360 Numbers don't add up!

[Stromprophet]

jkfan87 said: Sorry, but anyone with even the TINIEST bit of knowledge of any business knows how ridiculous it is to suggest that the 360 had sold about 4.5 million and had an additional 1.5 million shipped. Sorry, but this is not the 1960s and companies simply do not keep that much inventory for ANY product on hand. A little leson for you, since you all are REALLY ignroant. Any store will not keep more than 1 month inventory. Inventory is the NUMBER ONE cost of a business. Therefore, if a console had sold 4.5 million units in 6 months, there is NO WAY that businesses would accept 1.5 million in inventory. It just does not happen. Not even close. Seriously...I know this is hte internet where 12 year old kids like to think they can bluff their wauy into looking like experts on every subject, but when you gt called on your bluff, all you do is lose ALL credibility for future posts. These numbers are wrong...plain and simple.

Well, the numbers certainly don't add up to 10.4 million, that is almost a certainty. Inventory is considered a "cost of revenue" it's not actually considered an ongoing expense to a company because the inventory is what they make profits on. Selling expenses, General Expenses, and Administrative Expenses all fall under category of ongoing expenses. They are money lost that cannot be made back. This would include things like wages, rents, administrative offices, and the like. None of those things can be sold. I think you don't know as much about inventory as you believe you do. Plenty of manufacturers stockpile inventory as well as end retailers. Simply put, inventory is not considered in the same cost category as expenses like wages, since Inventory can actually be called a company asset it does not "cost" the company anything. Now if a stockpile should not be sold, or if inventory includes items like trucks, forklifts, machinery, these things can have depreciation. And that would be considered money going out of the company. _______________ Back on point. Japanese numbers can be tracked very accurately, and NPD is also pretty darn accurate, in addition we have pretty good numbers from England. The other regions (Canada, the rest of Europe, Austrilia) all purchase most consoles in similar ratios to US purchases. Lastly I was doing some tabulationof just major stores that would carry a 360 in their stores. There are more than 15,000 major electronics stores that I could just think of off hand in the US. This would be walmart, cc, bb, gamestop, target, Sears holding company (which includes many, many retails chains, I subtracted its hardware divisions), Miejer (which is just a regional store for the midwest, I'm sure other regions have similar type stores that aren't national yet), Toys Rus, Kb toys. That's just what I can think of. That doesn't include inventory they keep for online sales, and also a host of smaller stores, such as gamecrazy or other retailers who might sell a 360. Internationally the numbers are equal to, or greater the the total number of US retailers that woud sell gaming consoles. A very rough estimate I would say including small little stores, total. Maybe 50,000 world wide? Maybe more. If those stores even averaged 5-20 that would be 250,000-1 million. Considering I was in BB and saw how many 360s they had sitting around, and I live in a smallish town with a regular ol BB. It was way more than just 20 360s in stock. _________________ Lastly, is it not apparent this happens? PSP is a perfect example. Didn't Sony said they had shipped (and for sony shipped means sold-thru, or sold to retailer). 20 million PSPs in the summer. This site just now has 20 million PSPs listed. And guess what, I think it's closer to the truth than Sony is telling the number shipped. NPD and Japan numbers tracked on the PSP along with the comparable ratio purchased by Europe fell way short of 20 million in the summer. So were there PSPs just sitting on shelves, yep. And lots of them. Millions? Yes as a matter of fact.