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redspear on 26 November 2008
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amirnetz said:
redspear said:

Also for a person who is such a numbers person to discount tracking and to only go by corporate PR releases is astounding being that tracking is based entirely around numbers. GfK, NPD, Chart Track, Famitsu, and Media Create are all independant and professional tracking agencies. VGchartz is also very good tracking site as well. It is true that the numbers from these sources cannot be taken as solid for a single week or day but as time goes on the outliers that affect these numbers even out that is the beauty of margin of error and also the bell curve. 

Tne last thing all people are saying here is that Fiscal reports are a good thing they are accurate and not estimated nor rounded. they are also very clear and broken down. PR statements are controlled and only reveal what is expressly written.  

Just to be clear:

  1. The tracking firms are tracking different numbers than the one the companies report. ("Sold to retailers" vs "sold to consumers"). In fact, the companies does not have any visibility to the second measure except through the tracking firms.

Yes just like VGChartz tracks different numbers sell through to consumers.

  1. The numbers that the companies report are accurate. Period. They are not estimates, they are not statistical samples. They are the sales that show up in the corporate accounting system.

The number they report are accurate yes BUT they are ways they spin these things. It is NOT lying it is called SPIN. They are sales but the sales could also be an agreement to purchase. Several companies do this. I do know this stuff since I work in the court system and have probably sat through more SEC cases then you 5 in the past 4 months that. It si NEVER an issue unless it is a flat out lie the comapnies go with the highest numbers.

  1. The numbers reported by the tracking companies are estimates. They are typically based on a big statistical sample and partial access to the reporting system of some of the retailers, but they are still just estimates. That said, they are accurate enough and valueable for the companies to pay for them, but they are still just estimates.

Yes they are just estimates but as you said no one else besides them have those numbers. Those estimates also fall within a margin of Error which means that it is 99.95% unlikely to be over under 5% with a large enough sample and a decvent model. Sometimes these models are questionable like Nielson sometimes there are known factors that throw the models off like cell phones in a landline phone poll these usually are accoutned for but push the margin of error up.

Also it is possible to have over 4 million units out there liek the 360 had one point 2 million is not that far off.

  1. There is a mathematical relationship between the numbers reported by the companies (which are very accurate) and the tracking estimates. The sold-to-consumers will always be lower than the sold-to-retailers. Retailers will always have some inventory that was was purchased from the companies but still not sold to the consumers.

Yes this isn't anything new and no one here says otherwise for the most part it is possibel to have tracking systems report more then was ship but that is due to the margin of error.

  1. The tracking companies often adjust their estimates based on the accurate shipment data from the companies. If the shipment numbers are smaller than their own "sellthough to consumers" estimates were then their estimate needed to be adjusted.

OK but what does this have to do with the crux of the argument they do do that sometimes but there is usually a reason to do that.

  1. I found such discrepencies in VGC and pointed them out (up above in the thread) and the responses I got was that the companies were lying in their public statements.

No the response you got was that number was not sell through to customers that those units could be elsewhere even as far as sitting in the Warehouse. It is not lying it just isn't numbers this site tracks.

  1. I explained in detail that it is illegal to companies to lie in the public statements about their business performance because such public statements can be used as investment guidance.

And no one is saying lying to you everyone is saying SPIN which is different and people have explained to you the difference between PR statements and Quaterly Reports. Once again I know from real world experience a majority of the companies do what we claim MS is doing here3 with the report dressing up the numbers to look their best including potentially rounding them up. I know I have sat through more cases that nvolve this sort of thng than you. I am not a lawyer but I am a trial consultant. I discuss the best way to present evidnece in a trial and then I do it. While I may not know the law this is something I have seen a lot of and not once have a seen a lawyer make a big deal about it unless it was a LIE.

  1. I do this staff for a living. I am no lawer but I am doing PR and analysts work and the rules are clear.

As I said I work on the other end I see this stuff all the time in court and your company may be more cautious than others and I congratulate you on that but that does not mean that what they say here means that many units have been and are sitting on shelves right now.

  1. Still, it seem that reason fails in this forums. It seems it is much more fun to believe that companies are just a bunch of lying criminals. I can understand the fun part of it, I just hope that with some of the education I provided reason will prevail over fiction.

You can say what you want how you want it to try and make it true it jsut does not. None of htis has to do with MS lying no  one is saying they are but I will give you a tip an accurate number is 5,000,108 not 5,000,000 this is called rounding. Unless they shipped exactly 5 million and believe me if htis was against the law or SEC rules I am sure I woudl have seen a lawyer grill on that issue by now, but it never happens UNLESS it is a flat out lie OR it is in the quarterly and there is a notable difference. So while I may not know the law I am very familiar with the situation and from all my experience in court and dealing with these cases the fact this issue rarely gets pressed after the attorneys go through and set a foundation for the numbers tells me that you are in fact off base on this one.

Enough.

 

 

At no point did I insult you or look down on you or say you lacked reason but the mere fact that you can't seem to understand simple principles of spin something that anyone with a decent college education can speak tells me that you are pushing this becausee you want to be right and you may be like the type of person who reads through a book and finds a typo on page 78 and calls up the editor to complain but finds out it is not a type but a neoglism and argues that point beyond reason.

 

And once again forgive my typo or grammer I have little time to write these at work.