Carlo_M
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Oct 31, 1997
- Messages
- 13,392
Yes, I was joking.
Here's something to think about re: "gathering dust".
The claim was that Sony shipped 1 million PS3s to US by end of December.
That includes shipping up to Dec. 31. There was a known shortage/sellout of the consoles until mid-December some time. Sony was able to ramp up and air-ship additional units towards the latter half of December, which made up for a significant portion of the "1 million shipped".
However, I don't know how much you know about how retail works, but Sony doesn't ship to your local BB or EB. They ship to local warehouses/distribution centers, who then parse out the shipments to regional centers, who then ship to the stores. So it is entirely possible, no, not just possible, but plausible and probable that Sony shipped many units "by the end of 2006" that did not even make it into retailers shelves until the end of the month or beginning of this month.
Best Buy itself was sold out the week before and after XMas, and held off on putting stock onto their store shelves until their big New Years Day sale where they advertised a minimum of 25 per store. Think about that. 25 per store. How many Best Buys in the nation? I live within 25 miles of 10 of them.
That in and of itself, in one retailer, equals a ton of stock that Sony had already shipped to them that Sony counted as "shipped in 2006" but won't be sold until 1/1/2007 or later (I called all 10 Best Buys near me and all but one were sold out the next day when I got back from out of the country, I was able to get the one remaining one left at a new BB about 16 miles from my house that many people didn't know was up and running yet because it's behind a block-long construction wall).
So before you gleefully revel in those numbers, stop and think for a bit how much "dust those PS3s gathered" on the airplane to the trucks to the distribution centers to the warehouses to the stores. Not much I would wager. But the fact is that it takes a week or more even if Sony rush ships them, for them to get to the States and into the stores. Couple that with the holiday closures of many businesses (stores and transportation companies) and it's all too likely that a high percentage of the number of unsold systems (as compared to shipped by Sony) were actually in transit or being purposely held back like Best Buy did.
And I'm no Sony honk. This is my first PS system, I owned XBox, Cube, N64, Genesis, SNES, etc. As soon as Halo 3 comes out I plan to buy the 360 (hopefully the rumored v2 w/ HDMI). When the stupid EB or BB finally gets Wii stock I'll probably buy that.
Here's something to think about re: "gathering dust".
The claim was that Sony shipped 1 million PS3s to US by end of December.
That includes shipping up to Dec. 31. There was a known shortage/sellout of the consoles until mid-December some time. Sony was able to ramp up and air-ship additional units towards the latter half of December, which made up for a significant portion of the "1 million shipped".
However, I don't know how much you know about how retail works, but Sony doesn't ship to your local BB or EB. They ship to local warehouses/distribution centers, who then parse out the shipments to regional centers, who then ship to the stores. So it is entirely possible, no, not just possible, but plausible and probable that Sony shipped many units "by the end of 2006" that did not even make it into retailers shelves until the end of the month or beginning of this month.
Best Buy itself was sold out the week before and after XMas, and held off on putting stock onto their store shelves until their big New Years Day sale where they advertised a minimum of 25 per store. Think about that. 25 per store. How many Best Buys in the nation? I live within 25 miles of 10 of them.
That in and of itself, in one retailer, equals a ton of stock that Sony had already shipped to them that Sony counted as "shipped in 2006" but won't be sold until 1/1/2007 or later (I called all 10 Best Buys near me and all but one were sold out the next day when I got back from out of the country, I was able to get the one remaining one left at a new BB about 16 miles from my house that many people didn't know was up and running yet because it's behind a block-long construction wall).
So before you gleefully revel in those numbers, stop and think for a bit how much "dust those PS3s gathered" on the airplane to the trucks to the distribution centers to the warehouses to the stores. Not much I would wager. But the fact is that it takes a week or more even if Sony rush ships them, for them to get to the States and into the stores. Couple that with the holiday closures of many businesses (stores and transportation companies) and it's all too likely that a high percentage of the number of unsold systems (as compared to shipped by Sony) were actually in transit or being purposely held back like Best Buy did.
And I'm no Sony honk. This is my first PS system, I owned XBox, Cube, N64, Genesis, SNES, etc. As soon as Halo 3 comes out I plan to buy the 360 (hopefully the rumored v2 w/ HDMI). When the stupid EB or BB finally gets Wii stock I'll probably buy that.