Sony announces 18.5 million PlayStation 4 consoles sold WW

[Insidb]

Torillian said:

Insidb said:
Everyone here realizes that PS4 might not be overtracked on VGC, right? When Sony announced that they had shipped 13.5M units, they did so FOR the end of September (3rd quarter end) AT the end of October. This means that there was over a month lag in their shipped announcement, a number they can accurately track. Unless Sony has some super sell through tracking method that is up to the day, this announcement is most likely also subject to the same lag.

The official announcement specifies that this is sales to consumer as well as the timeframe which is until January 4th so it does seem that VGC is overtracked on PS4.

My point is simple: I'm pretty sure that someone didn't run up to Kaz and say, "Here are today's final numbers from all of our retailers." Typically, there is a lag in the delivery of these numbers, because of your accounting and marketing departments. For argument's sake, if you were a public company like Sony, are you going to announce older, verified numbers that will match or be beaten by quarterly reports or will you throw out a high end, nearly impossible to verify number out there? Corporations almost always default to the former, to protect themselves from beatings on the market, due to missing predictions. I'm not saying that you are wrong, but it seems far more likely that a financially troubled company like Sony would have the same lag in these numbers, in order to protect their valuation. As always, time will tell.