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[ioi]

Look, at no time have I tried to say that this data is directly applicable to Europe or even the PSP in any way.

The point was to highlight that people who think the concept of 2-3m units "sitting on shelves" or in Sony warehouses or whatever is absurd should look back and see that it happened with PS2.

Who knows what Sony's strategy with PSP is? Maybe they have decided to produce a lot of units in the last quarter as it is their most profitable (from PS2 revenue) so they have lots of PSP units ready to send out and don't make a loss in the next quarter. This could be a reasonable business plan to make their financial reports look healthier, could it not? Maybe getting ready for PS3 production later in the year? Who knows?


Yet again- the original point is: 2-3m units (maybe more) discrepancy between shipped and sold through is not uncommon for Sony hardware.

I really didn't think this would result in a 2 page discussion.

 

[DarienA]

Look, at no time have I tried to say that this data is directly applicable to Europe or even the PSP in any way.

You didn't??? Now I am confused.

The point was to highlight that people who think the concept of 2-3m units "sitting on shelves" or in Sony warehouses or whatever is absurd should look back and see that it happened with PS2.

Leading up to each holiday season?

 

[kaching]

Look, at no time have I tried to say that this data is directly applicable to Europe or even the PSP in any way.

Meanwhile, very top o' the thread:

In response to a number of different threads about "Well Sony say they shipped 5m PSPs in Europe so they must have sold close to this amount" etc, I've decided to attempt to demonstrate just how wildly inflated Sony shipped numbers are.

I gotta say, this thread has been handy in teaching me new definitions of "fairly rigorous" and "directly applicable"

 

[bishoptl]

:lol

 

[RaijinFY]

This thread is a joke... a very bad one though.

 

[ioi]

Meanwhile, very top o' the thread:
I gotta say, this thread has been handy in teaching me new definitions of "fairly rigorous" and "directly applicable"

What are you quoting there that doesn't just prove my point even more? The aim of the thread was "to attempt to demonstrate just how wildly inflated Sony shipped numbers are" not to say "here is US data for PS2, it's the same as Europe data for PSP so just compare the two directly and assume that the PS2 in US has exactly the same sales trends as the PSP in Europe", although it would obviously have some truth as Sony will have a business model that they follow, part of which (in the US anyway) seems to be to ship loads of units in Apr - Sep compared to Oct - Mar for whatever reason that may be. I don't know why they do this necessarily, and I don't think anybody else does. But there is general evidence to support the fact they do. Maybe they ship mainly to US in Apr - Sep and to Europe / Japan more in Oct - Mar? I don't know. We can look back over the numbers and try to find some more similar patterns if you want but I don't really see how it's relevant to the conversation and I'm not sure it can be directly applied to the PSP.

The concept that shipments can be much higher than sell through is the only thing I trying to show.

As I said above, who knows why Sony have shipped so many PSPs? Maybe to free up resources for PS3 production. Maybe to avoid making a loss next quarter, which they were very weary of and keep shareholders happy. Maybe because they know they will sell the units eventually. They had "overshipped" by more in Sept than as of now in the US, so that does fit the same trend.

I'd guess that Sony will likely ship very few PSPs in this last quarter of the financial year so by the time March comes round the difference will not be as large, which will make the numbers fit the trend from the PS2 even closer.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

WHat makes you think Sony can just ship as many as they want? Doesn't this really reflect what retailers are stocking?

And you're bieng seriously disingenous on the Europe issue. You imply a correlation yet get slippery when called on it. You mention Europe in the first post, in relation to your projections of units on shelves.

 

[Earthstrike]

Sell-through numbers are of no use to anyone in any facet of any business, because at best they are and will always be an error-prone method of estimation. Retailer shipment numbers are what counts (considering revenue is still generated from retailer shipments) and is the best method of determining sales and trends

Lets go over what you just said.
The sell through numbers are of no use to anyone because retailer shipment numbers is the best indicator of sell-through numbers. Smart.

If sell-through numbers meant nothing then Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony wouldn't be shelling out 12 000$ a month for reports on them now would they?

P.S The execs of these companies are a lot smarter than you.

 

[ioi]

WHat makes you think Sony can just ship as many as they want? Doesn't this really reflect what retailers are stocking?

And you're bieng seriously disingenous on the Europe issue. You imply a correlation yet get slippery when called on it. You mention Europe in the first post, in relation to your projections of units on shelves.

The correlation is merely in the fact that it is possible to have large discrepancies between shipped and sold-through numbers.

The thread isn't meant as a direct response to PSP threads, but to Sony numbers in general. It was actually spawned more by a conversation I had with Sonycowboy a couple of weeks ago where he said that the PS2 would hit 55m + in the US and wouldn't accept that the 40m Sony have shipped is likely to be a good few million higher than the number they have sold through to date. I said that despite the fact that PS2 had shipped 100m worldwide, sell through is more likely to be in low 90m's and was told that was a stupid thing to suggest.

So all the pathetic replies since that have just tried to stir up a DS vs PSP war have totally missed the mark as always.

The argument is applicable and in response to a number of "debates" I've had in the past, and is certainly not meant to imply that PSP sales in Europe follow exactly the same trends as PS2 sales in the US and if people have taken it as that then you have misunderstood my point. They are two different issues entirely.

The only link is the concept that people find hard to believe that 2-3m units can be "sitting on shelves" so to speak.

 

[Dilbert]

This thread keeps going deeper and deeper into The Short Bus Zone.

The aim of the thread was "to attempt to demonstrate just how wildly inflated Sony shipped numbers are"

The concept that shipments can be much higher than sell through is the only thing I trying to show.

Now I'm starting to suspect that your problem isn't math -- it's English. When you say that you're trying to demonstrate that the Sony shipment numbers are "inflated," that means that you are claiming to have evidence that Sony produced X units in some time period, but reported some number greater than X as their "shipped" number. Unless you work for Sony, or have broken into their warehouses to count by hand, you have ZERO basis to make that claim.

If your "point" is to say, "Hey, I did some really shaky math, and that wacky Sony seems to keep quite a backlog," then I'm deeply, deeply amused. In fact, I don't know what's funnier -- that you believe your own erroneous scribblings about the size of their stock levels, or that you're all of a sudden some kind of expert in supply chain management.

As I said above, who knows why Sony have shipped so many PSPs? Maybe to free up resources for PS3 production. Maybe to avoid making a loss next quarter, which they were very weary of and keep shareholders happy. Maybe because they know they will sell the units eventually.

I don't know the economics of who pays for the storage space, but I can guarantee that ramping up your production so that (produced) >> (sold) in a given quarter will end up showing as a LOSS on your financial metrics unless you're making a huge profit margin on the item in question. Materials and labor required to produce an item is a liability until it gets sold -- there is no advantage in making it significantly ahead of the point in time where you sell it and get your ROI. (In fact, making it early can be a disadvantage if you have to pay for the storage space, or if the prices of either the materials or labor may drop over time.)

 

[Gahiggidy]

Don't you people remember when Nintendo overproduced GameCubes and went through a 6 month peroid before demand cuaght up with demand?

 

[ioi]

This thread keeps going deeper and deeper into The Short Bus Zone.



Now I'm starting to suspect that your problem isn't math -- it's English. When you say that you're trying to demonstrate that the Sony shipment numbers are "inflated," that means that you are claiming to have evidence that Sony produced X units in some time period, but reported some number greater than X as their "shipped" number. Unless you work for Sony, or have broken into their warehouses to count by hand, you have ZERO basis to make that claim.

If your "point" is to say, "Hey, I did some really shaky math, and that wacky Sony seems to keep quite a backlog," then I'm deeply, deeply amused. In fact, I don't know what's funnier -- that you believe your own erroneous scribblings about the size of their stock levels, or that you're all of a sudden some kind of expert in supply chain management.


I don't know the economics of who pays for the storage space, but I can guarantee that ramping up your production so that (produced) >> (sold) in a given quarter will end up showing as a LOSS on your financial metrics unless you're making a huge profit margin on the item in question. Materials and labor required to produce an item is a liability until it gets sold -- there is no advantage in making it significantly ahead of the point in time where you sell it and get your ROI. (In fact, making it early can be a disadvantage if you have to pay for the storage space, or if the prices of either the materials or labor may drop over time.)

Sony shipment numbers are an inflated version of the truth of how many have actually been sold through.

How's that mr English teacher?


Who's claiming to be an expert at supply chain management, which is actually something I do have a fair bit of experience- you don't know me so how can you judge what I'm an expert in or not? I don't know where Sony keep the units, what they do with them or anything else. All I know is that there have been a number of periods in the past where at a given point in time Shipments made by Sony into a particular region have been significantly (i.e over 3m) higher than the most they could have sold through to that point.

What about that is so hard to grasp?


I haven't got a clue about why they have "shipped" so many PSPs. The suggestions about avoiding a loss was merely pie in the sky, although I do think that from a financial reporting point of view that the costs of producing, say, 5m units in Nov / Dec would be offset from the large profits they make in this period and means that this cost doesn't come into play for Jan-Mar 06 reporting figures which Sony have predicted a loss for. Again, I have no clue of the business stragegy Sony decides to employ and neither do you for that matter, but the relatively small cost of storing / shipping the extra few million units may well offset potential losses in share price if the announced a loss for Jan-Mar 06. Just an idea, one of many potential explanations. Another, as I have suggested, may be to build up supplies of PSPs to make way for more focus of resources into PS3 production. At the end of the day, none of us really know and you come across as thinking you're some kind of expert just as much as I do. There are a number of reasons why it may be advantageous to produce extra units now and neither of us are really in a position to say why.

 

[Archie]

why is this three pages?

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

ioi:

For all of that, you haven't addressed my comment that the only time shipments have swollen that greatly were
a) later in life, when retailers would presumably be ordering more
b) leading up to the holidays.

So yeah, 2.5 M PSPs unsold in Europe is a crock.

 

[kaching]

ioi/broshnat, would you consider your explanations for the motivation of this thread as rigorous as you claim your math to be?

In response to a number of different threads about "Well Sony say they shipped 5m PSPs in Europe so they must have sold close to this amount" etc, I've decided to attempt to demonstrate just how wildly inflated Sony shipped numbers are.

Again, all it aims to do is dispel the myth that Sony shipped numbers = sony sold through numbers.

The point was to highlight that people who think the concept of 2-3m units "sitting on shelves" or in Sony warehouses or whatever is absurd should look back and see that it happened with PS2.

The thread isn't meant as a direct response to PSP threads, but to Sony numbers in general. It was actually spawned more by a conversation I had with Sonycowboy a couple of weeks ago where he said that the PS2 would hit 55m + in the US and wouldn't accept that the 40m Sony have shipped is likely to be a good few million higher than the number they have sold through to date.

 

[ioi]

ioi:

For all of that, you haven't addressed my comment that the only time shipments have swollen that greatly were
a) later in life, when retailers would presumably be ordering more
b) leading up to the holidays.

So yeah, 2.5 M PSPs unsold in Europe is a crock.

I don't have and have never claimed to have an answer as to why out of the 5.02m PSPs shipped in Europe, only around 2.5m were sold through as of Dec 05. I really don't have a clue what the reason is behind it. I could make a number of suggestions but I really have no more idea than you or Jinx or anyone else.


Yet again, the only point of this thread was to demonstrate that it's not impossible for Sony to ship significantly more than they have sold at a point in time, in fact it's a very regular occurance, and so to address anybody who thinks that the sell-through for Europe should be higher than 2.5m because there is no way Sony can have 2.5m in "stock"- you are wrong! The number sold through may well be higher than 2.5m, who really knows, but you have nothing to back this "can't have that much stock" argument up and in fact all data we have shows that it's quite possible.

And that's the last time I'm gonna say it now, cause I'm sick of saying it over and over and over again !!!

 

[ioi]

ioi/broshnat, would you consider your explanations for the motivation of this thread as rigorous as you claim your math to be?

Your tag does just say it all

Right, I've had enough of this pointless thread. The numbers are there for anyone to see and you can argue amongst yourselves because it's like trying to draw blood from a stone at the moment.

But I shouldn't have expected anything else on GAF :lol

 

[xaosslug]

Reuters: Sony over-ships handheld to meet demand on the cusp of price drop

j/k :lol

 

[RaijinFY]

Your tag does just say it all

Right, I've had enough of this pointless thread. The numbers are there for anyone to see and you can argue amongst yourselves because it's like trying to draw blood from a stone at the moment.

But I shouldn't have expected anything else on GAF :lol

Ok, so please, next time, spare us those kind of thread... pointless thread like you said. Thx you very much!

 

[ioi]

Ok, so please, next time, spare us those kind of thread... pointless thread like you said. Thx you very much!

You do have a choice of whether to come in or not, don't forget.

It didn't start off pointless, it's the idiotic name calling, piss-taking and everything else that has ruined what began as an interesting point for people to think about.