Rumour: Is Microsoft cheating their sales?

[Timboo]

Is Micrsoft ploughing retailers with extra units to hit yearly sales targets? The article in question thinks that may be the case.

A company like Microsoft has a fiscal year to end. As the end of that fiscal year approaches, the company realizes that only 9 million units of their product have been shipped (sold units are something to bother their heads with later) out of the 10 million target. The company then “stuffs retailers” with the extra 1 million units and they can happily say they've ended their fiscal year. But all this is like a boomerang and if this is indeed Microsoft's case, it will come back and hit them in the face.

This is substantiated somewhat below.....

“Strong companies confident in their strategy and performance don't do these things," the Ehrenberg blog says. “They don't have to. What kind of a message does this type of behavior send to the investor community and, more importantly, your customers? Weakness. Fear. Short-term thinking. Nothing that represents a positive signal for a better, brighter tomorrow.”

Roger Ehrenberg, president and COO of investment analyst service Monitor110 financial blog, got his information from the Apple-focused Blackfriars' Marketing. They imply that “Microsoft threatened to withhold copies of its Vista operating system--released in January--from retailers who didn't play along and choke down excess Xbox 360 inventory.”

<a href="http://nexgenwars.com/gaming_news/146/Rumors-of-Microsoft-Cheating-Their-Sales" target="_blank">nextgenwars.com</a>

[lee6370]

The company thats the source of this story is very, very pro-apple, so i'd take it with a pinch of salt. (at least the negative spin they place on it)

However i will say that every company i've ever worked for has tried every thing it can think of to get it's producted in to shops and to get the shops to take as much stock as possible, this (from a marketing point of veiw) means that more stock is placed in the store (due to lack of storage space) and also that less of the competitors stock is held (due to lack of storage).

[satel]

i'm glad someone is taking the time to expose those liars at microcrooks..

[DEDDOA]

Well considering units sold is what most people care about, units shipped means nothing to most. It can't be any worse than Sony selling PS3 units to retailers making them appear as units sold. This is at least true for the retailer mine was bought from, when I asked him why he was selling them for £380, well the 3 he had anyway (he said they were gone withing an hour of dropping the price, lucky the missus bought 2 of them). He said he got them not on sale or return as you would expect, it was sale or gather dust as he put it, and he couldn't afford for them to gather dust. I expect things like this are done by all 3 and so would contribute towards units sold, when really speaking they are not. That tho is just the way the game is played, if all companies were honest I doubt they would do a much business. Can you imagine an honest Wii, 360 or PS3 advert

Wii - It's not that much better than the GC and is nowhere near the PS3 or 360, but it is cheap and gives a different gaming expeirience on it's 1 or 2 games.

PS3 - (BLU-RAY) Buy (BLU-RAY) our (BLU-RAY) new (BLU-RAY) Blu-ray (BLU-RAY) player (BLU-RAY), it (BLU-RAY) has (BLU-RAY) a (BLU-RAY) games (BLU-RAY) console (BLU-RAY) bolted (BLU-RAY) on (BLU-RAY) that (BLU-RAY) is (BLU-RAY) not (BLU-RAY) all (BLU-RAY) it's (BLU-RAY) hyped (BLU-RAY) to (BLU-RAY) be (BLU-RAY) but (BLU-RAY) is (BLU-RAY) still (BLU-RAY) damned (BLU-RAY) good (BLU-RAY) in (BLU-RAY) theory (BLU-RAY). It (BLU-RAY) may (BLU-RAY) not (BLU-RAY) have (BLU-RAY) many (BLU-RAY) games (BLU-RAY) worth (BLU-RAY) getting (BLU-RAY) over (BLU-RAY) the (BLU-RAY) 360 (BLU-RAY) and (BLU-RAY) isn't (BLU-RAY) any (BLU-RAY) more (BLU-RAY) powerfull (BLU-RAY) but (BLU-RAY) forget (BLU-RAY) that (BLU-RAY) and (BLU-RAY) buy (BLU-RAY) blu-ray (BLU-RAY)films (BLU-RAY)


360 - It's got a few heating problems and the core pack is not really worth getting, but where we have skimped on features we saved you on price. If you want all the extra's tho it will cost you an arm a leg and your first born child, but at least you don't have to pay for stuff you don't want. You will have no worries with games as we have crap loads to choose from, and regardless of what sony tell you the PS3 is not more powefull (and if they try it again we will sue them or just buy a chunk of them). These are not the 3 red lights you are looking for, noisey drives will do fine (waves hand), crap didn't work ok yeah we do have pretty big problems with them.

[Kenban]

Sony did this with the PSP. They forced HUGE numbers of consoles onto the market and they paid for it in the end when they only shipped 10,000 consoles to north america in October, November, and December of last year. Retailers had massive inventories of the console but because of the large shipped figures people believed the console was doing better then it really was. In reality the DS is outselling the PSP 2 to 1 worldwide. But the shipped figure did not show that. At one point it was estimated that there were around 5 million unsold PSP's on the market (worldwide).

[indierocker]

No they are not, and at least they aren't purposely creating a shortage to hype it up more like the Wii

[laesperanzapaz]

No they are not, and at least they aren't purposely creating a shortage to hype it up more like the Wii

prove it, sony preacher.

on the other hand, i can EASILY prove sony's pathetic attempt to make psp and ps3 'hip' and 'cool' in an attempt to overhype them .....now, which of the many myriad hype-attempts that sony has done should i ppick.....

[xllzerollx]

prove it, sony preacher.

on the other hand, i can EASILY prove sony's pathetic attempt to make psp and ps3 'hip' and 'cool' in an attempt to overhype them .....now, which of the many myriad hype-attempts that sony has done should i ppick.....
pic the legendary enemy crabs that you can hit on weak points for masive damege one

[Scorpion3]

i'm glad someone is taking the time to expose those liars at microcrooks..

lmao. That's right, don't read the article at all, let alone notice where the article is from. :rolleyes: Nexgenwars has a problem with spreading lies about gamesales constantly.

[[Evol]]

im calling BS on this one if MS "stuffed" the retailers then the retailers would dump prices to move stock. (and to the best of my knowledge 360 haven't dropped in price)