Its the way they work. When Microsoft 'ships' most of their products, an OEM just installs a copy into one extra machine or a tech does it in a large enterprise. They don't actually move product. Also when they did Windows 7 pre-orders they booked that already recieved monies to the quarter of release. So shipments for them tend to be more fulfilled orders which is why the PS3 / Xbox 360 shipment discrepency relative to each other exists.

This may affect how they report sales of their SW, but how does that affect how they report sales of the 360, a tangible object?  They both (at least I know for Sony) are reporting sales to retailers.  So how does MS's method of reporting HW sales to retailers make it more in line with what retailers/customers are buying?

Good post. Though there was a lot of effort to discredit posters who want to question the entire matter. You covered your behind well.

It'll be same thing second verse, could be better but it's gonna get worse.

loads have really popped out from behind the bike-shed recently havent they?

This. What Squil writes is normally true for MS business, but it doesn't apply to HW, where its sales figures are not computed very differently from competitors . But some people don't realize it, that's what generates that particular preconception in MS favour. MS has an uncanny ability about this, not directly causing ambiguity, but letting it happen and work in its favour.

I had to go to university today and the Media Markt is just around the corner so I checked if there are any PS Move left.

I asked another employee and he told me this is still the first shipment. They reduced the price as you can see. It is 55 € now. It used to be 60€. (Check first pic) Not a big deal, but still far away from the reported shortages. This is a picture I took today. At first I thought I was wrong and they are sold out, but they just moved below the Xbox 360 section at the bottom as you can see. The PS Move demo is not displayed anymore. (Check the first pic, there is a guy playing PS Move) Instead there are turntables for the Xbox 360 version of DJ Hero 2.

Wrong again.  Most of us agree that the bundles are in stock.  But it's becoming quite common for the MOVE controller itself that's hard to find.

There are Move controllers as well. I just didn't make a picture.

When I posted the first picture: Ohh that is old, probably sold out already. There are shortages!

When I post the second picture: It is just the starter kit! Everything else is sold out.... except software, subcontrollers, charging stations and PS eye.

So the starter kit is available and the first shipment is not sold out. Small price cut happened though.

software is not sold, because it is not needed... there is a demo disc! That is why there is almost no game in the PAL charts at all.

What does it take to convince you that PS Move is not the blockbuster-out-of-the-gate-success like Sony wants to make it look like? I can post myself naked covered with move controllers and you guys would probably say those aren't real ones and I faked them in my basement.

Sony isnt "trying" to make it look like anything. Having to up production to meet demand and selling 2.5 million points to Sony underestimating how much they would need. Thats all people are saying. You cant up production to meet demand and say youre selling less than anticipated. Its illogical and asinine.

Also i, as well as other posters have mentioned, the starter kit is a separate SKU, I cant speak for others but i believe sony underestimated how much the PS3 community wanted Move and over estimated how much new users would be buying the kits. Thats why we speak about Move controllers because that distinctly is A single controller.

Gauging "unique users" is just a lame attempt to diminish what we talk about on this site and thats unit sales. Theres simply no way to draw a direct substanatial correlation between a single piece of software (SC) to unique users because of the patched games as well as PSN games. We simply dont know.

We at this site have and should continue to discuss unit sales. If you want to open up that can of worms of "unique sales" to diminish this product thats your prerogative. The only thing ill say to that is i find it to be a lackluster, weak attempt considering not only VGC but all tracking institutes track unit sales, not to mention finicancial reports and real world application when discussing simply sales a unit sold is a unit sold.

Now, if you want to discuss the effect of unique users in regards to future developmental support and software sales youre simply going to have to wait for a couple of months when we get more software to compare because as it stands there are too many question marks to hold that debate.