I'm with yo_john on this. I don't know what the hell is going on. If Ballmer says No. 1, then we debate what he meant by No. 1, and on top SON¥ says nada, we might never know by how much the gap went down in 2011.

He was spotted raiding Japanese shops, he was disguised as a sumo wrestler, but they busted him because he was yelling his battle cry  "Developers Developers Developers Developers..."

Maybe they mistook the November boom for a trend. Maybe they overproduced to get it cheaper for some components there were going to increase price. Maybe they stuffed the channel only to claim victory. Maybe they are including first shipments to regions the X360 was to launch. Perhaps it's all of it together.

Honestly I wouldn't expect a mega sales boost anywhere six years into it's lifetime, with no pricecuts at all. That's what I expected to happen with the Gamecube guys, and it only brought disappointment in the end.

This! If Sony sold more don't you think they would have announced it by now instead of just saying they're on track to make shipments?

I go with MS has overshipped X360's for the simple reason to stay second in this generation so long as possible because sony passing them will create a negative backslash.

Sure I want to believe that X360 did better in whole of europe but it is coming from the same guys/girls who said how incredible the numbers are going to be in USA and who tried very hard to make people who dare to talk about adjustments look like a fool.

Never put your heart in Vgchartz numbers...

I think MS claimed they are the manufacturer who sold the most consoles in the past year. Simply, just XBOX360 shipment figure may be higher than PS3. But without MS and SONY provides the FY report, everything is just a guessing.

Nintendo will be the ones to resolve this with their European gfk charts in the quarterly financials.

I'm still on the fence either way.

1) I feel MS/Ballmer "sort of"claimed number one but his language was uncertain next to other statements - number 1 in US, etc all of which were clear. He said - unless I've missed other comments - "number one sales" without any clear qualification of those sales - were they sold to retail, sold to consumers, was he even talking units? sales could be sales revenue, units or whatever.

2) NPD has some unexpected - to say the least - numbers and currently is looks very tricky to consider how to balance NPD with VG and determine where certain gaps might exist.

3) unless I'm missing something there seems some confusion regarding the IGN numbers. I've seen people saying MS contacted IGN directly to correct statements but when I looked at IGN their statement said they'd changed numbers based on an MS press release which clarified the numbers. They helpfully didn't include a link to the press release.

So basically I'm going to wait and see what MS, Sony and Nintendo disclose for shipments and their timeframe before considering this much further.

I think MS has a damn good chance of being number 1, I think Sony has a chance of being number 1 (for worldwide unit sales) but I think there's too much noise in the signal right now to be sure.

One thing I am feeling right now is it was close!

EDIT: to quote Kow from another thread which I think nicely sums it up:

"To be honest this thread along with every other sales thread is, at this point.... er.... pointless until we see all of the shipment data, even then it might end in a stale mate."

I still stand by the notion that companies refer to units shipped when they state 'sold'. Since technically they've sold it to retailers, unless i've misunderstood shipping.