One thing always bothers me when MS or any major company releases sold to consumer numbers, how the hell do they know exactly how much every single retailer has sold world wide, bottom line they don't they are either guessing or releasing shipped numbers when it's close to being sold out because they can get away with it 

How can you say that?  Every single retailer worldwide will know exactly how many of each item they sold to consumers.  They have to keep track of this by law.  It would be very simple for MS to contact those retailers and cumulate all of them together.

The great thing is, since these numbers are sold to consumers, there's no hiding the facts behind shipments.

simple to contact one not to contact literally millions, it's a waste of money and manpower for something a company really doesn't need to know not to mention the fact that the companies don't have to release the numbers to MS, the policy of many might be to not release that kind of information so no it is not a simple matter of a few phones calls not to mention laws vary from country to country, something people seem to forget the world is bigger then the US 

They don't need to contact millions though.  They only need to contact the worldwide headquarters of the top 50-100 video game/electronics related retailers.  Those should cover 95% or more of total sales and the rest can be very easily estimated.

There is that word again, like I said in my original post it's either a guess or a lie, and you just proved my point, shipped numbers are exact, sold to consumers are a guess, however you want to sugar coat it, it's a guess and you don't know how many worldwide release their numbers, you don't know how long it takes to get to their worldwide  headquarters, you don't know how many smaller stores are selling them (there are far more then 100 video game retailers worldwide, you are obviously ignoring anything that isn't a massive chain store) that 95% is made up, so again it's a guess or a lie and not accurate

EDIT: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/nov10/11-29msxboxblackfridaymopr.mspx 

"Kinect is now available at more than 60,000 retailers in 38 countries" so much for your 100 worldwide headquarter theory 

Wow, you must have been dropped on your head as a child or something.

kinect is a GREAT idea give it a rest haters,i have noticed that in lots of gens the underdog always realeases the next big thing.

sony had their moment with ps1 full polygons and better effects than ninty or sega,the wii with wii-mote and now microsoft with kinect.next gen microsoft will have a great advantage over their last gen as people will know them better for introducing a fun new way to play with kinect.

give credit where it is due please.long live microsoft,long live kinect.i am happy to be finally gaming with my family,kids and wife and relatives and friends,

who used to ask me to grow up when seeing me gaming.now these same people want in on gaming because of their experience with kinect........JOB WELL DONE MICROSOFT AND KINECT,mission accomplished.some what just keep on trucking.

How is kinect new when it's just a minor technological upgrade from the pseye? And if Sony came out with kinect with the same games but without the massive hype/advertisement there is no way you would be praising them like you are MS 

Lol.  And while my numbers are purely guesses as I have no knowledge of how they do it, it is a very very likely explanation.

Microsoft themselves say the figures are sold through to consumers.  Obviously as big of a corporation as they are, they can have quite an extensive tracking system to know these figures.  Just because you can't fathom it or want to believe MS is lying, doesn't make it so.

I'm sorry, I tried to give you reasonable explanations but it is clear now that you just don't want to accept that Kinect is selling so massively well.