Nomad Blue said:
Probably not, as I doubt retailers hand over their sales data to all their suppliers. They can make an educated guess on how well something is selling though, from orders coming in from retailers(from quantity of units and frequency). Again...Sony sells to retailers, so THEIR SHIPPED FIGURE IS SOLD.
I doubt retailers are stockpiling Move units in warehouses this far out from Xmas. Things tend not to be in the warehouse all that long. Plus it looks bad on the Profit/Loss as you've then got a multi-million dollar expense that you won't recoup for a couple of months. Also, if you ordered and took delivery in October, had to pay in November(depending on payment terms obviously), but didn't plan on selling them until December, that's not very good business.
Are you saying that you should never accept any numbers, or information, given to you by anyone involved in that industry/company/government ever? Sony have the most accurate figures you can have for number of Move units they've sold/that have been produced(like any other company with their own products). No other entity has as accurate information. You can either accept what they say, or assume everything everyone tells you is lies. Though that's not to say that information doesn't get "spun".
Yes it does, Sony shipped means Sony sold. I doubt whether Gamestop, Wal-Mart et-al are stockpiling Move units now for Xmas. If they were, why has Sony twice increased production? To meet a demand that will already be fulfilled with the units that have been stockpiled? |
As for "SHIPPED FIGURE IS SOLD," yes it was sold to the retailer, not to the individual consumer. This is important because stores have inventories, while individual consumers don't (unless we are speaking of the Italian mafia and cigarettes like in Goodfellas). Henceforth, SHIPPED FIGURE IS SOLD TO RETAILER NOT NECESSARILY EACH AND EVERY SHIPPED SOLD TO INDIVIDUAL CONSUMER to use your tone.
As for trusting the credibility of sources, the best thing I learned from a Master's degree and 7 years of college is never to take numbers at face value. Those who have a financial interest in the numbers dictate to their numbers analysts what they want them to say, which is pushed on down the communication line to managers and spokesman.
It is in Sony's best interest to conflate shipped and sold to retailers as shipped and sold to individual consumers. Same standard is applied to numbers from Microsoft, Nintendo and each and every invested industry interest. Numbers will be inflated and conflated because doing so causes hype.
The only numbers I trust are 1st party numbers verified from 3rd party industry trackers such as NPD and VGChartz. So yes, I do trust Sony's and every other vested interest's numbers after they have been collected, organized and analyzed by independent entities. The best way to alleviate a lot of doubt and skepticism is to create an independent, preferably governmental agency who tracks videogame sales along with music, movies and books. This way, with the annual budget process they don't have to be captured by industry in order to get their data in the first place; instead they can demand it with the full legal backing of the US Federal Government.
However, in this political climate with about a 3rd of the US population opposed to any governmental spending, if we had to rebuild the interstate highway system it would never get done because of conservative Republicans and Tea Party loons. Same thing with Hoover Dam, Bonneville Dam and all the other big infrastructure projects which brought such good to so many. Yet, I digress.
