Whos Phil? lol

@Carl

800k on the shelves is actually lower than usual. It is usually just over 1M on the shelves. Although Sony might be clearing stock, which would explain that.

Think how many shops sell PS3's in the world... its a lot.

Psssf that's way too low, they usually have 5-10 million in store shelves at any given time.

5 to 10 million on storeshelves? Are you drunk?

My post from the other thread.


1. Luke Plunkett from Kotaku just made a huge error.

2. All 3 video game companies (as with virtually all major electronics firms) report their sales as "sold". But they don't sell directly to you and I, they sell directly to retailers. Retailers ARE their consumers...not us.

3. Prior to March 31, 2007, Sony reported the total number of units manufactured. On that day they switched to the industry standard method noted in point 2.

4. Units sold to end consumers (that's us) are reported via 3rd party tracking firms such as NPD. Anytime, ANYTIME, either of the big 3 claim sales figures sold to end users (us again) they will always, ALWAYS, indicate the sales are in accordance with one of the tracking firms...be it NPD, GfK Chart Track or Media Create. None of the big 3 track point of sale because they pay those other tracking firms for the results of their services.

5. Every quarter Sony releases their financial information to the public on their Investor Relations web site. You may find the following statement on all of them since March 31, 2007, "From FY07 the method of reporting unit sales was changed from production shipments to recorded sales (FY06 reclassified). As noted above recorded sales for them are retailers and distributors...not end market consumers (us).



Being in the media myself, it always pangs me to see our industry writers do all they can to lower our standards.

Well, I can't prove that Sony's figures don't include digitally distributed games but Nintendo's annual reports specifically state that Wii Ware, DSi Ware, Virtual Console are not counted in the software shipments, and Microsoft always touts Live figures seperately from attach rates. Odds are heavily against Sony including the figures since the big three have exactly the same reporting methods in all other manners.

800,000 systems on shelves isn't that much really. If you look at the Wii figures it had far more than that on shelves through the end of June. Microsoft and Sony both likely held back on shipments for the quarter to insure current system-models would be depleted so that they can introduce new models for lower prices later in the year. Microsoft appears to have held Xbox 360 back a little more since their weekly sales are higher which implies a new sku or two pretty soon.

In the United States alone there are over 10,000 stores that sell video games. Worldwide it is 50,000 or more. So to have 800,000 more systems isn't really that much.

I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

But what about the Walkman?

You should post more often. That knowledge helps immensely.

800,000 as of June 30th..

Its August, in any case, it doesn't really matter we cannot prove or deny if the figures are incorrect or if they are correct.