By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Website Topics - VGChartz featured in Arstechinca - Main news site this time!

TheBigFatJ on 20 July 2007
EEPiccolo said:
TheBigFatJ said:
It seems that Sony and MS really work to muddy the numbers on how successful they're being. They use words that have specific meanings to them, and the opposite meaning to everyone else. They say, 'sold' to refer to shipped, effectively, or in Sony's case, 'shipped' to refer to 'sent to warehouse'. While they're not technically wrong, they certainly use that wording in an effort to make people misunderstand the level of success they're having.

Of couse, if it weren't for the fact that every Wii currently shipped is also sold within days, you'd probably see Nintendo also making confusing statements. But they just happen to be in a situation right now where that isn't the case.


Perhaps, sure. But look at the things MS and Sony have done to go out of their way to confuse their level of success among investors and the general public:

(1) MS stuffed the retail channel with 10.4 million units in 2006 to meet their downward-revised goals.  We all know now that this was a very costly mistake.

(2) Sony announced shipped *and* sold numbers, stating that units they sent to their warehouses were "shipped" by the definition that they had to ship them to their warehouses.

Both cases were examples of companies being deceptive to increase investor confidence. They're not outright lies, and anyone can read the details and see what exactly they mean, but most people assume they know what 'sold' and 'shipped' mean and therefore make errant conclusions about the meaning of their reports.