Stromprophet said: sharky said: Yeah, and microsoft also launched in three territories, not two. Does that make them better than Sony? Sony only has to divide it's shipments two ways. Yet I agree, partly because they only had two territories, Sony was able to replenish much better than Microsoft. They did do a better job at that, as evidenced by going from 200k in Nov to 500k in Dec. You're still not accounting that shipped is ALWAYS a good deal higher than sold. This applies to ALL CONSOLES. There is LAG TIME of 4-8 WEEKS that these consoles are shipped. Even if every 360 was snapped up the minute it hit a shelf, there is still many in transit. Conversly, a million PS3's shipped means many have not even reached stores yet. The reason I know about the 4-8 weeks is because microsoft talked about it in a interview. There are so many stores in the USA, many a long distance from the distribution centers. That's all transit time. And the cost effective way to ship is by boat (from China), which means even more time (Sony was probably airfreighting PS3's though, but it's still 4-8 weeks) Hell, Sony is the one famous for imflated ship figures. Sony supposedly counts as soon as they leave the assembly line in China as shipped. MS says they dont call it shipped until it leaves the distribution center in Missouri headed to a store (I think it was Missouri). Sony counts shipped as "sold-in" I posted links to this from Sony on another thread here on the forums. They were interviewing them and the interviewer asked "so that's 1 million shipped right?" And they said "1 million sold in" And they went on to ask that means the retailer has it right? And they said "Yes" I can find it for you if you want, but it's in another thread here, and I'm tired of posting the links and then no one reading it. You also have to consider, NPD never counts the last few days of the month. As I pointed out, Sony had massive shipments the days after Christmas. And specifically 1 that came in on New Years weekend. BB had a relaunch where every BB had at least 60 units, to give you and idea at launch every BB said they would have a minimum of 26. I frankly don't see how M$ could say they shipping 900k to NA. Before years end. It's a WELL KNOWN FACT that there were ONLY 2 SHIPMENTS before Christmas. One at launch, one about 10 days before Christmas. Another shipment did not arrive till January. And they were completely sold out everywhere. So to me NPD accounts for every console that was available. Sony this year on the other hand, the lag time is not 4-8 weeks. They are airlifting units from China over. The lag time is less than 1 week, if not a few days. None of these units are coming by ship. That makes a very big difference.

Stromprophet said: Before you even pull out the differences between what Sony says is shipped and M$ interpretation of shipped. SCEA’s Senior VP of Marketing, Peter Dille "GI: Now you said its 2 million worldwide sold in? Dille: It’s 1 million in North America. What we’re not talking about today is the Japanese numbers, but we will be announcing those soon in the Sony announcement that will come out of Japan. GI: “Sold in” means the retailers have the units, correct? Dille: Correct. What the sell-in number refers to is that we’ve shipped it, we’ve sold it to retail, and the fact that we got to a million was possible because we were air shipping these products in. If we had gone with a boat, there was no way we would have gone to a million. So we’re not playing games with the numbers. These were sold into retail, and you can image the retailer’s incentive: If they’re shipped on a plane, they can go up onto the shelves as quickly as possible. And really, as soon as they’re getting there, they’re evaporating. There’s a tremendous demand." Here it is. Notice he asks point blank. "Sold in" means retailers have the units, correct? Response: "Correct"

Stromprophet said: When did I say the first million is when a console is most in demand? I said the 360 was completely sold out. And there would be a difference between shipped and sold as you said. But for the microsoft launch obviously as you said those number lag 4-8 weeks by boat. For sony almost no lag because of the airlifts, less than one week between them saying it's shipped and it's at a retailer. I agree with you for the most part. I never said Sony wouldn't lie either, they all lie. I mean comeon. Microsoft thinks the Zune is a resounding success. You have to have that kind of crazy denial to compete in business these days. I just have a disagreement with the 10.4 million number Microsoft keeps putting out cause I just don't think it's that high. But even when Sony said they shipped 1 million I knew they did not yet sell that many, but it would be close because of the time between shipping and retailer because they are airlifting them to NA. I knew the Wii numbers were also really high. Now, Nintendo is disputing NPDs numbers. Maybe it's not as sold out as everyone thinks. We just don't have 2-3 years of data to go on that will converge the numbers and give us a much better idea.

sharky said: It's a Sony PS lackey. A sony PR lackey stood next to Motorstorm and said it was 1080P 60FPS a couple weeks ago too, then another Sony guy said the same thing then people took it on the internet and ran with it. It was patently untrue. Motorstorm is 720P 30 FPS. Planes are nothing new MS used them for 360 launch too. Dont act like Sony invented it. They do that in the first weeks when supply is short, but later they use boat becuase it's much cheaper. You're claiming one week for all Sony's units..I'm saying bunk. Every store would not get them within a week. Anyway it doesn't matter. Since PS3 sold out until recently, if what the guy said was true then it should have showed a million sold or pretty close. There's no such thing as "store shelves for a PS3" It didn't. What the Sony PS guy probably meant with his response was, every shipped is sold to a retailer. Not "on a retail shelf" EVERY CONSOLE SHIPPED NUMBER LAGS THE NPD NUMBER BY A GOOD AMOUNT. ONE MILLION SHIPPED ON ~750k sold is NORMAL for EVERY COMPANY. That's microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Please stop trying to change the rules just for Sony. Why dont I sit here and go, well, it cant possibly be right that MS sold 600k 360's last year, because they announced 1.5m shipped, and we know Japan only sold 100k, so that leaves 1.4 m and we know it doesn't seel as many in EU, so it must have had 1m in USA and I dont care what NPD says. But I dont do that because it would be stupid. If you are right, as I said, PS3 should have a monster January. It actually might have a pretty decent one. But it doesn't matter, because those will be NPD numbers which are fine. What will be funny is I dount it even hits a mil NPD AFTER next month, which means you are even wronger.

sharky said: Nope, MS airfreighted it's launch too. I can find that interview (think it was with Bach) too. Like I said, it's standard operating procedure for launches. They go to boat once stock is on store shelves, because it's less expensive. And it's a commentary on you that you have a problem with MS shipped numbers (why?, hmm, maybe because of the same NPD data you dont believe in the case of PS3? Now wouldn't that be ridiculous) but not Sony shipped. Nintendo can "dispute" the numbers all they want and you can choose to believe what company you want based on fanboy allegiances, but NPD is the realest data we have. It cover 60% of the market outright and estimates the rest. And you believing it's wrong wont change the fact there are far less Wii's and PS3's out there than people thought. Really the whole reason for the Wii debacle is Pachters 1.3 million estimate that came out. Pachter has been wrong by predicting too high 360 sales in the past a lot too, but nobody wanted to hang him after that. He said 360 would sell 750k in Nov and 1.5m in Dec IIRC too. Didn't happen. So basically people want to believe an basic estimate from a often-wrong analyst over the hard data. That's pretty backwards. Do you think NPD is wrong with high DS sales too? Funny people seem to accept the NPD's word just fine for that. It's good news from NPD for Nintendo so that must be true for some people, I guess. Another thing is software sales actually support this. I figure if hardware sales are way off it should show up in the software right? Well if anything, 360 software sells like gangbusters, while other than Zelda, Wii and PS3 software did pretty damn bad. I mean Resistance sold like, 70k copies in Nov I think. Similarly poor numbers from Dec AFAIK. That right there should be a hint there not a ton of uncounted PS3's in consumer hands. Now if you had, 600k of Resistance sold by NPD or something, you might have a argument, because it's unlikely for a non-Zelda-wii game to have a 90% attach rate. And if you had that, you'd have the publisher crowing about it themselves with shipped numbers, NPD wouldn't even be needed. I haven't heard a peep from the Resistance guys.. Another thing is just common sense. If Nintendo shipped 1.3 million Wii's, they shouldn't have been so damn scarce all month. Sure, they still would have been scarce, but it doesn't seem like they would have been THAT scarce. Once you look at the NPD numbers, suddenly all the Wii shortages make more sense. NPD backs up anecdotal evidence in this case. It doesn't prove anything but it does support the evidence.

Stromprophet said: No. M$ did not use planes last year to NA. At least not for the launch period. Anyone who was looking for a 360 last Christmas (me for instance). Knows there was only 2 shipments. That's all. There was the launch shipment, and another one about 10 days before Christmas.