drkohler said:
A fiscal report reports how many gadgets were made in the period it applies to. It is completely irrelevant if any other gadgets are still around or where the gadgets are heading in what way. The number given is 3.3 mio units. Any speculation of a production increase (or less likely decrease) is just that, a speculation. Although such a change would likely have been newsworthy and I haven't seen anything (except the 14.2mio units Sony wants to ship this fj so at some point they have to ramp up manufacturing). How Sony is shipping at this time is another wide open field for speculation. I do not think it has been "business as usual" as in previous generations, as stock is sold out everywhere. I could imagine that some % of stock is flown in where stock has been too low for a too long period. The problem is if there is no stock for too long a time, people might get pissed first, then disinterested. That is something Sony/MS certainly would want to avoid. |
The fiscal report is about money, the 3.3 million is the figure Sony counts as sold, manufacturing capability is an internal matter that they don't (and don't have to) report, though sometimes companies choose to release certain figures or extra information for general information, similar to press releases.
Shipping issues & the extra high level of demand are indeed not business as usual, but the fiscal year still ends at the same time, & it's trying to get higher figures for that end-of-year report still applies. There may have been airfrieght but it's a fantastically expensive solution, consoles are not food, they don't spoil so if it's shipped late you can still sell it. As you say it's speculation but IMO Sony wouldn't resort to airfreight except in extreme situations like the Evergiven situation, and even then it wouldn't amount to a large portion of units sold.
At the moment it's a wait & see till Sony's release anyway... personally I suspect the shipment figure will be similar to the previous quarter give or take 300k. Whether that means adjustments are neccessary I don't know, just remember this is still the early phase of PS5 life, even with it being hard to find the shipments are likely to exceed sales as it slowly becomes available for sale in more countries/regions & even stores. (given how hard it is to find though a stock level of 1m+ seems unlikely)
Mostly likely there will also be a press release to wait for when Sony estimates 10 million sales.... They do their own estimates of sales to consumers & usually make a press release at those kind of milestones. For PS4 this was Aug 13th 2014, about 6-7 weeks after they had shipped 10 million btw.
