Vgchartz Clarifies Recent Sony and Microsoft PR
Recently, Sony and Microsoft issued press releases stating various vaguely worded facts and statistics about their respective consoles. In the interest of providing readers with the clearest possible assessment of the videogame market, Vgchartz listened in to the Sony and Microsoft briefings at CES. On stage, Microsofts Robbie Bach stated that the 17.7 million figure for Xbox 360 units sold is a shipped figure, and after that Vgchartz saw no reason to contact Microsoft for clarity on the figures, as the big three do regard 'sales' as unit sales to retailers in the absence of internal retail tracking that is complete (that is, the big three are not completely aware of how many units at stores are sold to gamers in a given time frame). If you'd like to hear Bach state it himself, simply go here
http://www.microsoft.com/ces/ and wait until he shows up on stage.
Sony spent much of CES focused on non-videogame products, and as a result Vgchartz wrote to Sony to ask for clarification on the recent press release which stated that SCEA sold 1.2 million PS3s from Black Friday (November 23rd) to the end of 2007. Here is what I wrote, and what Sony said in response (names are omitted in the interest of privacy):
(To Sony)
I'm responsible for chasing down contacts for Vgchartz to seek clarification on many PR issues. A contact of mine gave me your email. Recently, Sony released a statement saying that the PS3 sold 1.2 million units from Black Friday until the end of 2007. Our position is that Sony is reporting PS3s sold to retail, which counts as sales in terms of revenue. We would simply like to clarify and confirm that Sony (like Microsoft and Nintendo ) only track sales to retail, rather than the number of PS3s that end up in homes. As a number sold to retail, the PS3, PS2, and PSP figures agree well with our sell through data. Thanks for you time.
In response, Sony wrote:
Hi (JMazel),
Yes, we are reporting sell through data (sales to retail). If you have more
questions on specific data I can put you in touch with {our} Analyst Relations Manager.
Please let me know if you need anything else.
Thanks, (Sony)
Expect much more data in coming weeks as Sony and Nintendo issue quarterly statements for shipments and as Vgchartz posts its year in review sales article.