Just browsing the site and I noticed that there are 2 different numbers for global hardware totals... which one should I believe?

http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/

or

http://www.vgchartz.com/charts/weekly.php?reg=date=41147   (totals found on the top right column)

Nice, I want to believe that one too

I'm not really sure what that one is getting data from.... the Sega consoles and the PS1 are definately wrong on that platform totals page, and I don't understand the reason the current platforms are all slightly higher on that page than the weekly sales charts (perhaps it shows a combination of last shipped figures plus some recent sales figures)

EDIT:

Wait... the platform totals page is including some data from the week ending 25th August (USA & UK)... wheras the weekly chart is still showing the w/e 18th August figures until the other regions are in.
You can see which weeks are included if you look here: http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/

Once I searched a lot for Dreamcast numbers, trying to know for sure... reading Sega's 2001 financial reports they show exactly this numbers (8.20 millions). Since they stopped production of the Dreamcast - it's annouced there too - it's really impossible (or illogical) for them to ship even 10k more than that, let alone 2.4 million. I really don't know how the internet got this overspread 10.6 million units sold, really. It's not mentioned anywhere I could find.

I searched myself and couldn't even add it up to 8.2m... the FY2000 report (ending March 31st 2000) puts the cumulative total at 5.55million:
http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/release/past/sega/2001.html
But I can't find anything about what it sold for the FY ending March 2001... just a sentence in the 2002 report about them selling off remaining DC inventory after they discontinued it after March 2001.

If you have a link to the 2001 report I would like to see it (for some reaosn on the IR website they have the 2000 data in the 2001 page: http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/release/past/sega/2001.html )

Also regarding the MegaDrive/Genesis... I don't know how true it is but Wiki mentions the 28million figure and about how it's from 1995... which may well have been when it stopped selling in the major regions, but they have since released it again in places like Brazil.

And the PS1 shipped total definately ended at 102.49 million, yet that page claims 104.25 million... so unless Sony released it again in some obscure regions in the last couple of years and forgot to mention it that one is definately wrong.

http://www.google.com.br/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.segasammy.co.jp%2Fenglish%2Fir%2Flibrary%2Fpdf%2Fprinting_archive%2F2001%2Fe_sega_annual_tuuki_2001.pdf&ei=-RZCUI78Lobo9ATtz4CYBQ&usg=AFQjCNE7crfAEu1fVueE30kJI_bXuEAPaA&cad=rja

Page 14.

"Totalling 8.2 million (...). Results fell far short of their targets, particulary regarding hardware sales volume."

Thanks.

It does also say this in that report though: "During fiscal 2002, we will strive to deliver the remaining inventory of Dreamcast units to end users (households) at the earliest possible date, thus ensuring our sales plans for Dreamcast software."
Of course I have no idea how big their inventory may have been after they stopped making it... the quick withdrawal from the hardware market could mean they had built up a lot of stock expecting retailers to need them for Christmas 2000, but couldn't unload them.

I think that inventory is probably retailer's inventories - which they expect to deliver through marketing or what else to the consumers dus ensuring higher software sales. This is march... their inventory must be minimal at this point.

Like I said, I really want to know how people got the 10.6 million units. It's everywhere, except where it matters.

It can't have been retailer inventory as Sega wouldn't have mentioned it (unless Sega had their own stores like Sony do), Sega were having to sell their inventory at discounted prices to the retailers.

8.2 to 10.6m does seem like a lot... but if you look back in the PS3s past it wasn't much different at launch.... by March 2007 Sony had produced 5.5 million machines, but the shipments to retail were only 3.78 million (and sales according to VGC just over 2.8m). Dreamcast had a decent launch, Sega may have entered into a contract after FY ending March 2000 for Dreamcast production that was too high, and it wasn't until the Christmas period when the PS2 released in the West that they had obviously overstepped themselves.

Hmm, reading it again I guess it could be retail inventory and Sega were offering retailers cashback for units they couldn't sell... but it's not specific enough to know for sure.

To me it's just like japanese sales. Once the game leaves the top 30 it's obviously going to sell more, but we'll never know. So we take its last number as its final number until something says otherwise - like a press release or top 500 type of thing.

This is the final shipment. No other number has been given, so it's final to me. I trust it way more than any other. It could have sold a little better... but since we'll never know we must use this one.

Anyway, I was very sad when I discovered that. If 10 million was already unfair to the system, imagine 8.