Another Eye Toy milestone as Euro shipments top 2m

Sony's Eye Toy continues to be one of the best selling games across Europe in the run up to Christmas, with the company employing air freight from the Far East to meet demand for the popular device.

Eye Toy: Play has now shipped over two million units across Europe since its debut in July, and even through the busy festive season it's remained hovering around the UK top ten, making it into one of the most enduring successes of the year.

"The demand for EyeToy has been fantastic, from day one of release in early summer right through the Christmas season," according to SCEE senior vice president of operations Patrick Inskip. "The use of air freight throughout this period has been crucial to keep up with the unrelenting demand across all of SCEE's European market."

The company has had less success for its second package of Eye Toy games, Eye Toy: Groove, which added rhythm action mini-games to the repertoire of the camera peripheral. Groove has failed to register in the UK charts since its launch - disappointing, but hardly a major blow to SCEE given that it was developed in around four months.

SCEE hopes to continue the success of Eye Toy next year with the launch of Eye Toy: Play 2, which will expand on the range of games available for the system. Other companies are thought to be looking into adding Eye Toy mini-games to their forthcoming PS2 titles as well, which should help to boost the perceived value of the peripheral.