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Forums - Sales Discussion - So we see that this site undertracks the XBOX 360- why?

Mummelmann said:
I don't even know what to say...


This



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noname2200 said:
numonex said:
Why are people questioning the reliability of VGChartz sales numbers? AFAIK VGChartz numbers are the real deal. VGChartz sales numbers are 100% accurate retail sales numbers. Never question the reliability of the site's numbers.

In light of the number of times that this site's numbers have been way off, even to the point of exceeding the amount shipped to retailers, I can not agree with this at all.

algorith said:

 Yes. Sony has referred industry analysts when asked for sales to end consumer to NPD and such. And there are retailers that will not disclose such information like Wal-mart. Sony keeps track of the units they sale = units sold to retailers. Anything else would be a guess, and publicly traded companies cannot release guesses to the media in an official manner due to investor litigation. 

 This is not true.

Some companies are able to track in real time what is sold to customers via tracking software. Siras is the one that I'm most familiar with. It's what Nintendo uses. This lets them immediately know what product sold at what time from which retailer.

You're mistaking such software with data trackers like NPD, who do have to poll retailers and calculate their figures accordingly. That's not the only way to do it, though.

As to why the companies routinely refer to NPD et. al. in most (not all!) of their press releases, internal tracking data is actually very valuable, and companies are loathe to share it with competitors. After all, the data's valuable enough to be worth paying thousands of dollars a month for. So when speaking with the public, it's usually wisest to stick to the figures that you know your competitors already have access to. But they don't always do that.

Finally, your last point is not completely true either. Companies are more than free to cite to reasonable guesstimates: that is, after all, what any company that cites to NPD is doing. They can not, however, make up numbers out of whole cloth.

 

 This type of tracking is mainly used by the retailers themselves, but retailers do not have to disclose the amount of stock they have to manufacturers and some do not. Wal-mart is an important and good example. NPD has to use estimates because Wal-mart does not provide the number of system they sell. I'm not talking about the software used, I'm talking about the availability of the information. Manufacturers track their shipments and that's how they count inventory by GAAP or IFRS (requried by law) and that's the number they disclose in the 10k released to stockholders and the public. That was the point. 

 Yes companies can release estimates as estimates, but can't state official sales without clarification if it's an estimate. Doing so could lead to litigation by the shareholders. 



Halo_Reach said:
Seraphic_Sixaxis said:
Wow... just wow... the ignorance in the OP's intro is... wow...

By chance... since Halo_Reach = only 37 posts... Are you Kowen? just sayin...

You by making this thread doesn't make you any more innocent then any of these "sony fanboys" of anything it spots you as a sour MS fanboy, hypocrisy is uncalled for, why do it?


i have been coming here for  long time, i jst dont post very often, cause the crowd here can sometimes be lame

I think the crowd here thinks your lame.




The 3.8M figure provided by Sony is the estimate number of PS3 consoles sold at retail(sold to consumer).

 

"*2 Retail sales number is estimated by SCEI." - http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/100107e.html



binary solo said:
algorith said:
binary solo said:
If the true number of 360s sold to consumers is 38.17 million (36.77 + the so called missing 1.4 million) then VGC is off on its estimate of global Xbox 360 sales by a Mammoth 3.8%.

Imagine that after estimating Xbox 360 sales for 4 years VGC has only managed to achieve 96.2% accuracy. What utterly outrageous incompetence that VGC should claim any sort of credibility at estimating world sales of gaming consoles if it barely manages to be 96% accurate. They should shut this site down for being such big fraudsters leading us on with made up numbers they just pull out of their arses. I demand a refund!!

And what's worse? They are showing their obvious hatred for the Xbox 360. The whole internet is against Xbox, and that includes VGC. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, picking on the greatest console ever made like that. Just wait until Natal comes, it'll show you all! How it must gall the Sony loving VGC crew that they have to show the 360 in second place.

Life as we know it is now over.

 I don't think the problem is the +/-4% deviation but rather the inability to correct the numbers once the accurate information has been provided. At that pace, it adds up and deviates even further making the numbers down right unusable even for estimates. 

VGC adjusts its numbers all the time. VGC adjusted up it's 360 numbers for November 2009 soon after the November NPD data came out (which is also an estimate by the way so it isn't 100% accurate either).

VGC LTD estimate of sales to consumers is 2.23 million less than Microsoft's confirmed 39 million 360's sold to consumers + sitting on store shelves around the world. You might have unreasonable expectations of accuracy but for me that is an excellent result. And there is no reason to believe VGC's LTD estimates will be any less accurate in another 4 years.

And which accurate information have you got? You've got 39 million shipped, but you don't have any accurate information on sales to consumers. Give us definitive sales to consumers information and the adjustments will come. Just don't pull 1.4 million out of the air like the OP did and expect ioi to run off and change the numbers.

first off it is over 39 million not 39 million, and it will be adjusted - guess tey are milking the lower numbers longer



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Viper1 said:
algorith said:
Viper1 said:
Algorith, VGC tracks retail sales.

Sony's shipment numbers and VGC's sales figures just happen to be similar. Don't take as a means to suggest VGC tracks shipments.

Tracking shipments doesn't take a whole website to do that anyway as can be seen by thousands of threads across the Internet tracking quarterly shipment numbers from all 3 console manufacturers.

 So VGchartz tracked 80,000 units more than Sony shipped for sales to end consumers... Well I suppose it's ok if it is sales to end consumers, then it's simply inaccurate overall by an unknown amount. 

You're basing that on the idea that stock was at 0 at the start of the quarter.  You can sell more than you ship in a quarter unless stock is completely dry from the reail channel and distribution channel.

Given that's a rarity for the end of the 2nd quarter, chances are very good that retail/distribution stock was at least 80,000 units or higher.

 You are correct about shipments against units available for sale. However it's highly unlikely that an entire shipment would be even nearly sold out in a month in world wide basis. I know my region wasn't sold out of PS3s, I noticed when I went to get a one of them myself. But in that note wouldn't it be reasonable to imply there's at least 38 million 360s sold to end consumers when MS has shipped 39 million? Either way the difference may not be so far off and possibly within the 4% range. 



algorith said:
mega-chris said:
i dont get it.. when a sony fanboy complains about undertracking he is the most annoying person ever. but when a microsoft fanboy complains he thinks he is right?

bring in the facts and then make another thread.

ot: i think this site is reliable seeing as how everytime npd gets released they are within that number. nough said!

 This is a fact:

 http://www.edge-online.com/news/xbox-360-has-sold-39-million-worldwide  

 Sony also made an announcement of units shipped and it's correctly tracked, well actually it's slightly overtracked:

 http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=6443   

Just want to point out that the VGC article you quote above about the 3.8 million indicated the wrong time period. The Sony press release says "Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that the holiday season retail sales of PlayStation®3 (PS3®) computer entertainment systems during the five weeks following the last week of November 2009 exceeded 3.8 million units worldwide." The 5 weeks following the last week (I'm assuming they mean full week) of November means 29 Nov - 2 Jan. VGC retail estimate for that period is:

Console PS3
Total
3,381,501

But if you go by the time period Brian indicates the VGC estimate is

Console PS3
Total
3,877,093

So in fact for the time period stated by Sony as covering the 3.8 million VGC is under that figure by nearly 500K. So is it time to start complaining that VGC needs to bump PS3 numbers now? Of course not. In fact it would seem that VGC's numbers for this particular period are pretty well spot on.



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

 

algorith said:

 

 This type of tracking is mainly used by the retailers themselves, but retailers do not have to disclose the amount of stock they have to manufacturers and some do not. Wal-mart is an important and good example. NPD has to use estimates because Wal-mart does not provide the number of system they sell. I'm not talking about the software used, I'm talking about the availability of the information. Manufacturers track their shipments and that's how they count inventory by GAAP or IFRS (requried by law) and that's the number they disclose in the 10k released to stockholders and the public. That was the point. 

 Yes companies can release estimates as estimates, but can't state official sales without clarification if it's an estimate. Doing so could lead to litigation by the shareholders. 

I'm fairly certain that the manufacturers, such as Nintendo, DO get full access to their own data via Siras. That is, after all, the point: the system can't do what it's supposed to for manufacturers if they don't get the data. For example, part of the purpose behind the system is to track which retail products are already past their warranty period, so manufacturers don't accept products that are no longer under warranty. How can a manufacturer know this if it doesn't know when that specific product was sold?

Long story short, it IS possible for manufacturers to know which product was sold to a consumer at a certain location on a certain date. The manufacturers, such as Sony, do NOT have to rely upon the good graces of retailers to know how much of their merchandise is left in retail channels, nor do they have to resort to guessing games.



binary solo said:
algorith said:
mega-chris said:
i dont get it.. when a sony fanboy complains about undertracking he is the most annoying person ever. but when a microsoft fanboy complains he thinks he is right?

bring in the facts and then make another thread.

ot: i think this site is reliable seeing as how everytime npd gets released they are within that number. nough said!

 This is a fact:

 http://www.edge-online.com/news/xbox-360-has-sold-39-million-worldwide  

 Sony also made an announcement of units shipped and it's correctly tracked, well actually it's slightly overtracked:

 http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=6443   

Just want to point out that the VGC article you quote above about the 3.8 million indicated the wrong time period. The Sony press release says "Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that the holiday season retail sales of PlayStation®3 (PS3®) computer entertainment systems during the five weeks following the last week of November 2009 exceeded 3.8 million units worldwide." The 5 weeks following the last week (I'm assuming they mean full week) of November means 29 Nov - 2 Jan. VGC retail estimate for that period is:

Console PS3
Total
3,381,501

But if you go by the time period Brian indicates the VGC estimate is

Console PS3
Total
3,877,093

So in fact for the time period stated by Sony as covering the 3.8 million VGC is under that figure by nearly 500K. So is it time to start complaining that VGC needs to bump PS3 numbers now? Of course not. In fact it would seem that VGC's numbers for this particular period are pretty well spot on.

 Ah good catch. They may be both understated. We'll get a better idea once NPD rolls out and we see how much of it reflects the manufacturers' announcements. Sony said 1.7 million was in US so that should be easy enough to corroborate. 



Halo_Reach said:
binary solo said:
algorith said:
binary solo said:
If the true number of 360s sold to consumers is 38.17 million (36.77 + the so called missing 1.4 million) then VGC is off on its estimate of global Xbox 360 sales by a Mammoth 3.8%.

Imagine that after estimating Xbox 360 sales for 4 years VGC has only managed to achieve 96.2% accuracy. What utterly outrageous incompetence that VGC should claim any sort of credibility at estimating world sales of gaming consoles if it barely manages to be 96% accurate. They should shut this site down for being such big fraudsters leading us on with made up numbers they just pull out of their arses. I demand a refund!!

And what's worse? They are showing their obvious hatred for the Xbox 360. The whole internet is against Xbox, and that includes VGC. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, picking on the greatest console ever made like that. Just wait until Natal comes, it'll show you all! How it must gall the Sony loving VGC crew that they have to show the 360 in second place.

Life as we know it is now over.

 I don't think the problem is the +/-4% deviation but rather the inability to correct the numbers once the accurate information has been provided. At that pace, it adds up and deviates even further making the numbers down right unusable even for estimates. 

VGC adjusts its numbers all the time. VGC adjusted up it's 360 numbers for November 2009 soon after the November NPD data came out (which is also an estimate by the way so it isn't 100% accurate either).

VGC LTD estimate of sales to consumers is 2.23 million less than Microsoft's confirmed 39 million 360's sold to consumers + sitting on store shelves around the world. You might have unreasonable expectations of accuracy but for me that is an excellent result. And there is no reason to believe VGC's LTD estimates will be any less accurate in another 4 years.

And which accurate information have you got? You've got 39 million shipped, but you don't have any accurate information on sales to consumers. Give us definitive sales to consumers information and the adjustments will come. Just don't pull 1.4 million out of the air like the OP did and expect ioi to run off and change the numbers.

first off it is over 39 million not 39 million, and it will be adjusted - guess tey are milking the lower numbers longer

What a ridiculous assertion. Read the above post properly.  No matter how you try to spin this you are comparing apples to oranges,  shipped to sold to consumers.

You may not be happy with the thought that there might be 2-5-3 million 360's sitting on shelves but that doesn't make it wrong and even if it is wrong you can't just guess how much the number is out by.  The 39 million might give the guys a reason to check their figures or wait for more up-to-date data to come in but in the end they have to gather their data by the usual means because the MS number is still SHIPPED and has little business directly influencing the data on the front page.