They are accurate with the total numbers sold, but how they were distributed is a disaster.

To think 360 was gonna be that bad in sales just tells me the combined sales is a lucky guess, no more.

You have to think the PS3 is a sucessor of the 130 million sales PS2... and 360 was the sucessor of the 20 million sales Xbox... I guess the split was made using these data.

The Wii sales and the overall sales is not a lucky guess... they just predicted the grow of the makert pretty well... even the power of the HD consoles was prediction well.

The fact is the 360 surprised everyone... even you or kowen.

Could this discrepency come from the fact people always assume Sony must talk of Shipped and MS somehow doesn't? These are both probably shipped numbers(sold to retail), the only kind that really matters to the console makers.

So congrats to Sony for making the greatest comeback in gaming history.

That's not how it works. Otherwise anyone who predicted 200million Wii sales and less than 20million PS3 sales will be close to being correct using the same logic of overall numbers, but the distribution is just a tad off...

That's my troughts about this IDC numbers.

- 360 numbers are accurate... a little less or more but that's what I thing Microsoft shipped this quarter... ~6 million.

- PS3 numbers are odd... I think they shipped 7 million or more this quarter... so all dependes how much PS3 shipped at the end of September... we know it shipped 70 million in 4th November... so for 31th September I will assume 68.5 million shipped (for the best scenario)... so using this number we have:

+ 7.0 million shipped: 75.5 million
+ 7.5 million shipped: 76.0 million
+ 8.0 million shipped: 76.5 million

I think harder the 8 million shipped but the 7 million is probable... so the IDC can assume the Sony will ship 8 or a little more million this quarter putting the sales at 66.5 million... so they rounded to 77 million.

Is it prossible? Yes.
Do you think that happened? No. I will be surprised... I think Sony shipped 7 million PS3 this quarter... and my estimate for 31st Sep sales is in the best case scenario... so it can be lower.

One more thing...

This quarter is the last quarter Sony shipped PS2... so in the next quarter the all the sales for consoles will be PS3 numbers.

Edit - lol that's give me another theory about these numbers... check my new post.

ETHOMAZ's NEW AND REASONABLE THEORY ABOUT THE 77 MILLION

Yeah dudes I have all the theories in my head.

Just think the Sony numbers for the quarter is 8.5 million units shipped... at first look you think WOW PS3 destroyed... but think again... Sony did the last shipment for PS2 this quarter and they will match the forecast for the year (3 million shipped for the PS2)... so the first two quarters plus the last quarter shipment for PS2 have to be near 3 million.

Now the interesting part...  Sony can had shipped 1.5 million or more PS2 this quarter and IDC just received the 8.5 million... so the IDC thinks that all shipment is PS3 but in fact 1.5 million is PS2... so Sony shipped 7 million PS3 ano not 8.5 million like IDC thinks.

In the end you have the explanation to 77 million and the fact Sony shipped near 66-66.5 million at the end of the year.

Sometime I'm good in theories.

so 7 million shipped from November until the end of the year? and sony didnt brag about it yet? no way, this is false

Yeah theres no way Sony would shutup about this news. If they outshipped/sold MS they would have a pres release for it.

exactly, were 10 days into jan and they would have had the numbers by now. heck even if they didnt outshipped MS, announcing that they shipped about 8 million units in one quarter will surely raise their stock, so no reason not to do so