And exactly how would Microsoft know? They do not track sales to customers, they track their sales to retail stores. How are they supposed to know whether some shop sold the 360s they bought? They don't.
Especially around this time of year a shop would order another 5 units because they are expecting higher sales for the holidays. Do you really think MS would say, "that means they sold the other ones we already sent them". No, because it isn't true.
What are you talking about "even if these are shipping numbers, VGC......"? 500k or more of what? The estimates are on the front page saying that VGC expected 3.3M consoles to be shipped, and MS said 3.5. That's 200k not 500k, shipped.
Additionally VGC is not purely estimate on top of estimate. NPD and other sources release their official numbers every month. VGC can use these to tell how close the estimate is. If the numbers don't match up, they may alter them. Keep in mind that at least once, NPD has had different numbers than VGC, and then NPD changed their numbers to match VGC.
You both need to lurk moar, because you obviously have no idea how this works.
