| zackblue said: 10 million sold to consumers or sold to retail? Wasnt it 14 milion shipped by that time? |
Here is what Sony did. As of fiscal year '07 they stated they sold 3.6 million units and shipped 5.5 million. They redefined the terms in their financial report to literally mean they shipped 3.6 million and they produced 5.5 million, and they called "shipped" units sold, since they were ordered by retail, but they added a lot of confusion when they considered manufactured units shipped. They rationalized this by saying those units were shipped to warehouses, but it was obviously intended to mislead.
At the end of Q1 FY08, Sony stated that they were switching to the standard definition of 'shipped' -- meaning they 'shipped' units to stores. This is what console makers typically do, and it has become common practice to use 'shipped' and 'sold' interchangably because a manufacturer ships ordered (sold to retailer) consoles.
Their sleight of hand trick here, however, is that 1.9 million consoles were unaccounted for and magically added to their total 'shipped' figures. IE: they redefined their terms so they could ship 1.9 million units that *were already* shipped according to FY reports.
This means Sony, who did not fix its projections down to 3.6 million "shipped" for FY07 to be in line with its new definition, would be at 14.6 million total units shipped at the end of FY08 if they meet their 11 million unit goal. Reporters and many investors will not realize this, and will think Sony should be at 16.5 million units shipped total at the end of FY08. Inventive sleight of hand, but not exactly the actions of a respectable and strong company.
What's this about Stinger saying the format war doesn't matter? The PS3 was delayed for about a year, according to Sony, because of the Blu diodes. The console has such expensive cost, in part, due to its BD drive. They basically took their flagship electronics product and tied it to Blu Ray, because they believed it could catapult Sony's success for at least the next decade.
In heindsight, even Sony seems to admit putting a BD drive on the PS3 was a huge mistake.
