It does not matter how Sony makes their estimates. If they can make a public statement about it, then there must be enough certainity in those estimations that it woundn't be discredit when other sources make their information public. They wouldn't have said anything otherwise. It's that simple.

EDIT: I mean we've basically gone over this already in this thread: 

Xbox one will catch up soon with PS4 and then outsell it in the USA

Same way they do in any country they sold to. It is seriously mind boggling how little you know about retail. They get the information from the retailers. It doesn't matter what country its in. if its sold to a store the store will request more or less stock and send current sales information. It's basic record keeping. It's the same 3rd party companies have to pay for, but obviously its less accurate because they can't get every retailer in the production chain like Sony or MS can. Again retailers absolutly do, its basic record keeping and an important part of being a store manager. That's how it works, welcome to the world of retail.

This whole tracking crap is a red herring. The fact of the matter is that

1. Sony has access to more resources then VGC does

2. Sony, or really any of the big 3, wouldn't make a statement such as this unless they had certainty in their estimates that they had past their 10 mill sales milestone. Especially not Sony, which is riding on the Good PR they've amassed with the PS4.

3. This is almost the exact same scenario as when Sony said 7 million sold and their was a discrepancy between it and VGC, and we all know how that ended.

etc.

They don't freely hand it out. Are you seriously this dence?  They send the data directly to the producers, its not freely and they try to make sure it only gets to the people that need it. Then 3rd party data collectors, like the ones VGC hires pay off a pool of managers to give them some of the information those stores sent to MS or Sony or Nintendo. They can't afford to pay off every store so they grab what they can from various managers and pool it together and make an estimate on that region. Sony, MS, and Nintendo don't need to make estimates because they get the information driectly from every retailer in their production chain, unlike the 3rd party companies that estimate sales data.

big thread. what do u guys discuss?

You can actually go to the very thread that you linked to in this thread and you will have your list of countries :). We regularly get information from many countries in europe, japan and australia so most big markets are actually covered. That is, as I understand it, also the reason why they haven´t updated numbers for 360, they try to locate where these differences in numbers come from.

"Marketing in the real world", I hope you don't mean sales or retail (we don't really see that as "real marketing" even tho it does fall within the classification). Which would still mean you have little working knowledge of marketing communication. I've got 13 years marketing experience which include marketing studies (competitor analysis, best use, industry/pricing studies) as well as advertising. If you are in marketing then I don't get how you can't seem to see that by the very language Sony used (no ambiguity, clear concise wording, clariffication of possible misinterpretations) that they were extremely sure of the numbers they were using. I really can't figure out how you can't see this.

Yes, I agree. There is no way to get it at 100% accuracy. What I DID say is that Sony can get an estimate based on their internal sales numbers (from retailers/distributors that report their consumer sales) as well as external marketing research firms (like NPD) and use that information (extrapolating via trends) the same way VGC does and come up with a far more accurate number with a much less margin of error. And that with the risk attached to getting caught lying vs the benefits of announcing a milestone, that they would most likely err on the side of safety than try to inflate their numbers.

And yes, I've had competitors "fudge their numbers" in the industry I'm in. (I've never done it, personally). But this has always been internal figure announcements or unofficial leaks (where announcing higher than true sales numbers has a lower chance of getting caught as well as a clear benefit) rather than press conferences (high scrutiny, high chance of getting caught, high risk, bad consequences, low benefit). You'll have to assume that Sony is stupid to mess around with falsely announcing sales figures, especially with MS just waiting for them to slip up.

edit. Reread what I wrote. Didn't mean to come out as pompous. Nor am I bashing sales/retail. I actually started in Sales, so no offense.

Globally in The US 2: Electric Boogaloo with Guest Apperances from ioi and Sting.

This time the actions more intense, cause you got emotional people saying VGC is wrong and anti-sony biased.

Then you got people who are pretending to be rational talking shit about how a billion dollar company can't have better estimates then ioi, who actually explained why he can't adjust the numbers.

Spoiler warning: Its not because Sony is wrong, but simply because he doesn't have the data, unless of course he was secretly Kaz in disguse, PLOT TWIST

But good luck trying to tell these people that, they are too busy trying to understand Sony's tracking methods, that basic common sense has eluded them. Fiesty devil.

Thread that I linked to? Where?

No, we don't get hardware sales regularly from many countries. Can you show me the numbers for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium etc. as of August?

Wow... this has to be the height. People have actually resorted to saying sony is lying about their numbers. Are people really that bitter that the Ps4 is doing so well?

Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe this. As far as they are concerned, its more likely that sony is lying about having sold 10M consoles than VGC undertaking by over 700k. Deep.

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