So, it seems out of the big three, Sony is the only one publishing sales to consumers. And according to them and the data they make available publicly, they have sold, again, to consumers, 23.8 million consoles.

VGChartz, however, has it at 23 million, 800k short.

Let the head slicing begin.

http://kotaku.com/5327502/lifetime-sales-figures-for-the-playstation-3

It's not 23.8 million PS3s sold to consumers, it's sold to stores.

Ummm I tought sold to stores was 24m????? WTF??

Thing is, this Kotaku guy misunderstood the whole thing.

He interpreted the change by Sony to track 'out from factory to warehouse' (which was awkward and unique for Sony) to 'sold to retail' wrong, thinking Sony went from 'sold to retail' to tracking 'sold to consumers'.

It's an interesting claim at kotaku, but either way 23.8 million sold to retail is also good.

For comparison, taking equal timeframes (which is unfair towards the PS3, due to being launched later in Europe, an extra holiday season for the 360) the XBox 360 sold 20.3 million units to retail. So 3.5 million more units shipped isn't bad taking into account its higher entry pricing.

IMO the sales race is far from over, once Sony launches a slimline PS3. Just getting started actually.

I do think the XBox 360 and especially the Nintendo Wii has far higher quantities of yet unsold stock available at retail.

@Slimebeast

In 2006, Sony decided to start tracking how many consoles and games they sold all the way through to customers, not just to retailers (which is how most other companies record "sales").

I think it is you who wants to interpret something different.

There is also a very interesting tidbit: PS3 software: 189.7 million (all publishers, includes both retail and PSN titles)

If there is somewhere a LTD software sales number, it's possible to know how much PS3 software PSN has sold up to now.

People love using their epic round up skills.

I know he wrote that. But he is simply wrong. He misunderstood the tracking method.

Kotaku is just a blog, they're not experts or superhuman.

It's 23.8 million PS3s shipped to retail. It's a well established fact here on VGC, which is a console sales tracking site unlike Kotaki who is just a general gaming blog.

Just because Kotaku doesn't know what they are talking about and make a bogus claim does not make it true. In 2006 they did exactly what slimebeast said. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft never put sold to consumer in their financial reports, only sold to customer, which are the retailers because that is how they make their money.

The pug dog is right.