|
Personally, Sonys figures seem pretty ok.
300,000 while not that high are pretty reasonable, if you factor in the almost complete lack of marketing by Sony in the past.
Also, Sony only started selling outside the US a couple of months ago, and if I remeber some figures that were bandied about, Europeans on average read more then Americans.
So, I'll be interested to see what their figures for the UK are, especially as I've seen Stores often out of stock. Also, Sony was actually pretty proactive here in publicizing the reader here, with a lot of coverage in the newspapers and on TV.
I'll also be interested in figures from Booken and Hanlin. Didn't the Bebook guys claim 300,00 units sold a short while ago?
As for the Book, while I have the PRS 500, I never bothered with the Sony bookstore because a) No US Credit Card and b) No crack for the DRM. After a few bad experiences in the past, I completely refuse to purchase books whose DRM cannot be stripped.
I also tend to change gadgets regularly, so I expected to change my reader sometime in the future, and did not want to be tied into Sony's proprietary format (ATRAC again!)
Having said that, I've actually really increased by reading, with both Purchased books as well as Free ones free here and other sources.
I've also used the Sony, and my Cybook to convince a number of people to buy Readers or at least convince them to consider getting one.
I think that the Word of Mouth evangelism and hands on experience is probably going to be what really gets it into peoples mindsets.
The biggest problem is the supposed "Expert" reviewers who don't understand the concept of READING and pan it for not having colour, net access, video etc. I wish they'll learn to do a Little RESEARCH, or heck just Google to learn a little more then what's on the Press Release. <Rant over>
|