Sony ships 50m PS3s

Not all of them into punters' hands, but still more than Microsoft

Sony has shipped more than 50m machines. It has also shipped 8m Move accessories.

The Move total runs to 3 April, but since that's only five days after the PS3's tally, we think they're close enough to be comparable.

Equally, while these are shipments into the retail channel - not to punters, in other words - we can't see too many of the consoles gathering dust on shelves. Well, beyond some fat PS3s left standing by the arrival of the slim model, perhaps.

Earlier this month, market watcher Strategy Analytics put the PS3 installed base at 43.4m at the end of 2010. So that's 6.6m PS3s left unaccounted for. Some will have gone into buyers' hands in the first three months of 2011, others, as we say, have not.

Sony shipped 14.2m PS3s in the whole of 2010. It is very unlikely to have sold the equivalent almost half that number between the beginning of January and the end of March 2011.

Whatever, it has still shipped in greater volumes than the Xbox 360, which has been on the market for a longer period. Strategy Analytics put the Microsoft console's installed base at 42.9m.

But Microsoft can at least claim victory in motion control: it hasn't released a Kinect shipment total of late, but it hit the 8m-unit mark before 2010 was out.

Of course neither company can get cocky: there are 75.5m Nintendo Wiis out there. Yes, some may be unused these days, bought in the early days for their novelty value, but a lot continue to be played. ®