Well it's more likely that he misspoke the type of number and it's referring to the sold to retailers number from the last financial report, than that they decided to randomly compile numbers from a number of different trackers and different area business units on some random day in March, especially since it's not even a milestone of any sort. Since the 17.7 million shipped was as of 12/31/07, it's probably pretty close to that sold now anyway though.

They mush have included all the 360's that needed to get repaired or replaced. I'm sure the actual number of 360's in homes is less than 15 million.

MS is not even close to 40% of revenue (not that revenue is even a big deal, it is profit that matters). Clearly, they are not counting PSP and DS.

You realize that after they were repaired they were sent BACK to the homes right?  At most the number of consoles Rrod has cost the userbase is the number of 360's currently en route to, at, or returning from Micrsoft repair centers.

Install base technically means in the possession of end users. That is the only context within which the term is applied. The article appears to be genuine in that the statements in question are quotations verbatim from a spokesman for Microsoft. Upon further investigation these are new numbers not recycled numbers. Earlier in the year Microsoft has shipped 17.7 million units and had reached 40%. However now they have an install base of 17.7 million units, and have a 42%.

This highlights two possibilities the first is that the spokesman was mistaken about the specific numbers, or their explicit meaning. Perhaps thinking of previous projections. The second is that vgchartz has slightly underestimated the sales. Which is far more likely given supply issues with the console. Either way the numbers are very close. I think we should probably take Microsoft at their word unless they clarify their statements in the next few days. Microsoft does have access to better data, and it is hard to imagine a error with what appear to be new numbers.

I suspect that the problem would probably lie in Europe in regards to tracking which honestly hasn't been the best tracked market historically. Often enough the numbers in the region have been off significantly. Anyway nothing to get in a snit over if the numbers are good then Microsoft will continue to use them, and we will know for sure.

 I can buy that one.

 The newbie was right but I'll go easy on you.

Are you saying Microsoft can't track but VGChartz can?  LOL  VGChartz does estimates that is why they were off about 1 million on Call of Duty 4 numbers and that is why ioi is always adjusting his numbers.  You never see  Microsoft adjust their numbers do you?

@Dodece

Please try to understand what you're talking about. You talk about 40 %, 42 % without even knowing what you're refering to.

MS reps just painted a very grim picture of the XB360 business.
And sure they can fool you and a lot of others into thinking that they made a mistake with the numbers, but sure enough they can't fool me. As they constantly mix numbers and what they mean, reports after reports, are you then ready to believe that they're a bunch of incompetent and stupid fools?

Anywa, bear with me with the grim picture.
MS reps say they have now 40 % of (keep up) "life-to-date revenue for next generation systems". Now understand what that means:
- "next generation systems" : it's Wii, XB360 and PS3.
- "life-to-date revenue" : it's the money generated by sales of the console, the peripherals, the games, since each console launch.

Now some basic maths.
XB360 launch : November 2005, 30 months to March 2008
PS3 and Wii launch : November 2006, 18 months to March 2008
So we have 30 + 18 + 18 = 66 months of "life-to-date revenue" total.
Now the revelation : if every console generated as much revenue every month as the other one (so basically, if all things were equal), XB360 should have 30 / 66 ~= 45+ % of "life-to-date revenue for next generation systems"...
Do you start to understand?
The XB360 has LESS than that in LTD revenue, as they only have 40 % of "life-to-date revenue for next generation systems", while having MORE advantages. WHAT HAPPENED?
What does this mean? It means that both or one of the Wii and PS3, is actually generating more revenue in average months to months than it should, and that the XB360 generates LESS than it should, despite having one year without any competition.
I won't try to tell you which console I think made this feat possible.

Resorting to revenue is already a bad sign that you have nothing good to say, but resorting to LTD revenue which should give you a clear advantage when you have a higher LTD than others is worse. The worst being when even that shows you in a bad light.
They'd better at least sell more than Sony in USA this month to have sth to save face.

EDIT: Oh, and 40 % is NOT "almost half", except if the one saying that is a moron. Ready to believe MS reps are morons? 

@ookaze

You need to invest some serious time in a reading comprehension course. Your response has nothing to do with my post what so ever. Somehow I think it is quite easy to fool you since you didn't pay particularly good attention to what was posted, but instead substituted that with a half baked delusion. You want it in the plainest terms you painted yourself as an idiot. You need to read the post again, and pay careful attention to exactly what I posted.