You really think IHS has more information than EA as far as sales and console penetration is concerned....Ubisoft or Activision? MS has not been forthcoming at all with numbers, it's easy to extrapolate from Sony's declared shipped numbers for such a company, why? Just deduct a few million from Sony's 79 million figure and voila! your figures don't look insane....On the flip, what information is IHS using to get the MS figure......So you mean to tell me, the whole time Sony was comfortably ahead of MS in excess of 2:1, but it's not quite so anymore? What gave MS that momentum? Do you realize that apart from NA, which XBOX is being outsold in by a good bit (I mean just last NPD PS4 outsold the XBOX and Wii combined), the xbox brand is not doing stellar sales anywhere else. Spain, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Africa, India, South America, Larger Asian continent and then Japan?
I have no issues if XBOX has a solid base, but let's do it based on solid info, the information here are just guesses and more so of a guess in MS's case because there's less to work with. So in that case it's all up to who is feeling generous or perhaps not so generous when giving MS a figure.....with the exception being EA.....
You guys keep laying it thick that EA access is the second coming, but guess what, who's providing that servcie to MS, is it not EA? Don't you think they will have more info than you, IHS, Pachter etc...They know how much of the XBOX base they've penetrated with their service, they know the total installbase they're targetting on XBOX and they know the installbase of the PS4 base they have no access to. For XBOX, you don't think EA knows that they only have say (3-5%) penetration of the XBOX market and are privy to information you would not based on their status and business deals?????
Let's be clear here, EA did not give an MS figure directly, it was extrapolated, it's business in the sense that; MS is their partner and has a stance on figures, so they would never betray that. However, you can ride the lines and do nothing wrong...In essence, most of the information deduced was done so primarily because of ONE thing....The fact that we all know Sony's numbers. So yes, Information can only be accurate and deduced if you have some info to work with, without knowing Sony's numbers we would not even be having this conversation, but then, here we are....
It's a simple thing really, all MS has to do is to give numbers directly and I'll believe it. Does Zhuge have MS numbers and EA doesn't, come on now. What is his breakdown per region, what does he have? I tell you what, he's guessing just like IHS. The company which has EA access on XBOX knows how many XBOX consoles they're dealing with, they have info on the installbase. I'll take their word over any guessing game anyone else does.....It's strange too, because XBOX fans said they like the way MS is reporting numbers (which is nothing substantial, this gen), then the minute someone gives a more favorable estimate than the other million estimates before it, they're now stoked with numbers and it's the one to believe over more credible sources....So do you want real numbers or not? The only people who have the latest up to date number is MS, tell them to give it and all is solved, because you can't be over-generous as in estimates or lie on official numbers. At this point, the only official numbers we have is from Sony and EA is the closest thing to official numbers from MS you are going to get...