actually its pretty much what you said. forward orders for what? february? march? april?

plus,  your warehouse, truck ship excuse doesnt work. the ps3 was selling out, so why would they take their sweet time to transport the units to retail? naturally, they'd be rushing the stocks to stores to capitalize on the christmas sale.

try again.

Wal-mart has a huge and complex internal warehouse and trucking system, they almost always hold back and retain stock.  Same deal but smaller scale for Target, K-Mart, etc.

And not many companies are going to go through the heavy expense to overnight PS3s (that they make a pittance on) just because they may have sold out, especially if they have units scheduled via ocean freight or something.  You can't just will the boat to move faster, the docks to clear faster, customs to inspect faster, etc.  This isn't taking their sweet time, this is how shipping logistics work.

Again, 2-3m in the channel is NORMAL.  The only times you won't see it is when there are dramatic and prolonged supply constraints, like Wii's first 2 years or the first year of DSL.  Or if a company smooth talks retailers and channel stuffs to meet lofty targets (this generation Sony and MS have both done this, though not recently).

Why do people keep saying the PS3 is undertracked on this site? It isn't. GET OVER IT!

so, they'd rather retain stocks than sell them to make more money? riiigght!

as for  shipping, ever heard of forcasting? what ever ps3s that are in transit via cargo ships or wwhatever that are scheduled to arive after the christmas season are ment for sale in january-feb-march. most, if not all ps3s, or any retail item for that matter that are meant for sale during Nov-december are forcasted ahead of time, some even do their sales forecasts as eary as jun-sept. meaning,  manufacturers are given schedules when they need to ship out and deliver their goods to cover the retailers orders.

knowing that the demand after the christmas season will drop to 150-200k per week WORLDWIDE, and having almost 3M units in CHannel is NOT NORMAL. it is grossly grossly over stocked and will most likely be returned to the  manufacturer. and obviously,  the ps3 was selling out andd shortages were observed, meaning, sony didn't have to flood the market with too mcuh ps3s just to hit targets as it was obvious that they were barely meating demand.

Wal-mart will redirect shipments to more in demand areas (even at the expense of selling out elsewhere) and they'll strategically hold back stock for a variety of reasons (upcoming holidays, large game releases, big sales, etc).  Plus even within Wal-mart's system it takes time to get things on shelves... if they sell out Thursday, they're still going to have to wait for next Monday's truck to arrive with stock.  I mean really, this isn't rocket science here.

Also, I'm not saying 2.7m PS3 were on freighters as of December 31st, but I'm saying "in channel".  That means on shelves, that means in retail warehousing and storage (both B&M and online btw, Amazon didn't seem to run out of PS3s), that means in ocean fright, air freight, customs clearance, mail service, etc.  With your "forecasting" it's pretty obvious you have no clue how shipment logistics actually work, or even how Sony's accounting methods work (hint: when it leaves their production facilities in Japan, China or Mexico it's "shipped" and counted), nevermind that in the current economic climate you're going to see a more cautious retail environment.  Better to sell out than to clog shelves.  Thankfully, it looks like there wasn't much of either going on this year for PS3 in general, though the 120GB did have scattered sellouts (the 250GB however was plentiful).

2-3m units "in channel" is not only normal, it's healthy. Less than that and you're supply constrained, more and you're overshipping or channel stuffing.  2-3m is really the standard for a worldwide game platform.

Like I said, "incredibly odd to me". I'm just commenting on the numbers from my perspective, I didn't realize that was reason enough to attack me.