I think a table will make more easy to you .

Avg. with End of 2010 (supply issues): 1.6m

Avg without End of 2010 (supply issues): 1.9m

Where did you got the 1.37m avg???

The only thing we can be sure about is that all those XBoxes aren't collecting dust on those shelves: a friend of the brother-in-law of my cousin was told by a reliable source that MS is moneyhatting shop assistants all around the world to dust them every day. O-)

rolf nice one

I live in a PAL territory (Australia).

The amount of 360 specials leading up to christmas (complete with a $50 cashback offer) at ALL the major retailers was astonishing. As was their prominence in catalogues leading to christmas, and TV advertisements (I watch a lot of Pay TV - 360 ads outnumber PS ads about 3:1 and Nintendo 2:1). Friendly exchanges with local managers said that while PS3 was steady, 360 had jumped over %25 in sales. Anecdotal. Sure.

It just astounds me that with all these people talking about PAL Country = PS3 country (with the obvious exception of the UK) - no one's actually thought - hey this casual/Kinect effect that was so big in the USA the last couple of Christmases - may have actually caught on a tad elsewhere? Or did the Wii only sell bonkers in the USA because they're the only market with a large casual base? That maybe they may have waited a year to see how it all went, and now a year later - Kinect, with a larger game library of titles that appeal to them, and all this talk of "world records" and "big in the states" may have turned their head?

Even here in "PS3/PAL country" I've been quite surprised by the amount of (casual) PS2 owners telling me they want to upgrade to Kinect. These are people whose first console was a PS1, then went to PS2. And have been waiting for them to "put PS2 Backwards compat" back in before they buy PS3's - as that's what they've grown accustomed to. I was at Big W (large chain department store) and while looking through the video games (I was the only person in the section) I was joined by a dad and his two young daughters who yelled to mum "we're just gonna look at the DS and Kinetic* (sic) games". This surprised the hell out of me! They were the only other people in the games section the whole 5 minutes I was there (apart from my wife and son).

I'm not saying all of a sudden "PS3 country" has been burnt to the ground, just that to take it as some kind of gospel that PAL territories are blinded by Sony's shiny goods and are swearing a lifetime allegiance to the brand that will never be broken - is kinda shortsighted, and takes us for granted a little , just as Sony have of late with lack of BC, late launch, insane PS3 pricing $999 AUD on launch. Australians buy more tech goods per capita than most developed nations, including consoles, and often want the "hot item" of the month/year. Which as far as console mainstream/casual appeal - the Kinect definitely has at the moment.

So I've got no hard figures, no hard facts, and really very little speculation. It's just very surprising to see people get their panties twisted about something that really, with less than a %5 christmas swing (that VGC may not have accounted for) in a lot of these PAL territories is not an entirely unrealistic prospect.

I'm not disputing anyone's "research" either in this (or other) thread/s or indeed on this site - but some of you are being kinda narrow minded about this. The world is bigger than the US/UK/Japan - and indeed France. And to call Ballmer's (I think he's an arse regardless) claim ludicrous, when NOT ONE COMPETITOR has disputed it - incredibly naive. Do you think he made the figures up? I'm pretty sure Sony or Nintendo would call him out on that , don't you think? Or even if they had no hard figures to prove he was wrong say something along the lines of "that doesn't match with our figures at this stage" or "we're awaiting our final figures, don't believe MS just yet!" - or just hand him the free "best selling of 2011" PR card for no charge. What's it been now - a week? And nothing but tumbleweeds.

Anyway - it's been fun, keep the passion alive!

*Many aussies don't care too much for "correct" language. I had a friend who continued to call Han Solo's ship The Minellian Falcon all through primary school, as did his brother and dad! Liza should sue!)

One thing I will say as a retailer is that MS shipments were actually substantially less after BF and during November we completly sold through 360's. Stores throughout December had a pretty good stock on 360's but nothing really over normal levels.

Now I'm not gonna claim that 360 for sure sold more than PS3 or vice versa because I have no idea about outside of America but I will say the gap between the 66 million number doesn't seem to be just over shipments because MS did have massive shipments this year, but they were in November NOT December.

Well, someone posted in another thread that the PS3 had passed the Wii and 360 in Australia for the year up to Oct 26th (helped by the recent price cut).  From the time of the price cut until then, they had outsold the 360 3 to 1.  I'm sure the ratio dropped in Nov and Dec, but I would bet that the PS3 remained ahead of the 360 for the rest of the year.  So, if the 360 is undertracked there, then so would the PS3. 

As far as Kinect goes, its mostly selling well in the US and I believe the UK.  It didn't really take off in the other regions of EU or in Japan on launch, so I doubt a full year later sales for it would just explode to push the 360 above the PS3 in regions where the PS3 was already outselling the 360 by a good margin.

Also, Sony nor Nintendo care about MS's claims, because if the real numbers show MS to be wrong, it'll just make MS look foolish (granted, not many people will care).  So, there's no point in getting in a childish back and forth with MS over a silly claim (especially if its a false one).  Besides, I don't think Sony said anything about being ahead of MS even though they beat them in 2009 and 2010.

As more and more numbers are revealed, it's all just basically pointing to retailers taking in more 360's than were needed, possibly making them #1 in shipments, while the PS3 took 2011 in sales.

Not necessarily - if going by the last hard indication of data (not to be confused with real numbers though, the Australian market is almost impossible to get hard console HW numbers from, save what the companies announce, which if you're lucky is twice a year, and usually incredibly ambiguously) we had from Australia, which as you said was that the PS3 had outsold the xbox 3 to 1 up til October.

(and once again - I'm not sure how VGC estimates Aus sales week to week)

But if upon this news - VGC had calculated PS3/360 sales in this region on that 3:1 ratio and the ratio (Nov/Dec11) was closer - anywhere between 2:1 or the anecdotal reports from retail managers of 1:1 - that could throw 100k - 300k off something seriously.

A point I'd made a month or so ago in one thread or another that kind of got buried - similar to your gift cards (as in I posted it as proof that of course MS were sponsoring giftcard deals, when there was discussion along those lines) , in Australia MS were offering $50 CASH BACK WITH ALL MODELS SOLD (save for the Arcade/Core) ACROSS ALL RETAILERS REBATE FORM IN THE BOX type deal. This (similar giftcard deal) seemed to spur some mad sales in the US, and I don't doubt elsewhere. As I said anecdotal evidence from retail managers I know personally (the WORST kind of anecdotal evidence!) had seen 360 sales double, and I doubt every major massmarket retailer (Kmart/BigW/JBHifi) and game retailer (EB/Game) devoting the largest portion of their catalogues to these $50 CASHBACK console bundles wouldn't have had some impact on sales.

MS may very well have made this 66M worldwide - without smoke and mirrors. But with a LOAD of worldwide cashbacks/Giftcards MARKETING PUSH.

So - are you in another country where MS offered some kind of cashback deal? I doubt it was exclusive to AU/USA alone. A few people peeping up may well explain how MS was able to swing the 360:PS3 ratio down in PAL territories. Or not?  I don't know it all, but this would seem likely. If Sony or Nintendo had disputed it - I'd call BS, but the more time goes by (they've had a week now) the more likely I believe it is actually %100 true.

In 3 weeks, we will know all the answers.

Almost all, as sales to end users can't really be estimated beyond a certain precision. But we'll know shipments, that are meaningful infos and are very useful to check and refine sales to end users estimates.

the 360 outselling the ps3 in europe is as unlikely as the ps3 having come out on top last NPD. we just knew 360 sold more just like how we know ps3 sold more in europe.