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Forums - Sales - When will PS4 reach 10 million sold? - ioi comments on undertracking

Nicklesbe on 19 August 2014
Dr.Henry_Killinger said:
prinz_valium said:
big thread. what do u guys discuss?

Globally in The US 2: Electric Boogaloo with Guest Apperances from ioi and Sting.

This time the actions more intense, cause you got emotional people saying VGC is wrong and anti-sony biased.

Then you got people who are pretending to be rational talking shit about how a billion dollar company can't have better estimates then ioi, who actually explained why he can't adjust the numbers.

Spoiler warning: Its not because Sony is wrong, but simply because he doesn't have the data, unless of course he was secretly Kaz in disguse, PLOT TWIST

But good luck trying to tell these people that, they are too busy trying to understand Sony's tracking methods, that basic common sense has eluded them. Fiesty devil.





http://www.youtube.com/v/AoOOpLpcF28 http://www.youtube.com/v/CphFZGH5030

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AZWification on 19 August 2014
Dr.Henry_Killinger said:
prinz_valium said:
big thread. what do u guys discuss?

Globally in The US 2: Electric Boogaloo with Guest Apperances from ioi and Sting.

This time the actions more intense, cause you got emotional people saying VGC is wrong and anti-sony biased.

Then you got people who are pretending to be rational talking shit about how a billion dollar company can't have better estimates then ioi, who actually explained why he can't adjust the numbers.

Spoiler warning: Its not because Sony is wrong, but simply because he doesn't have the data, unless of course he was secretly Kaz in disguse, PLOT TWIST

But good luck trying to tell these people that, they are too busy trying to understand Sony's tracking methods, that basic common sense has eluded them. Fiesty devil.

Damn! The sequel really is much better than the original! I wonder if it will become a trilogy anytime soon!



                
       ---Member of the official Squeezol Fanclub---

baloofarsan on 19 August 2014

If the moderators on this site can keep track on multiple alias trough IP-address, surely Sony can do the same. They probably have other informtion that the console sends to Sonys servers, like serial numbers and other usage data.
Nintendo knows a lot about my Wii U and what I do with it.



Intrinsic on 19 August 2014
shikamaru317 said:
Nicklesbe said:

They don't need to estimate, they don't need to guess. They get the numbers directly from the retailers. It's as simple as that.

You really think that Sony gets sold through numbers from retailers in untracked countries in the Middle East and Southern Asia? How could they possibly get that info? They know how much they ship to retailers in those countries, but I highly doubt that that retailers track how many consoles they've sold and send that info back to Sony. That would mean that every manager of a brick and mortar retailer in those countries has to send sales data back to corporate, so that corporate can in turn send that data to Sony.

That right there is the answer to your own question.

Shipped ultimately means sold. This is how it works for undertracked places. Reatailer puts in an order of 5k consoles. Sony sends 5k consoles to them. The retailer won't put in another another when it still has 2k of the initial 5k lying around in its stores. When the retailer has sold through like 4k consoles it puts in another order that is either higher or lower than what its initial order was depending on how fast the initial order sold.

As far as sony is concerned, every new order means that previous order has been sold through. Not that complicated when you think of it. If adding up all their back orders for retailers across the globe, they can easily come up with a very accurate minimum estimate of how many consoles have been sold through. As no retailer will be making new orders when they still have a lot of their previous orders stock lying around. 



Zanten on 19 August 2014

I remember when I watched the conference, on seeing the entirely redundant "and just to clarify..." Addendum, thinking to myself, 'well, at least hammering the point home with absolute, precise clarity, leaving no possible margin for misinterpretation, will prevent people from insisting that, no, no, maybe they didn't MEAN they reached 10 million.'

Finally! A statement so clear, so blunt, there was no room for nitpicking.

Oh what a fool I was. T_T



Zanten, Doer Of The Things

Unless He Forgets In Which Case Zanten, Forgetter Of The Things

Or He Procrascinates, In Which Case Zanten, Doer Of The Things Later

Or It Involves Moving Furniture, in Which Case Zanten, F*** You.

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Purple on 19 August 2014
DrDoomz said:
Purple said:
DrDoomz said:

1) Announcing "over 10 million" makes the announcement itself very clear and quanitfiable. As there is no other way to interpret "over 10 million" outisde of the figure being above 10 million. The whole point to being misleading in advertising is to be as ambigious and open to (mis)interpretation as you can.

2) No, it's stupid marketing. From what I'm reading you have little practical knowledge of how marketing comminication works. You're basically saying that they'd risk loing their credibility and the goodwill from gamers that they managed to wrest from their competitors for the sole purpose of announcing a milestone that would have minimal (if any) effect on their sales. The risk/reward is retardedly bad. If anything, granted that they may be estimating their numbers (with a much better margin of error than VGC could ever attain due to access to internal numbers as well as what is publicly available), chances are they would estimate rounding down to avoid being wrong.

3) Except for the fact that they announced "sold thru to consumers" and "not shipped"...!

On the contrary I have ample experience of marketing in the real world. There is no way of ever truly knowing how many PS4's have been sold through to consumers. There is absolutely no risk in claiming they've sold in excess of 10 million. If it is possible from their data that there could be in excess of 10 million sold through, that's what they're going to tell us.

I feel you're being very naive if you think companies don't fudge the data a little to tell a nice story. And you clearly work in a much more honest and less outcome focussed sector than myself. Which I envy you for!

"Marketing in the real world", I hope you don't mean sales or retail (we don't really see that as "real marketing" even tho it does fall within the classification). Which would still mean you have little working knowledge of marketing communication. I've got 13 years marketing experience which include marketing studies (competitor analysis, best use, industry/pricing studies) as well as advertising. If you are in marketing then I don't get how you can't seem to see that by the very language Sony used (no ambiguity, clear concise wording, clariffication of possible misinterpretations) that they were extremely sure of the numbers they were using. I really can't figure out how you can't see this.

Yes, I agree. There is no way to get it at 100% accuracy. What I DID say is that Sony can get an estimate based on their internal sales numbers (from retailers/distributors that report their consumer sales) as well as external marketing research firms (like NPD) and use that information (extrapolating via trends) the same way VGC does and come up with a far more accurate number with a much less margin of error. And that with the risk attached to getting caught lying vs the benefits of announcing a milestone, that they would most likely err on the side of safety than try to inflate their numbers.

And yes, I've had competitors "fudge their numbers" in the industry I'm in. (I've never done it, personally). But this has always been internal figure announcements or unofficial leaks (where announcing higher than true sales numbers has a lower chance of getting caught as well as a clear benefit) rather than press conferences (high scrutiny, high chance of getting caught, high risk, bad consequences, low benefit). You'll have to assume that Sony is stupid to mess around with falsely announcing sales figures, especially with MS just waiting for them to slip up.

Haha I did start in sales actually but I'm a PR graduate. I probably don't have the same level of knowledge as you when it comes to the specific wording. 

The bolded text is what I struggle to grasp. In my industry when we're given a range of estimates we've never used anything but the highest number when 'selling' our products. I can't understand why Sony wouldn't do the same when no one else knows how many units have actually been sold.

 

Anyway. This whole pointless conversation started when I was suggesting Sony may be using their higher estimates of sold through data. When you add standard error to VGChartz estimates it means the two probably aren't that far apart.



Conegamer on 19 August 2014
Intrinsic said:
Wow... this has to be the height. People have actually resorted to saying sony is lying about their numbers. Are people really that bitter that the Ps4 is doing so well?

Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe this. As far as they are concerned, its more likely that sony is lying about having sold 10M consoles than VGC undertaking by over 700k. Deep.

Opinion is opinion. Calling another user(s) pathetic for theirs isn't acceptable anywhere, however. 

Let this be one final warning for everyone. We don't need to flame people to have a healthy discussion.



 

Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.

Puppyroach on 19 August 2014
Ninsect said:
Puppyroach said:

You can actually go to the very thread that you linked to in this thread and you will have your list of countries :). We regularly get information from many countries in europe, japan and australia so most big markets are actually covered. That is, as I understand it, also the reason why they haven´t updated numbers for 360, they try to locate where these differences in numbers come from.

Thread that I linked to? Where?

No, we don't get hardware sales regularly from many countries. Can you show me the numbers for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium etc. as of August?

I feel like I´m in the Twilight zone here. Didn´t you start this thread? Have you read what ioi wrote in his thread, the one that you linked to?



joeorc on 19 August 2014

100% agreement 


That costs money, and retail chains want. To sell units as fast as they can. You do not reorder in bulk unless you can unload the units in a timely manner. The pace that the PS4 is selling at has it seems come into Question, ,"why is it selling" there is no must haves for the console, but yet its selling very well. Hell yosh, did not even really have an idea how or why its selling so well. LoL it just is!

 

Unlike Sony Microsoft said its north of 5 million but yet, has said no updated Sold through numbers, but yet is Microsoft numbers in Question? About what has really sold through?

Hell even microsoft had to lower production of said systems being produced, but yet its seems no Questions asked for Microsofts or Nintendos numbers, but Sony is scrutinized straight through and through.

 

Its implied Sony is spinning the numbers, whats ironic, I think that was a very point Sony was making to not just the people there at the convention, but also the people on this site that seems to say Sony is hiding the numbers.



I AM BOLO

100% lover "nothing else matter's" after that...

ps:

Proud psOne/2/3/p owner.  I survived Aplcalyps3 and all I got was this lousy Signature.

Nicklesbe on 19 August 2014
Puppyroach said:

I feel like I´m in the Twilight zone here. Didn´t you start this thread? Have you read what ioi wrote in his thread, the one that you linked to?




http://www.youtube.com/v/AoOOpLpcF28 http://www.youtube.com/v/CphFZGH5030

All Hail the Jester King. The King is back, and I am still a dirty girl prof ;)