That makes sense. Perhaps they could ship enough numbers for a year in smaller markets, whereas in other places with better infrastructure they can ship monthly. We really don't know anything about this though (like when they would ship those units and inflate the shipment numbers), and that doesn't seem to be what people talk about, so it's hard to use it as a real argument.

Thanks! It's not like I want the word spread so badly, lol, but if you want to do it then great. :)

The big flaw in your assumption is that shops ask for shipments based on %. That's not the case. They get shipments in nos. and they usually ask for additional stock in nos not in %.

At least that's how I imagined it. I can be wrong though.

its all good. as a business major my area is more on the markting side but getting a better understanding of the is usefull

By cutting on shipping costs you will raise storage costs. Classical operational problem.

Oh, I misread and jump to assumptions and as a comsequence I thought you were about to say that PS3 doesn't need to "ship" more RPGs. Therefore, I came to this thread like this...

Now I'm leaving broken hearted and empty handed.

The counter-counter argument is that Sony is a very big hardware company with a very efficient shipping division. The main reason they can distribute PS3 hardware and software to smaller markets (unlike Nintendo and MS) is that they can use the same channels they use for consumer electronics. So, yes, they can ship 10,000 PS3s over 3,000 miles because they ship game consoles, TVs, camcorders, cameras, cell phones etc. all together.

I know but that number must be related to the demand in the market, right?

If a country needs 1m PS3's, the shops will order accordingly, and if it needs 10m PS3's then they'll need roughly 10 times more.

Here is how I see it. If there is not enough of a demand for a product, not a lot of people are going to buy it. If there is enough of a demand, people are going to buy it. So what if the PS3 is shipped to more countries than the competing consoles. No one is going to buy something just because it's sitting on a store's shelf. There is a high enough demand for the PS3 so people are going to buy it regardless of what country it's sold in and regardless of its (and if any) competition. It's just another excuse to downplay the continual success of the PS3. Does this mean everyone who buys a PS3 prefers it over a Wii or an Xbox 360? No. It just means the PS3 is worth it. It's that simple.

As a few other people pointed out. What I think is that popular stores will get stocks replenished far more often than smaller stores.

If a store sells an average of 100 ps3 a week, they will probably try to get maybe 110 ps3s shipped a week, and then maybe skip a week when their stockpile grows too much. Because it will take up too much space to buy enough ps3's to sell for a month.

On the other hand if a store is only selling 5 ps3s a week, it doesn't make sense to order new ps3s every week. They would save on shipping by buying lets say 30 ps3s a month, and only replenishing their stock every month.

Ofc in the end the numbers will get balanced out by the end of the month, since ps3 isn't shipping more consoles until the next month for small stores, but at certain times, such as when the holidays are approaching and stores start stockpiling more consoles, the ps3 should have a bigger ratio of shipped to sold than the xbox 360 until the holiday seasons end when the smaller stores finish selling their stock of ps3s

This is obviously just my idea on how things are done and not some cold hard fact.