I don't see anything wrong with that statement. The demand which matters most is the demand from customers, not retailers.

For example, I remember in holiday 2006 (if memeory serves me right) the 360 was drastically over-shipped... then in the next quarter, Microsoft couldn't ship almost anything. Without data from VGChartz / NPD / GfK / etc, you'd never know about it until three months later when the shipped figures come.

Cryptic PR is cryptic.

So you not seeing anything wrong with it makes you automatically correct???  And not everyone will see anything wrong with my statement.  But again... go figure.  Demand from customers are ultimately important so retailers have to estimate demand from previous experience.  So the reason why retailers order more PS3's is because more consumers are wanting it.  Makes perfect sence.  And yes, retailer can overestimate - anywhere from 100% (no sales) to 1% (almost all sales).  And SONY can report of increasing PS3 shipped demand because of increased retailer orders stemmed from increased consumer demand.  And I'll bet ya that the overestimating is closer to the 1% half.  So please stop spinning because you are not in favor of the PS3 and good news associated with it.

good for the PS3

No, I'm saying that I don't see any spin in johnsobas' statement, therefore I don't criticize him. You have yet to explain why johnsobas is spinning anything, when in fact his statement is proven in reality.

And please let's not pretend that me being in favor of the PS3 or not has anything to do with it. We're talking about objective things here, not opinions. Don't start pulling the "bias" card. Apparently you even agree with me.

Why can't we all be encouraged and be positive about SONY's increased PS3 shipped sales when it's a good sign of increased sold-to-consumer sales as I have already pointed out?  I think we all agree that sold-to-consumer sales are ultimately important, but why spin shipped sales to be negative when there is a high probability that this will equate to sold-to-consumer sales when the PS3 is in continuous increasing demand?  My original statement you accused as spin has been based on facts and trends.  So there was no spinning.  Again, go figure...

@Jordahn: I would certainly not agree with anyone spinning shipped numbers as a negative. However I didn't notice anyone doing that in this thread.

Perhaps spinning was not the correct term for what you did... It was more like changing the subject. Either way it wasn't a big deal, I was just pointing out that I agreed with johnsobas on his assessment of shipped vs sold numbers.

The positive thing I see in these news for Sony is the data which says the PS3 has improved 40% in sales over 2007 (basically what vgchartz says). That's a good thing. A bad thing is that holiday sales are lower than 2007, especially when price cuts aren't expected in the short term (some would disagree).

Johnsobas said...

"who cares about shipped numbers, sold numbers are what sets trends and shows consumer demand."

The trends that sold numbers set are increased shipped numbers from retailers which are what SONY reports.  This is consumer demand.  That is why shipped numbers are important (cares).  This is how he was spinning by discounting the positive shipped numbers reported by SONY because it actually shows an increase of consumer demand.  And I proved him incorrect it by pointing out the trend of the increasing PS3 demand.

Perhaps you're reading the "who cares" part too literally. Obviously shipped numbers count for something, just not as much as sold numbers.

I'm not a native English speaker, but when I see "who cares about A, B is the real deal" that doesn't tell me the person thinks A is totally worthless.

I'm not saying shipped numbers are worthless. I'm just saying sold numbers are better, and they always will be. If we are judging customer demand then sold numbers are THE best indicator. I'm not trying to spin the shipped numbers, the shipped numbers really don't show a different picture from the sold numbers. The shipped numbers show a 8 million gap between PS3 and 360, the sold numbers show a 7.9 million gap. PS3 shipped 3.15 million, 360 shipped 5.5 million. I'm not even trying to spin something, I don't really know where you got that idea from.