units in the United States.
But Sony didn't just stop at the PlayStation 3. The company also revealed that it has also shipped 8 million PlayStation Move units since that accessory's launch in September.
However, Sony's Move controller is trailing behind Microsoft's motion alternative, Kinect. That device, which lets people control on-screen action with only the movement of their bodies, sold 8 million units last year--less than two months after it went on sale. Last month, Microsoft announced that it sold 10 million Kinect units through February.
And impressive as those figures may be, the Kinect and PlayStation Move have a long way to go to catch up to Nintendo's own motion-gaming peripheral, the Wii Remote. Back in October, the game company said it had sold 65.3 million Wii Remotes worldwide since the Wii's launch in November 2006.