This week began with Microsoft announcing that the Kinect has sold 2.5 million units worldwide in 25 days. The Kinect for Xbox 360 has had a great showing so far, One million units the first day at retailers, 2.5 million units sold worldwide in its first 25 days, and now Wedbush’s Michael Pachter has stated that he believes Microsoft’s motion-sensing system has overtaken Sony’s.
Now, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has weighed in on the matter. “Interestingly, the higher priced Kinect controller appears to have overtaken the Move controller in the sales race, with sales about even notwithstanding Move’s six-week head start in the marketplace,” he said in his latest investor note. The Move starter pack retails for $100, while Kinect rings up at $150 in the US.
Pachter thinks that the Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move combined installed base will be 8 million units by years end. His vision of how the two companies’ motion-control battle might play out in the near future? He believes that Microsoft intends to drop the price of the 4GB Xbox 360 Kinect bundle from $300 to $250 in the spring, which will then have Sony responding with a $300 PS3 Move bundle, the current price of the console itself.
However, using that figure, Pachter estimates that Sony has sold approximately 2.5 million Move units to consumers since the device’s launch. That figure matches Microsoft’s own announcement this week, claiming it sold 2.5 million Kinect units to consumers in the device’s first 25 days of availability. The motion-gaming peripheral launched on November 4 in North America.
If the aforementioned price drops occur, Pachter estimates the two devices’ combined installed base could reach 20 million to 25 million by the end of 2011, resulting in 40 million to 75 million units of software sales. He predicts Move and Kinect hardware and software sales will total $500 million to $800 million in 2011, or around 2.5 to 4 percent of industry sales.
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