1.  I have not read anywhere that the PS3 outsold the Wii in the US for the month of September, just that it was up WoW compared to August.  I did read that Michael Pachter said it sold 312,000, though.

2. The comments from the SCEE rep specifically mention Europe and North America (not Japan or any other region). That means he is specifically commenting on NA sales being a strong contributer to the 15 million number.  That's not me stretching anything.

3. Why do defenders of the 1.5 million number keep avoiding the elephant in the room?  It is IMPOSSIBLE to get an install base from that figure.  1st of all it most likely is a SHIPPED number and not SOLD to consumers.  2nd he didn't state what those figures represent (bundles? ps eye?  move and nav controllers?). And, most importantly, 3rd he can't state how many of these are individual move purchases.

Now I do agree that we don't know what the interviewer asked.  We can only go by the select quotes chosen for the article (which rarely give the whole picture).  But that's all we have so that's what my comments are based upon.  

For the record, I just want Sony to upfront about the numbers they report.  This approach attempts to give the impression that Move sold 1.5 million in its first month of release just in Europe.  I don't see how that's defensible unless you just want to see Sony 'win'.  I guarantee that publishers will look at that and not be fooled, especially when software sales are so much lower.

My thoughts exactly.  Especially since the September NPD would have shown massive YoY drops for the PS3 and yet this guy still is quoted as saying they have massive YoY growth.

For the remainder of the year Sony is going to be down YoY by a considerable amount.  There's no way around it.  A few new bundles and a peripheral that is only seeing mild demand/interest compared to competitors is NOT going to push their sales to last year's levels.  GT5 will only offset the YoY drops for a few weeks.

Bolded 1:  Yeah, Nintendo announced the Wii sold only 254k for the month (I coulda sworn I saw you post in that thread, but I guess my mind is playing tricks on me).

Bolded 2:  I kinda assumed that was a given to anyone discussing these figures, but I suppose that's an overly optimistic view of the world.  =(

Bolded 3:  I guess I see what you're saying.  I didn't really see it as an issue given #2.

seriously! :D This is now borderline desperate. So when PR says hey, our cars are better quality than theirs and they do not care about the customers like we do....and cuz this PR person has been critical of their own ways a while back...means you can take their comments as fact...

yeah, makes perferct sense, I guess he learned about these with his undercover super spies in SOny or when he attended the Sony board meetings where the PPT presentation clearly talked about how Sony is not confident and how they don't give a F*&%^%...also about how they went to the trouble of getting a million dollar deal with Coca Cola (Which btw they could have made a deal about ps3 itself but they went with move instead) and how they are slowly but surely marketing the device by sending millions more on it etc. are all clear clear facts that back up PR! OMGZERZ I S33 DA LIGHT!

Regarding the comment on being upfront, I reckon Sony probably are being uprfont (or as much as any business is including their competitors).

We're trying to guess install base - they are simply reporting units shipped.  Sony have no more idea on the actual sales than we do unless retailers chose to give then unique transaction feedback, which they very probably aren't.  In fact they almost certainly aren't.

All Sony knows at this point can be summed up as:

a) 1.5 million units across Europe of Move bundles, Wands and Navi's have been purchased by retailers which is what was mentioned.  They will also know the specific splits - i.e. how many Move bundles vs Move Wans

b) they may have some idea of sell-through in total - say 1.3 of the 1.5 have sold or whatever.  They aren't sharing this of course.

c) they may have more accurate software figures than us, again they aren't sharing what they have whether higher or lower for the Move titles.

Move by its nature is very hard to break down from unit sales to install base, as you rightly note - but not just for us, for Sony, too.  They sell to retailers, and only retailers have the actual individual transactions and these are almost never shared.  So Amazon.co.uk know I bought 2 Wands and a Navi as one customer, but all they're report back to Sony is the total, not the individual transaction that does reveal install base.

Now, thinking about software, with patches for existing titles like Eyepet, RE5 and Heavy Rain for some there is no initial need to buy software.  While we do have some Move specific title sales, these are fragmented and each must contain it's own margin of error.  Also, there are lots of demos meaning you could buy the Move hardware and easily muck around with demos for a while before even deciding to buy software.  So I think even the Move software sales we have aren't a great guide to install base either, although they do give some additional info.  We also have Eyepet sales and the knowledge that, with the patch, any Eyepet owners must surely have found buying one Wand a pretty attractive option.

In short, I feel pretty sure retailers across Europe have purchased approx 1.5 million units of Move related hwardware, with the highest ratio of units being the bundle and the smallest the navi.

Anything else is really wild speculation at this point, including, to be blunt, ioi and this site's team's estimates as well.

As for your other points:

without NPD we can't be sure but analyst releases seem to indicate the PS3 may well have outsold Wii - personally I'll wait for more releases and info before making any conclusions either way.

I also don't see any major comments to US except with the notion that in total they'll make their numbers and that demand has been strong.  His YOY comment will almost certainly be looking at weekly averages and improvements overall for the year and not a direct comparison to specific YOY against the PS3 Slim launch - i.e. he's commenting on YOY trend with the spikes smoothed out.  Spin, but nothing you won't see from any of the players.  Next year the 360 will almost certainly be down YOY vs the Slim launch but if the average weekly trend is positive relative to the market MS will almost certainly use the same spin.

Here is the Bloomberg link I read.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-14/sony-sees-strong-europe-christmas-sales-says-ps3-may-beat-its-targets.html

I feel you're seeing more here than there is, and are assuming Sony are aiming to deliberately mislead, when in fact in terms of specifics of Move sales they probably don't know that much more than us.

Personally, playing with the ratios my own, probably inaccurate, guesstimate is that if 1.5 million units have been sold to retailers, and say 1.3 sold to consumers...

then the install base is probably around 700K to 800K at this point...

with Sports Champions the most popular new Move software purchase so far - I also suspect a lot of Move Wand sales were driven by Eyepet owners.  There are 500K Eyepet's sold in EMEA going by this site, and that means for the cost of one Move wand those owners can upgrade via the patch to a much better version of the game as they already have an EyeToy and a game ready to go.  I'm guessing that at least 25% to 35% of owners did so.  The ratio could be even higher potentially - it really depends on the ratio of active EyePet users (I'm assuming some must have stopped using the title).

You wrote a lot... I deleted it. Anyway boiling it down to this one single point, the whole 'am I reasonable' question anyone in your position asked. It is a philisophical question. The likely answer is of course that it is likely PSN connected PS3s phone home at certain intervals. So of course they would know what ratio of hardware people are buying because they need to pass this information on developers who need to know how many Move, Nunchuck and Dual Shocks there are and what ratio in order to stipulate an appropriate number to use for multiplayer or single player. Like for instance, developers may want to know how common dual Move controllers would be.

First of all, it is not Sony that says "we sold 1.5mio starter packs in a month", it is some essentially random guy in an interview telling a number (with random guy I mean somebody who is not working in the distribution chain so he got a nice number to tell just in case anyone asks). And let's not get into the shipped vs sold debate again and again and again, of course it it sold into the distribution chain.

There are a few misconceptions that people carry like a bag of stones on their backs:

1. Move sells with software. This is patently false (as observed by me and reported from Spain/Italy numbers). Many buyers are satisfied with beating each other with swords (that's what they see at the demo stations). It is like the Wii where people would play baseball/bowling all the time and look for software weeks after they had enough.

2. "Units" = Starter packs or Dildos or Navs 1:1:1 (no eye pets or cameras were shipped at all). Sony shipped a lot more Starter packs than individual components (in Switzerland it is about 10:3:1-2). Due to this, most people buy starter packs and _maybe_ another dildo if they are available at all.

3. There are various messages/sites reporting that Pachter estimated 300'000 moves sold in NA. That obviously clashes with vgchartz 470'000 units for both areas in a major way.

4. It's the hardcore gamers that buy Move stuff. Again, by my observation, this is false. I saw all ages and gender at the demo stations and at the cashier.

5. All those people who yell "Sony lies".. get a life!

All in all, nobody knows or has the magic formula on how many "Move-enabled" PS3 units there are now, but a reasonable guess would be

Real number = current vgchartz number * 1.5 - 2.5

As the article states, he worked for Sony too.  And that Coke deal wasn't announced when he made these statements.

Nice try, though.

so an ex employeee says something bad about the previous employer, while working for the direct competition? and he didn't even know about such a big deal like the one with coca cola? (you know they most probably didn't decide on a multi million campaign over the weekend). So he made a statement without proper knowledge even. But his PR has cred?

yeah Nice try for sure, truly impressive

Seems like alot of people are missing one key word, FISCAL