shipped/sold dark red degrees of a circle thing

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by xbd

BluOgre yes, you already stated as much when you said that your problem with my post was semantics-related. Semantics is a word I understand as well you know.



But that's just it though, those sites *do not* track the sales as NPD does - indeed their own figures are just an abstraction/amalgam of other legitimate tracking systems. And in that, I feel their numbers are worthwhile to an extent.

Yet knowing also that European tracking is very very weak on a stat basis, if we're looking at global figures, everything else aside I think truly that shipped numbers are the way to go, especially as the general pool of ownership grows larger. There is only ever a certain amount of hardware in the channel: replacement stock means shifted units.

Here is the problem I have with that, MS back in June or July of this year had announced their "shipped" numbers. That was not their sell off at retail and if memory serves me right it wasn't even close. Everyone knew it was shipped because NPD released their figures and it wasn't even close.

I have no problem saying that X360 is around 13 million in retail sales atm because that is sounds about right. But I'll never go by their qtr ending or yearly financials of shipped numbers. Mainly because ALL of them like to flood the market at the end of each qtr/year to make their "projected" shipped numbers. MS and Sony will try to inflate the numbers as much as possible since it seems their consoles have been meet with low sales....unlike the Wii.

There is also a reason why X360 didn't make their targeted shipped numbers at the end of their last year. The console slowed to a crawl in sales and wasn't moving at retail. No sales = no reorders. With that in mind how can you say with confindance that shipped numbers are just as accurate as NPD numbers? They can say they shipped 16 million consoles by Dec 31, 2007.....are you going to trust that means they sold 16 million units?

One more thing, there is a reason why MS specifically says these are SHIPPED numbers and not sales. Remember what happened with Universal and Shrek 2 years ago....they tried to pass off their shipped numbers as retail sales and got in trouble because of stock holders. That's just another reason why shipped does not equal sold. If MS is not willing to go on a limb and say they are sold, why should we? If you want to go by shipped I suppose you think Spiderman 3 on BR sold 400k units (after all that is what shipped).