Nope. Still not plausible.

OT, I really think its a combination of shipped to retail numbers and PSN downloads. In the end, that software eventually reaches a consumer, otherwise every retailer would have bonfires burning unsold PS3 software. Software not moving will just get discounted until it reaches a price that people are happy/stupid enough to purchase it at. But it would be difficult for Sony to get an accurate picture of software sales to consumers, and to be honest, they get their money when the retailer buys it, not the consumer.

on topic: It's shipped, it's always shipped. You have to think about it, Sony has two options. They can give out shipped numbers which they can easily track and are more impressive, or they can work harder for smaller numbers. It's obvious to me which you'd choose.

off topic: Kowenicki, having questions about the numbers and badmouthing your newly joined fellow staff members are not even close to the same level. I'm surprised it's even a question.

Sony, MS, Nin cannot do that, only ioi can.

Irrelevant, Sony said PSP was at 50 million by the end of January and the PS2 was 130+ million (forgot the number) a long ass time ago, it's all wrong, ioi is right, Sony is wrong, and don't you forget that.

The 189m figure is PS3 retail games shipped through June 2009. None of the big three disclose hardware digital downloaded game figures because the amounts are tiny. We only get retail shipments because each of the big three get a royalty on 3rd party software. If there are 100m third party games shipped per year for a system, its like a $1 billion in pure profit.

Digital games are more like $3/title and your talking only tens or hundreds of thousands of full games downloaded per month as compared to millions of games shipped per month.

Assumptions.

I actually think the 3 companies make quite a bit on DD titles (especially 1st/2nd party ones) and I actually think it's not as tiny as you're suggesting it is.

well how else would the track 3rd party sales? PSN numbers they can track, first and second party they can track, 3rd party they probably can't easily do. And remember that all three of the console manufacturers report numbers like this. How do you think they track 3rd party sales? I doubt the 3rd party publishers are that willing to hand over sales documentation without a fight. Some they can both others would just give rough estimates like us or the NPD.

So no I am not doubting our figures, ok software I know we are pretty off on a lot of games but even ioi will admit that, I'm saying we have a good relationship (and I mean really good [on a side note I do have Phil Harrison's cell number =P]) with Sony and they could have asked to use our data to help figure out how much software actually sold if 3rd party companies didn't hand over records.

Do you think VGC PS3 hardware numbers are right?

800k+ consoles on store shelves seems odd to me.

You are probably the best person to ask this, and im starting to get confused... HELP!

^ This mite be a bit off this exhausted and answered topic, but have you ever phoned Phil?