Basically this Generation there has been a lot of arguing about Sold vs Shipped, as well as other discrepancies. It would be nice to get in some "ground rules" before the next Generation starts. It would sure cut down on some of the needless bickering going on....what do my fellow vgcharterz think?

This is great, the argument will never end as people always have their diverse opinions, which usually leads to defending those opinions in a harsh manner.

Agreed ...too bad we couldn't have some "basic ground" rules though.

I feel this thread was doomed to fail the moment I read "Can We Agree".  I've been here long enough to answer that question for you.

No.

Why?  Because one or the other may make the company that they've made a blood pact with look less the victor.  In fact, you'll be able to tell pretty much by the responses you get here where they've aligned themselves already.  This community seems to thrive because of the dogged passion of the zealots, at the expense of constructive communication.

To me the answer has always been EXTREMELY simple:  use VGChartz's numbers.  It's the whole raison d'etre of this site.  But again, that will never happen because of the previous paragraph.  Ugh.

Sold = NPD and other third party estimates on data from select retailers massaging it with "shipped" numbers from releases from the video game companies.

Shipped = Release of numbers from the video game companies themselves.

There is a reason why we have this debate. Phanbois tend to take every "shipped" release of data from Sony, Nintendo, and/or Microsoft as the "truth" for what was "sold" during that month or quarter.

Those of us with half a brain would place more trust in the 3rd party sources like VGChartz and NPD, taking into account the biases of each 3rd party, because it is not a PR release from Nintendo, Microsoft, and/or Sony of "shipped" numbers to a bunch of middle-aged, yuppie investors who don't know a damn thing about video games, much less what "shipped vs. sold" really means.

Sold, if you want to get down to it is what every single retailer sells of a particular piece of hardware or software. Having this data would be perfect, but it is not reality because no one has the information from every retailer on every unit that is sold. The best we can do is dress it up in "estimates" with fancy graphs, statistical analysis, regression analysis and so on.

Shipped, is basically a "Hey look at me old white guy! I am doing just swell! Please pump more money into my company!"

So until we have a universities with statistic departments specializing in electronic entertainment market research and better tools from the point-of-sale to track every unit sold regardless whether it is sold in Timbuktu or Akron, Ohio, then we cannot agree.

I say we just use Vgchartz numbers.

Since we are, you know, on vgchartz.com

Shipped: 100% accurate numbers of consoles sold to stores, no wiggle room for inaccurracies, all shipped units will eventually be SOLD to consumers. cant go wrong with using these.

Sold: VG charts sold estimates. fairly accurate and dependable. give a good indication how the system is selling currently, and how many of the shipped units are sold to consumers.

there you have it, is it settled? people should complain when people uses these now.

to sum up

SHIPPED = 100% correct

SOLD = fairly accurate estimate

you know, companies like MS, Nintendo, and Sony can NOT lie about their numbers they are 100% fact/correct

But the 8th gen has already started...

tbh I don't care about the use of shipped and sold.  I would just like it if people were consistant with using only one in each argument they are making.

"Time" kinda makes SHIPPED figures irrelevant when discussing weekly/monthly sales performance of each respective console manufacturer/developer/Publisher.