This is already on the wrong track. Amazon is, for likely the most part, not the manufacturer of the goods they sell, they are boxshifters.

Sony is the manufacturer of consoles. So let's make a better example:

Joe's Console shop chain orders 10000 consoles from Sony. Now any the following situations can happen:

a) The consoles are in a warehouse and are delivered to Joe

b) The consoles are on a ship to a warehouse somewhere

c) The consoles are in the factory

d) The consoles are not even made yet.

In EACH case a) to d), Sony sold 10'000 consoles. How the money for the sale is/will be/has been accounted for is a contractual/bookkeeping problem.

Now there are a ton of "what ifs" involved, like: when does Joe pay? When does Sony deliver? Can Sony deliver the 10000 consoles at all?

How does that translate to shipped vs sold? At this time, when demand badly outstrips units produced: shipped = sold is the answer.

This is basically what I was trying to say, I used Amazon to show that even when you buy something off a retailer, you can still expect a delay from the moment the product is shipped and delivered.

Like you said it translates better for a situation of manufacturers to retailers. Retailers like GameStop buy their units before they even made, aka sold.

The argument was made as why there’s always a difference between VGC and Sony’s reporting, again. Even in a situation of shortages and demand surpassing the offer, consoles don’t magically appear in store, they have to be some in transit or in warehouses waiting for the next shipment to be made. So it’s normal to have a difference between both figures, but in the end it’s still sold.

Here they are:

Stock doesn't magically go from the production line to the retailer within seconds.  I'm a Logistics Manager, and I deal with the problems of the global supply chain crisis every day.  My warehouse just took in 6 container loads yesterday (this is a lot for a small warehouse staffed by a total of 4 people) from the NY port that have to be shipped by road to South Carolina because the port in Charleston is so overburned it's actually faster to get the material delivered to our plant in SC by unloading in NY than shipping directly to the port in SC. 

If you don't understand the distinction between "shipped units" and "sold units" don't frequent a website that tracks sales.  Not everything is a conspiracy against Sony.  Every console manufacturer is being affected by the global supply chain disruption and the semiconductor chip shortage.  There's no need for you to accuse VGChartz of trying to make Sony look bad just because for some reason you are personally offended by the weekly numbers you see.

By your logic, we should already be tracking Sony's projected but unmanufactured units as sold units as well.  Why not lose all sales credibility and post a banner on the front page of the site proclaiming PS5 has already achieved 100 million sales just for funsies?  Because that's not how this site tracks console sales for any hardware manufacturer, that's why.  There's no agenda here.  

You guys are confused as to say that how a individual bought items counts as a corporation byuing in bulk is. Having worked on it myself for a time I can garanty any of you that theres no way Sony counta as sold any unit that's in a cargo ship to a retailer. A ratailer can buy a cargo ship full of a product and pay in advance but the seller does not count it as sold yet. For the main reason of quality control and schedule. Only at the receiving of the product does a company counts it as sold.

The best a company counts as sold is when it gets to a retailers where house. Thats the biggest time frame that the shipped to retailers is not yet sold to consumers. But once it hits a retailers where house its at most days away from actual stores.

That's why they don't report "sold" but "shipped".

Btw it's called warehouse.

You checked my spelling. My whole point is now mute. Well done.

You being serious?

I meant shipped. But in this cases for sony shipped is same as sold. So sonys shipped is at the retailers WAREHOUSE wich is then days away from actual sales. Not weeks like vgchartz has it.

How do you know that?

So if a retailer orders a bunch of copies of a Game based on a famous Movie, for the Atari, they are counted as Sold right? It doesn't matter if people still don't have it in their hands and don't want it.

So Famitsu 3DS sales doesn't matter anymore because those consoles are already produced. Why bother counting it?

It is really important to know the difference between shipped and sold to know how many consoles to produce at the given time?