5.5 Million PS3s Shipped

[mancandy]

reverie said:
Ok, then tell me any other company that breaks out sold to retail vs. sold to consumer. Any industry.

Disconnects between those two numbers are important and therefore should make news. However in a free market economy they will alway be temporary. Sony can fill the shelves of all their 100.000 retailers they partner with all over the world, but they can do that just once. After that they will have to wait for follow-up oreders to come in and slow demand will clearly show in "sold to retail" by the next quarter. The same thing happened to Microsoft after Christmas. "Sold to retail" is entirely adequate to measure real sales performance.

Further, Sony always comment NPD numbers in a way that tells you that they don't dispute them.

If I were an investor, I would like to know how many units that have been bought by consumers. Since Sony is losing money on each console sold, I would want to know how many customers actually have the system so I know the potential softwares sales. The consoles sitting on the shelves does Sony no good. If they are trying to make money buy selling software, how are the systems at the retailers going to convince me to invest in Sony? Smart investors should know all the facts, especially the facts that will make money.