Because most of the people debunking it are right and have a track record of being level headed and smart. Last months NPD for PS3 was 119k over 5 weeks. Here is the Math: 23.8k a week being sold last month. That already shows howard stringer is full of shit and just flat out lied about selling 30-40k a week before the 40gb system came out. If you apply the 150-250% to 23.8k you get an increase to 35.7-59.5k a week, in other words, almost indentically in line with ioi's recent 40gb ps3 numbers in weekly sales.

Nobody should be banned for actually analyzing the facts instead of blindly taking a company's mouth piece as gospel.  Do you realize if you take Stringer's low end lies of 30k a week:  30k * 5 = 150k.  It makes you wonder when he already has the 119k from NPD how he has the guts to say that.

Great news for the US, combined with very positive sales reports for Europe (according to Sony, best selling home console since 40GB model introduction) and Japan (beating Wii sales for the first time) things do seem to be at a turning point.

I was expecting the PS3 to perform considerably better with the price cuts and release of the cheaper 40GB model, an independent survey indicated the PS3 was higher on the wishlists of US residents for christmas than the XBox 360. So I still have hope for the PS3 to beat the XBox 360 this holiday season globally.

Well, it will be interesting to see NPD's numbers on PS3 for October tonight. If I'm correct there are 2 weeks included from before the price cut and 2 weeks after the price cut. So if Sony's numbers are really sold to customers NPD data should be 60-80k for the first 2 weeks combined and then rise to around 75k a week for the last 2 weeks. So unless PS3 sales end up above 200k these numbers do not match sold to customers in the US.

Edit: Considering they state the week of October 29 sales were 75k I assume now I should only add 1 week of higher sales within the October NPD numbers. So that would be 90-120k for the first 3 weeks and then 75k for the last one. Should still give sales of 165-195k for October though. 

Why are you amazed? Everytime Sony makes a price drop/adjustment, introduces a new bundle, and/or releases a new SKU sales of the PS3 spike for a few weeks and then fall back to third place levels again. If anything you should be wondering why everytime this occurs people immediately make a thread touting Sony's improved sales position. Sony has yet to sustain a sales level greater than the 360.

When MS cut the price of the 360 and subsequently released Halo 3, the 360 sales jumped and have remained at an elevated level. That is something to get excited about, and if something similiar occurs with PS3 then and only then could I see such excitement. Posters are skeptical because frankly we have seen this before and until sustained numbers show differently its just another temporary spike.

Side Note: It seems I hit on the same points as Erikers.

It's a nice bump in sales, but 100k a week isn't that special compared to everyone else right now. I think they're jumping the gun touting their sales. Wait 'till things level off before you start hailing this as a turn around for the PS3. It's entirely possible that sales could fall flat after the holidays.

Doesn't the NPD track sales to consumers and not to retailers like some are suggesting?

I obviously don't work that closely with the numbers like ioi or others here may, so I just have to ask that. Even though you do a great job ioi, I would like to see PS3 numbers improve greatly as it seems it's selling quite well right now.

the price cut has very little to do with it except in europa, its all been game releases, not to say a price drop did not help. but with cod4, Dynasty warriors 6, both out last week sales got a boost like they would from any highly anticipated good game.

As always - how does Sony have *ANY* idea of weekly sales in the US? Why wouldn't their "sales" be shipped figures (i.e .what they SOLD TO STORES) like they always are?

These are the numbers they get paid on, they numbers that matters for their fiscal - AND the only numbers they can track.

It actually makes sense for the shipped figure to rise for this week, as stores build up more stock for Xmas sales.
...

We'll have to wait a FULL month to get NPD verification on this data - and by then there will be some other story grabbing our attention.

(you don't see them making such statements in Japan - as all the numbers are well tracked/reported)

That could be ... especially with this steallr Japanese week :D

Here's a little clarification on that Sony 100k number.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=amjWQwK2k3Bs

Tokyo-based Sony cut the PlayStation 3 price by $100 to $499 on Oct. 18 and introduced a $399 model on Nov. 2. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft dropped the price of the cheapest Xbox 360 to $280 from $300 in August. Wii sells for $249.

The price cut and new model helped Sony increase sales of all consoles including the older PlayStation 2 to 100,000 units in the week ended Nov. 11, spokeswoman Kimberly Otzman said in an e-mail.

Harrison said Wii sales during the same week exceeded that number by a ``double-digit percentage. He declined to provide a specific figure.

The Xbox 360 outsold Wii, introduced last November, for the first time in September on surging demand for the software maker's ``Halo 3,'' made exclusively for Xbox. In October ``Halo 3'' sales totaled 433,800, NPD said.