£14m would buy you a lot of this kind of publicity

With six days before Kinect for Xbox 360 lands in the UK, Sony has kicked off a high-profile advertising campaign for its own motion controller across the country.

Sony's spending £14m to reach three major audiences: families, social players and core gamers. It's formed partnerships with Channel 4, Disney, Nickelodeon and more, and will sponsor Cineworld and Odeon kids clubs. Whilst it doesn't quite match the $500m spent marketing Kinect in the States, it should go a long way to keeping PlayStation Move in everyone's minds at Christmas.

Sony also claims 250,000 Move controllers have been sold across the UK, and expects that number to double before Christmas arrives. SCE UK's marketing director Alan Duncan said:

It is all about getting the device in people’s hands and we still need to keep doing that. It has been a real success for us, we’re pretty much through quarter of a million units and we expect to sell half a million before Christmas. And when you have half a million advocates showing it to their friends and family, you will soon learn if you have a success or not.

The company is also planning a series of shopping centre tours to get the controller in another half-million hands.

[source mcvuk.com]