Shinobi-san said:
Strange situation we find ourselves in..i believe a first in this generation too, where one manufacturer out shipped all the competition by almost a million yet there's a dispute over whether or not they sold through more.
I just don't see it happening though, 360 out shipped PS3 by ~800k that is not a small number in any sense, i can't see how they shipped that much more yet did not sell through as much? Despite the evidence that suggests that is indeed the case, I'm gonna go with my gut and give the win to 360 for sold through sales.
lets face it, there's a higher % chance of companies that estimate sales being off by a few 100k than their is of PS3 outselling the 360 despite a 800k gap in shipment figures. Logic tells me to go with the former.
Not to mention some regions aren't even tracked, 360 could have had increased sales in those regions.
Ironically, had the roles been reversed, i think many of you guys would be arguing the exact opposite to what you are currently arguing for or against  |
Right, i'm going to break this down for you & everybody else who is having trouble understanding how shipping & the retail channel work because i can see that a lot of people just don't understand the numbers. Because we don't have Jan-March 2012 fiscal numbers yet we can't show to what extent Microsoft overshipped during the previous quarter of Oct-Dec 2011, however we do have Oct-Dec 2010 & Jan-March 2011's numbers to use as an example of microsoft overshipping in a quarter this year.
When companies sell products not only do they need to ship enough to sell to consumers, they also need to ship enough to have a healthy supply chain of consoles on shelves, in warehouses & in transit.
During the quarter of Oct-Dec 2010 Microsoft shipped 6.3 million consoles, yet using Vgchartz numbers you can see that for that quarter they actually sold 6.89 million consoles. Between retail & Microsoft they underestimated how many consoles they would sell & ended up undershipping for that quarter. When this happened there were shortages at the end of the year & the normal amount of consoles that should have been in the retail chain became depleted. To make up for undershipping in the Oct-Dec 2010 quarter Microsoft now had to overship in the Jan-March 2011 quarter to make up for this.
Normally for the Jan-March quarter Microsoft ships between 1.3-1.7 million consoles as shown in there fiscal statements............. in Jan-March 2011 they shipped 2.7 million consoles instead. There was no price cut for the 360 in Jan-March, there were no special offers, there were no mega blockbuster console selling exclusives released for the console either so why did the xbox360 go from shipping its normal 1.3-1.7 million consoles to 2.7 million consoles in that quarter??? The answer is simple, Microsoft had to overship to make up for undershipping the previous quarter.
And to further back up the overshipping of Jan-March 2011 you only have to look at the next few quarters of Microsoft's 2011 sales and compare them 2010's sales. If by some magic the xbox360 for no apparent reason suddenly became significantly more popular in Jan-March 2011, then this trend in sales should continue over the following months then right?........ From April-Sep 2011 Mircosoft shipped 4 million consoles, however from April-Sep 2010 Mircosoft shipped 4.3 million consoles. How does it make any sense that worldwide the xbox360 during Jan-March 2011 became significantly more popular by almost double compared to what it sold in Jan-March 2010 to then go on to sell less during April-Sep 2011 compared to April-Sep 2010? The answer is it doesn't make any logical sense and yet again confirms that Microsoft overshipped during Jan-March 2011.
Regardless of wether Microsoft overshipped in Oct-Dec 2011 it is already a fact that they overshipped in Jan-March 2011.
