How does Sony track sales?

[Landguy]

vivster said:

Landguy said:

I can tell you that 15 years ago when I ran a number of Best Buy stores, I could tell you how many PS2's sold on any given day at the company and how many were instock company wide.

That was 15 years ago.  I would find it hard top believe that by now, almost every retailer has some level of electronic inventory.  So, getting the totals for atleast months end if not weekly/daily should not be too hard.

Yes, but how does another company acquire these numbers? Are they ordered to report them? Is Sony going around and asking nicely? If I look at all the estimations research firms have to make I doubt information like this is freely available.

I can tell you that LARGE vendors like Sony or M$ get whatever sales data they want from companies that are reselling their products.  It is actually extremely helpful in helping both companies keep products in stock for customers.  I think Sony or M$ could tell you almost any given day how many systems are sold if they wanted to.  Their just isn't a lot of benefit to give the copetition the info.  All of these 3rd party companies put togehter the info for sale to competing companies.  Sony doesn't need NPD to tell them the PS4's sales, they want the sales numbers of the XB1 and WiiU.