Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter’s said that Xbox 360 Kinect hardware bundles are outselling rival Sony’s PS3/PlayStation Move console packs by a ratio of 5:1 in the US.
Speaking in light of February NPD numbers, Pachter observed that over two thirds of Xbox 360 console sales were Kinect bundles. By comparison, PS Move hardware bundles accounted for less than one-fifth of PS3 sales for that month.
"Under one-fifth of PS3 sales included bundles with Sony’s Move controller, suggesting another modest month," said Pachter.
"Over 2/3 of Xbox 360 sales included bundles with Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral, as Xbox 360 Kinect console bundles again outsold PS3 Move console bundles by over 5:1. We note that the top selling Kinect software titles easily outsold their Move counterparts."
Microsoft’s had reason to be chipper recently, with the Guinness World Records last week naming Kinect as the fastest selling consumer electronic of all time with an eye-watering 10 million units sold to date.
Elsewhere, Pachter painted a gloomy forecast for Wii and PS3 at retail, believing sales for both platforms will continue to decline for next couple of months – that is, unless a price cut happens sharpish.
"We expect demand for the Xbox 360 to remain stronger than the other consoles due to the popularity of Kinect," he commented. "We expect Wii and PS3 hardware sales to continue to decline (despite February’s up month for both) in the first part of 2011.”
"Without further price cuts, we expect hardware sales to be down in 2011, and we think that the console manufacturers will position cuts around the E3 Expo in early June."