Stromprophet on 13 January 2007
sharky said:
Yeah, and microsoft also launched in three territories, not two. Does that make them better than Sony?
Sony only has to divide it's shipments two ways.
Yet I agree, partly because they only had two territories, Sony was able to replenish much better than Microsoft. They did do a better job at that, as evidenced by going from 200k in Nov to 500k in Dec.
You're still not accounting that shipped is ALWAYS a good deal higher than sold. This applies to ALL CONSOLES.
There is LAG TIME of 4-8 WEEKS that these consoles are shipped. Even if every 360 was snapped up the minute it hit a shelf, there is still many in transit. Conversly, a million PS3's shipped means many have not even reached stores yet.
The reason I know about the 4-8 weeks is because microsoft talked about it in a interview. There are so many stores in the USA, many a long distance from the distribution centers. That's all transit time. And the cost effective way to ship is by boat (from China), which means even more time (Sony was probably airfreighting PS3's though, but it's still 4-8 weeks)
Hell, Sony is the one famous for imflated ship figures. Sony supposedly counts as soon as they leave the assembly line in China as shipped. MS says they dont call it shipped until it leaves the distribution center in Missouri headed to a store (I think it was Missouri).
Sony counts shipped as "sold-in" I posted links to this from Sony on another thread here on the forums. They were interviewing them and the interviewer asked "so that's 1 million shipped right?" And they said "1 million sold in" And they went on to ask that means the retailer has it right? And they said "Yes"
I can find it for you if you want, but it's in another thread here, and I'm tired of posting the links and then no one reading it.
You also have to consider, NPD never counts the last few days of the month. As I pointed out, Sony had massive shipments the days after Christmas. And specifically 1 that came in on New Years weekend. BB had a relaunch where every BB had at least 60 units, to give you and idea at launch every BB said they would have a minimum of 26.
I frankly don't see how M$ could say they shipping 900k to NA. Before years end. It's a WELL KNOWN FACT that there were ONLY 2 SHIPMENTS before Christmas. One at launch, one about 10 days before Christmas. Another shipment did not arrive till January. And they were completely sold out everywhere. So to me NPD accounts for every console that was available.
Sony this year on the other hand, the lag time is not 4-8 weeks. They are airlifting units from China over. The lag time is less than 1 week, if not a few days. None of these units are coming by ship. That makes a very big difference.
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