I don't understand the complete lack of comprehension in these forums.
MS stated they sold 10.4m units to retailers by end of year. Probably produced somewhere around another million or so sitting in transit or thier warehouses. We all know we can walk into any of the thousands of stores that sell game consoles and pick up a 360 of either sku. That would logically mean that throughout the world of hundreds of thousands of retailers that sell the 360 there would be a huge amount of 360's sitting on shelves and therefore not sold to customers. So for this site to state that they actually sold 8-9m units thus far is a realistic number. Remember all of these numbers going around are not exact. I bet MS really sold 10.3879... or 10.4237... or so. Not exactly 10.4. There must be some rounding and estimation in all figures. An amount of 2-3 million sitting on retailers worldwide seems pretty logical and understandible.
Nintendo stated they sold 3.19 to their 'retail partners and distributers' but produced 4m. So that meant by end of year the retailers in US, CA, MX, EU, UK, JP, AU, etc. had received 3.19 and an additional 800,000 or so was either in transit from Nintendo or sitting in Nintendo's warehouses. Since we know that it is sold out worldwide by all accounts we can safely assume that the 3.19m was actually sold straight through to customers. Then you figure that in the last 3 weeks most of the remaining 800,000 was probably sold or is being sold as we speek to the worlwide retailers and that these as well are selling the minute they hit shelves (I know they are for every retailer in my city, as I keep calling to not find one in stock for my own personal dissapointment), this means that it is increadibly logical that Wii has sold 3.8-4m to customers worldwide as of today.
By this time next year you will see the same descrepency in what Nintendo says they sold to what is listed as sold to customers as the initial launch demand is finally satisfied. If this was the 360's launch we wouldn't even be having this discussion as they were sold out through Feb as well. So all items sold to retailers were also sold to customers. Granted, their numbers would be similar to PS3 and Wii would be kicking all kinds of next gen ass.