What does this site have to gain by saying MS didnt sell 10 million? You seem to take Microsoft's statistics at face value as you seem to try to fit there estimates with your numbers. And you have to agree that MS has an interest in misleading us... but really why would VGCharts lie? do you think they are run by Nintendo or Sony? it just seems that you really want to spin numbers until we agree that the 360 is the sytem of the gods. \ the numbers i really would like to see is what % of 360's are defective. because i know of a few people with broken down 360's... yours truly included.

Sorry, but anyone with even the TINIEST bit of knowledge of any business knows how ridiculous it is to suggest that the 360 had sold about 4.5 million and had an additional 1.5 million shipped. Sorry, but this is not the 1960s and companies simply do not keep that much inventory for ANY product on hand. A little leson for you, since you all are REALLY ignroant. Any store will not keep more than 1 month inventory. Inventory is the NUMBER ONE cost of a business. Therefore, if a console had sold 4.5 million units in 6 months, there is NO WAY that businesses would accept 1.5 million in inventory. It just does not happen. Not even close. Seriously...I know this is hte internet where 12 year old kids like to think they can bluff their wauy into looking like experts on every subject, but when you gt called on your bluff, all you do is lose ALL credibility for future posts. These numbers are wrong...plain and simple.

Been checking around different forums and sites a bit trying to find some real numbers myself... and I just had to sign up to ask... Are you serious that you trust the numbers on this site because you don't see the reason they would lie? That does not make any kind of sense at all. Of course you have to question the numbers if they don't show where they got them from. They could be missinformed themselves, you don't need to actively lie to post something incorrect.

No ,we trust the numbers in this site because most of us are numbers-geeks ourselves and have been adding up the consoles sold as soon as NPD and Media Create provided new information .Plus ,we know very well NA total sales are always US 1.1 .So the information in this site is a very good aproximation at the sales and each time the official data arises it confirms that . In fact ,I think vgcharts is being very good-minded towards the X360 estimations ....most of the months the estimation for the X360 have split in two once the real numbers arrived ,and if the december sales arent so hot a 4.5 million data for NA total cumulative seems viable ...and then theres no possible way it can be 8.3 million total seeing the sales of Japan and Europe . One more thing ,to Monty especially ,give it up .Some of us are interested in more topics that this particular crusade of yours .We want to speak the japanese data just revelaled by media create ,the HD-DVD vs Br data ,the handhelds data ...etc ...and this monopolizing you are doing of the topics windows is making it impossible .

Well, the numbers certainly don't add up to 10.4 million, that is almost a certainty. Inventory is considered a "cost of revenue" it's not actually considered an ongoing expense to a company because the inventory is what they make profits on. Selling expenses, General Expenses, and Administrative Expenses all fall under category of ongoing expenses. They are money lost that cannot be made back. This would include things like wages, rents, administrative offices, and the like. None of those things can be sold. I think you don't know as much about inventory as you believe you do. Plenty of manufacturers stockpile inventory as well as end retailers. Simply put, inventory is not considered in the same cost category as expenses like wages, since Inventory can actually be called a company asset it does not "cost" the company anything. Now if a stockpile should not be sold, or if inventory includes items like trucks, forklifts, machinery, these things can have depreciation. And that would be considered money going out of the company. _______________ Back on point. Japanese numbers can be tracked very accurately, and NPD is also pretty darn accurate, in addition we have pretty good numbers from England. The other regions (Canada, the rest of Europe, Austrilia) all purchase most consoles in similar ratios to US purchases. Lastly I was doing some tabulationof just major stores that would carry a 360 in their stores. There are more than 15,000 major electronics stores that I could just think of off hand in the US. This would be walmart, cc, bb, gamestop, target, Sears holding company (which includes many, many retails chains, I subtracted its hardware divisions), Miejer (which is just a regional store for the midwest, I'm sure other regions have similar type stores that aren't national yet), Toys Rus, Kb toys. That's just what I can think of. That doesn't include inventory they keep for online sales, and also a host of smaller stores, such as gamecrazy or other retailers who might sell a 360. Internationally the numbers are equal to, or greater the the total number of US retailers that woud sell gaming consoles. A very rough estimate I would say including small little stores, total. Maybe 50,000 world wide? Maybe more. If those stores even averaged 5-20 that would be 250,000-1 million. Considering I was in BB and saw how many 360s they had sitting around, and I live in a smallish town with a regular ol BB. It was way more than just 20 360s in stock. _________________ Lastly, is it not apparent this happens? PSP is a perfect example. Didn't Sony said they had shipped (and for sony shipped means sold-thru, or sold to retailer). 20 million PSPs in the summer. This site just now has 20 million PSPs listed. And guess what, I think it's closer to the truth than Sony is telling the number shipped. NPD and Japan numbers tracked on the PSP along with the comparable ratio purchased by Europe fell way short of 20 million in the summer. So were there PSPs just sitting on shelves, yep. And lots of them. Millions? Yes as a matter of fact.

Actually for Sony shipped means manufactored and leaving the factory! Sony uses the most liberal definition of the word "shipped" of the three and it includes defective units.

Thats what Microsoft says .But Dillon (or Diller ?) of Sony has explained today that when they mean shipped they mean already bought by the store . I dont think Microsoft puts apart the defective or returned items ....as with the X360 those could be a good number .

What was that? No. They use the term "Sold in" which means the retailers have the units. See below. Senior VP of Marketing, Peter Dille. _________________ http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0108.1833.15034.htm?Page=1 SCEA’s Senior VP of Marketing, Peter Dille "GI: Now you said its 2 million worldwide sold in? Dille: It’s 1 million in North America. What we’re not talking about today is the Japanese numbers, but we will be announcing those soon in the Sony announcement that will come out of Japan. GI: “Sold in” means the retailers have the units, correct? Dille: Correct. What the sell-in number refers to is that we’ve shipped it, we’ve sold it to retail, and the fact that we got to a million was possible because we were air shipping these products in. If we had gone with a boat, there was no way we would have gone to a million. So we’re not playing games with the numbers. These were sold into retail, and you can image the retailer’s incentive: If they’re shipped on a plane, they can go up onto the shelves as quickly as possible. And really, as soon as they’re getting there, they’re evaporating. There’s a tremendous demand." __________________ BTW, everyone counts defective units. You think they are going to go back and correct their shipped numbers to retailers everytime they get units back? Show me a credible link that supports that the manufacturers do this. The only number Nintendo, Sony, M$ see is the number retailers purchase from them. None of them go back and subtract defective units from that number. Second, my example of the PSP is right on to what can happen and how units can just be sitting on shelves. Sony claimed 20 million sometime in the summer, even *if* this included units shipped from the factory. Would it take 6 months for those units to arrive? No. The numbers are just now 20 million, that big of a discrepency exists for all the manufacturers most times. Even by boat it only takes a few weeks for a ship to make it from China to Cali.

1. It's very simple. Microsoft is a toy manufacturer. In the toy industry inventory isn't a bad thing. You build up inventory during the year because November and December are much better sales months than the other months. Quick math shows Microsoft has produced 750,000 units a month. Using conservative estimates used by VGCharts sales are approximately 1.9 M for November and December. A time period when 1.5 M units of 360's were produced. No toy company would try to keep a zero inventory system and keep with demand. They would have the cost of excess manufacturing for 10 months of the year, then they would have insane overtime/overhead rates for two months of the year. It's much more cost effective to stay at a constant level and have a slow buildup of inventory during the year. 2. Initial sales projections had Microsoft selling 2.5 M to 3 M for the November and December time frame. It's a goal they were hoping to hit and they shipped enough units to cover this goal. The sales just didn't happen. A price decrease would have done wonders for them. 3. The excess inventory actually costs Microsoft $0. It's a cost for Best Buy, Circuit City, EB Games, etc. As discussed before, sold to retail. It's the retailers cost to sell the unit now. 4. Have you ever been to a store. I live in a tiny city Population approx. (20,000). And I go to Meijer and I've there are over 10 360's sitting there. I went to Best Buy and I saw at least 40 xbox 360's there (I have 2 best buys within 15 minutes of driving). My point? I bet most of time there has been over 1,000 xbox 360's within a half hour drive of me this holiday season. And I don't live near a city that many people have heard of.

What?!?! How do you figure the 360 "sales just didn't happen"???? Or how are you inferring that the sales were not good? Early projections put it in the 1.2 million area for December in the US... that's better than the Xbox 1 ever did in its 5 years since it's been out, not to mention better than anything the GameCube ever did. It'd put it on par with the PS2 (the best selling console of all time) over the past couple years (PS2 did 990,000 in 2004 and 1.5 million in 2005). It very much held its own against 2 launches and put up some excellent numbers. As for your anecdotal stock evidence, it is meaningless. The fact that you saw 90 Xbox 360's in a city of 20,000 people is hardly evidence that 2+ million are sitting on store shelves. I was at a Toys R Us a week and half ago and they were sold out. Ditto for an EB Games I was at... sold out. What does that mean? Nothing... it varies GREATLY from region to region and chain to chain.