HappySqurriel on 09 March 2007
Stromprophet said:
That's simply untrue. Even after the Christmas rush it M$ announced that they had shipped 10.4 million, but actual NPD data and all other available sales data AFTER christmas reflected somewhere from as low as 8 million to as high as 9 million.
As I said, every supplier does this. Sony is guilty of the exact thing with the PSP. I'm sure the Wii will have over supply as well before long. It's simply an inflation tactic used by the manufacturers to artificially pump up numbers.
4-6 million, is that why 360 sold only around 2 million thru q4? They didn't need to build up that many extra systems to withstand any kind of rush.
Microsoft sold (roughly) 2.15 Million consoles in North America in Q4 and probably got near to 4 Million systems sold worldwide ...
My point was (if you didn't get it) that in a 3 month timeframe (October 1st to December 31st) a company can sell an amazing quantity of consoles; in order to actually meet demand for your system you have to start building the extra systems (really) early.
Consider that if Sony began building 250,000 extra units per month as of febuary 1st it would be October 1st when they would have a 2 Million unit built up stock (assuming that they had no previous stock) ... This would be the minimum extra stock you would want if you didn't want to have serious supply problems ...
Now, companies have (previously) just increased production 2 or 3 months before the holiday rush but this tends to produce lower quality product and is more expensive ...
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