Anyways, If I understand the situation correctly, the publisher said they shipped x, while VGChartz says y are sold to consumers. The real number sold to consumers would be less than x by enough to stock the shelves. However, It also depends on when the numbers from the publisher were counted up to. If they only included sales up to Dec 31 07, then there would be a discrepancy, however, I wouldn't expect it to double sales in that time.
Other publishers have made comments about VGChartz numbers. There have been times where the publisher said the numbers have been right on. Then there have been times where a publishers shows VGChartz over tracked (didn't make a comment about VGChartz, just released numbers and when I compared, VGChartz was off)
The smaller the game is, the harder it will be for ioi to track it correctly. Maybe because the game isn't stocked, or possibly there were no sales at the stores he tracks. Say for example, the game sold 1000 copies across the US, and there are 3000 stores that sell the game, It is quite possible that ioi get a 0 for sales, but it still sold. ioi has to come up with a number, and he would probably base it off of previous weeks sales, which could lead to over or under tracking depending on how ioi estimates it.
We don't get a lot of comments on these boards from publishers or developers, so I'm sure ioi would love to hear from you, as it might help him track sales better.
Edit: I see I took to long to write about the same thing as Grey
