The best possible level of accuracy is not in the slightest bit useless for a market analysis. It's actually fundamental.

lol the main guy that was arguing with in that thread wrote this. props to him at least some people can admit they are wrong.

Hey Quickrick. I just wanted to apologize because I actually was wrong with the 13 million figure. See the way I saw it, the number by January 21st was 12.5 million. So the 13 million must have been from December 31st, because the sales in other parts of the world where 1.5 million.

But then I double duped myself. I completely forgot that Latin America and Asia weren't included, which is very stupid because I actually quoted that earlier in the thread. Then I responded by saying "well it was already at 12.5 million so even not including those countries just 1/3 of ROW would account for the extra 500k needed for 13 million!" But I forgot that, as far as we know, the sales of America and Japan and Europe were only 12.0 at the time of December 31st ... so it actually would have required 2/3's of ROW figures. Which would be impossible without Asia and Latin America. I was using the 12.5 figure because I got confused and mixed up. 



I just wanted to say I am sorry for that. I usually am good at debates but I was honestly really tired and stressed about other things at the time and it made me slip up. I don't think I was that mean to you at the time but I do think one comment I made was slightly offensive, so I apologize for that too. 



If it's any consolation I do think you're way better as a user than when you first showed up. I wish you'd downplay Nintendo a bit less, but oh well, nothing I can do about that. Different viewpoints, and all!

kinda of a huge difference  between 12 million and 53 million. then there also the fact we have official numbers from sony in the same exact period, for example if nintendo gave exact sell through numbers for the end of 2017, the 12.8 million from them would be useless. 

Do NOT misrepresent ALA's comment. He told me himself that you were still wrong but he kept it for kindness sake. This is disgusting.

So at what number does the decimals on million figures become useless? 20m? 30m? When it suits your narrative?

Look, I don't know if the current report is right or wrong but you can't argue that they fucked up in the past. The 53 million figure they gave was an error, they didn't mean to give rounded figures because there's no word suggesting it (like over 53m) and you have a precise number in the same sentence. Furthermore, the sentence reads "compared to the Xbox One's 27.6 m" so they're making a comparison between the numbers and you don't compare rounded figures with exact figures unless you're incompetent.

Hasn't IHS already been shown to be a sketchy source for accuracy, even before these recent numbers?

OK for everyone saying those numbers are wrong because of the 53 million number, compared to the 53.4 million number, You guys do realize that the 53 million number came out 2 months after sony announced the 53.4 million number, that like 100% proof they weren't being precise with the numbers they were using. unlike the switch where they make it clear IHS Markit reports 12.8 million Switch units were sold over the course of the year, but keep using the straw man argument.

IHS markit has been a great source in the past, i don't know why they used 53 million when they had official numbers, but i doubt a company as professional  as them just made an error, it could very well be a rounded number.