Was MS Wrong When They Claimed The #1 Spot For HW Sales WW?

[MARCUSDJACKSON]

RolStoppable said:

Darth Tigris said:
Who won? Whoever you feel, because many of you will either latch on to whatever source supports your position or even create your own truth. Such is the nature of fanaticism.

Question, though: Is there any 'official' source outside of VGC that is declaring the PS3 the sales leader for 2011?

2nd question: Overshipping or over-ordering? Do the product manufacturer's decide how many units of their product are shipped to retail outlets, or do they simply fulfill product orders that the retail outlets request? Both MS and Sony have now been accused of overshipping, so hopefully that question can be answered without bias for how things turned out THIS year ...

1) Microsoft's response to January NPD put an asterisk behind their claim of having been the worldwide sales leader in 2011. It's based on shipment data from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft did not confirm that they won in sellthrough, either because they don't know accurate enough worldwide sellthrough numbers for 2011 or because they know them and are only #2. But since Microsoft should have access to a lot of numbers, the latter seems more probable, but of course it can't be said with absolute certainty.

2) Microsoft has set a precedence for channel stuffing earlier in this generation. Their declared goal was to sell ten million Xbox 360 consoles before the PS3 even launched, because "the first console to hit ten million wins the generation". They fell clearly short of this goal, but this didn't stop them from shipping in excess of ten million Xbox 360s by the end of 2006 to announce that they have hit that mark at least in shipments. They put pressure on retailers by denying them Windows Vista which was supposed to be a great seller, so most retailers accepted to buy more 360s than they actually needed. Then in the first two quarters of 2007, Microsoft was only able to ship 0.6m and 0.7m 360s, respectively.

In 2011 Microsoft once again set a lofty goal that was originally meant to be sellthrough (Don Mattrick's comment was clarified right after E3, I think), but has been moved to shipments since then. This is why the latter option of point 1) seems more likely, because if Microsoft had no good way of knowing sellthrough data, then they wouldn't have claimed to become the worldwide leader in sellthrough in the first place. Given the precedence set in 2006, it cannot be ruled out that Microsoft did something similar in 2011, although this time around there's not really a product (that I know of) that Microsoft could have used to "convince" retailers to buy more stock than what they would have ordered normally.

...

So these are the things to consider and I don't really care who won. I hate Sony. I hate Microsoft. Thus I will say this: Winning in a declining market isn't really something to brag about. There are bigger concerns than who is coming out on top.

i agree with allot of what Rol said but. the bold i agree with hands down. 

then again i do play more Wii sports resort these days.