VGChartz Tracking vs. Reality (PS4)

[whiteknight101]

ioi said:

whiteknight101 said:

ioi said:

If a company releases a quarterly financial report then the data in there (such as number of units shipped) must meet certain legal guidelines or as you rightly say they could get into trouble.

This is different to a press-facing statment where a company may announce an estimated sell-through figure. Firstly, the figure will be an estimate and will have an in-built margin of error depending on how it is arrived at. Secondly, a company will want to announce an impressive figure at a big press event so may round up to the nearest round unit as it looks better in headlines. They will then cover themselves with an asterisk at the botton of the press release stating that the number is an internal estimate.

Short version - there is a difference between an official financial statement aimed at shareholders and a press statement aimed at news websites.

Ok, but you're saying here that an official statement by either MS Sony or Nintendo about sell-through can be expected to be the best figure they have, offered in good faith. If that holds true, and only if that holds true, they're not breaking any laws. If they offer inexact numbers where they have any reason whatsoever to believe they performed worse than what they claimed, then that is in fact a punishable offence. Any claims of sold number of units is easily accessible to shareholders, and liable to affect the stock price, and thus any willful lie a punishable offence.

Agreed?

This is the case for both a quarterly financial report AND for when i.e. Sony opts to make an official statement that "10 million units of PS4 were sold through to consumers"?

Agreed?

So, then, acknowledging this, is there any reason whatsoever to consider e.g. mediacreate numbers to be more reliable indata for the Vgchartz algorithm than official MS/Sony/Nintendo sales numbers? Do you feel that mediacreate have access to more exact information about sell through in Japan than Sony does?

As I said, I would split it into two factors - they make a best estimate based on data they have and will then round that estimate to a whole number for the purposes of a press statement and simplicity. If I had actually sold 1.8m units of something and I released a statement saying I had sold 2m (and covered myself by saying that this was an estimate) then I wouldn't be lying as 1.8m does round up to 2m depending on what you are rounding to - it could be the nearest 1m as an extreme example. I know when a company says they have sold 5m that it will come with a margin of error on +-250k or so - it doesn't mean that they have definitely 100% sold exactly 5m units as of that data and not a unit more or a unit less. It is just an estimate as with everything else.

There are very few pieces of data out there that are truly 100% accurate, despite how people try to portray or interpret them.

Well ok, but rounding up from "1.8 million" to "2 million" isn't really the same thing as rounding an estimate to a "whole number". Rounding from 1.8 million to 2.0 million is in fact the same thing as rounding from 1800000 to 2000000.

Saying that rounding up is acceptable and legally permitted behavior for a public incorporated company when it concerns whole millions of units seems kind of arbitrary. In other words, why is 1.8 -> 2 million a legally permissible distortion while 8 -> 10 million or 90 -> 100 million is not, in your opinion?

I have no professional insight whatsoever how this works inside the organizations of MS, Nintendo and Sony, but somehow I would assume that they get some numbers on sell-through from retailers etc, and at a certain date their aggregated numbers on sell-through reach a milestone such as e.g. "10 million". Those internal sell-through numbers are probably subject to a certain amount of uncertainty (just like say Mediacreate and NPD numbers).

Nevertheless, you seem to be suggesting that it would be permissible for e.g. Sony to have their internal numbers on sell-through say 9.5 million, and make an official statement that they reached the milestone "10 million units sold through".

I don't understand how that would not constitute lying to shareholders about the performance of the company with impact on stock price?