let's celebrate :D

sounds like the vgc numbers are exactly right.

@scottie

By the looks of it, Sony now is reporting number SOLD, not shipped, if you read all the bolded statements.

If Sony is, as this article states, reporting SOLD consoles, then VGChartz is off by a bit.  Coincidentally, VGChartz staff never said their numbers were 100% accurate, so they can't garuntee the numbers they have.  I'm sure all consoles are off by a little bit one way or the other.

Calling bias because PS3 is undertracked is just stupid.  I honestly think ioi does the best he can, so if the PS3 is off, then it's not that big a deal.  VGChartz didn't tell you to bet your life savings on their numbers, so what's the fuss?  ioi will probably take a look at this and do research to see if it can be proven, and may alter it.  If he can't find the means to prove it, he won't.  It's simple as that..and you can't really argue either way.

So you are saying that our chartz are 600k behind from a month ago?

As far as what that other guy was saying about shipped numbers, I highly doubt that there are only 600k ps3s in the world market buddy.

shipped to warehouse vs. sold to retail vs. sold to customer

vgc tracks sold to consumers
sony tracks sold to retail...

people really need to look into the methodology

Did you fully read what I said? I used a few IF, THEN statements (code any?), which means IF this happened, THEN it should be this. I never guaranteed anything, and I also stated in the entire last paragraph that arguing undertracking is stupid and why.

People really need to read.

 Yes we get it. So get this, you seem to think the discrepancy between sold to retail and sold to customer is ~700k.

So in that case only 700k ps3's are on the shelves ww. I'm slightly confused, are you saying that some retailers buy the ps3's in advance, and that some retailers sell a product they haven't paid for themselves but are just holding on the shelf?

read this first

Understanding Sales Figures

1. As obligated by law, videogame companies report shipment data in their financial reports
2. Sales figures categorized as ‘Shipment’ data has a number of definitions. In all cases, it is a term used to describe the number of units that were moved from a manufacturing plant. Whether or not these units made it past warehouses and onto store shelves is another question entirely. As such shipment can entail:
   1. Product shipped from factories to warehouses.
   2. Product shipped from factories to retail middlemen/warehouses.
   3. Product shipped from factories to individual retail stores.
3. In definition B1, a poor selling product appears to be selling faster than it is, because the company produced more than necessary for warehouses.
4. In definition B2, stores overestimate demand, and end up with excess stock. In theory, this causes the product which is selling worse than expected, to be manufactured at a slower rate.
5. In definition B3, a product is selling well, and a company is failing to, or barely shipping enough units to keep the product on store shelves.
6. Under all three definitions, it is an absolute certainty that the product has sold not a single unit more to customers (individual gamers) than what was shipped. The faster the product sells, the closer the shipment figure is to the number of consumers (gamers) who have bought the product.
7. When a product is discontinued at the end of its life, then the number of consoles shipped equals roughly the number sold, as retailers will do everything in their power to rid themselves of the product for newer, better selling products.

How VG Chartz comes up with its figures

1. Sales figures are determined through two important methods
   1. Data Sampling – VG Chartz gathers random data from a sample of the total number of retailers.
   2. Shipment information – VG Chartz has contacts with publishers who give their best estimates on number of products shipped.
2. Because the number of retailers selling videogames is quite large, it is possible to attain statistically valid results from a small sample.
3. It then becomes a matter of working backwards by having:
   1. The approximate number of retailers.
   2. Historical sales figures.
   3. Data from sales tracking agencies as reference points in accuracy.
   4. There are obvious limiting factors as well – few games have above a 40% attach rate, a game will never sell more than the console user base, publishers do not ship significantly more or less than they expect to be sold

Explaining Data on VG Chartz

1. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft define regions differently. Microsoft includes more than Japan in ‘Japan’ on financial reports for instance.
2. “American Weekly Data” is VG Chartz estimations for sales of the United States and Canada, plus slightly more for developing markets in Central & South America. Canadian data tends to account for 5-10% of USA hardware and software sales in any given week.
3. The million selling software section is shipment information from publishers – it is not sell through.
4. The LTD (lifetime to date) hardware section is shipment data from publishers about what has been shipped since the product launched. LTD hardware is directly from 6 month financial reports.