Of course Sony/Nintendo/MSFT can use NPD and other estimators to figure out how many consumers brought their product from stores, but I don't think people are debating that (at least I don't think). These sort of press releases of official #s from the manufacturer are based on exact, factual shipments from their factory to the stores. You can't fake or fudge those numbers because it's illegal and the SEC and investors would have a field day. If they knew exactly what stores sell to consumers, then there would be no need for NPD, and they would release their own NPD reports every month.

The manufacturer knows exactly how many units they produced though, and how many they shipped/sold to the store (these press release #s). The manufacturer (Sony/Nintendo/MSFT) report these #s and revenue to investors. The stores then take the product they bought, mark it up to the MSRP, and sell it so they make a profit on it. NPD & others measure these numbers.

Stores do not call up Sony/Nintendo/MSFT corporate every day and say "OMG, we sold 3 more units, yay!" However, they do say, "we need another shipment of 100 units for next week." The manufacturer then packages these up and ships them out to the retailer, and marking it as a sale (because it was sold to the retailer).

The fact is, that all consumer products/electronics companies count the products they ship out of their manufacturing facility as a sale, even Sony/Nintendo/MSFT. View

Lol, it's impossible for companies like Sony, Nintendo, & Microsoft to measure how many units consumers (people like you and I) buy because they don't sell to them (consumers). They sell them to middlemen, stores (customers), like Gamestop, Best Buy, etc... That's why there are companies like NPD whose sole job is to measure the turnover from shops to people, something the manufacturer can't measure.

As in every industry, manufacturers report units shipped (and hence sold) to their distributing retailers.

Try asking a massive corn farm in the Midwest how many people bought their product. They would have no clue. They would only know how many units they sold to the store, whose job is to then sell to the consumer. View

It's the Gamer Zone. I'll double check just for you though...

Yep, still the Gamer Zone.

Stay on topic. This story is about Halo: Reach rumored release date, not to call each other fanboys and debate which side has the worst ones. View

Darkpower:"And I guess we're not supposed to discuss if the system is flawed to begin with, either? I guess the debate about the filter isn't allowed to even HAPPEN or even be brought up? No wonder no one has questioned the filter yet. They aren't ALLOWED to."

Then how about you ask in a polite and unbiased way? Why would people want to help you or answer your questions when you throw around accusations, fallacies, and conspiracy theories like what was written in this "article?" I would have helped you had I not read (actually just skimmed for the "good" a.k.a. very incorrect parts) this wall of text. View

From "article":

"Process being this.
* Fanboy sees story they don’t like on front page that’s “unfiltered”
* Fanboy gets several of allies on the site
* They all go to mods/admins to have the entire site filtered for a few stories
* Site gets filtered"

Utterly false and incorrect. It saddens me to see someone who thinks they have everything figured out, only to really know so little about this site and how it is run.

You should become a fiction writer. You sure know how to drone on and on, and you could easily amass 1000+ pages. You also seem to have worked out the fiction aspect too. View

You read correctly. Except the first demo is a Clank demo, so we don't get to see all the cool guns. But it comes out on Thursday.

It also looks like they have a Ratchet demo in the few days after the Clank one. That should be the better one. View

:)

Ha, I just knew when the embargo ended, and then went to all the major sites I could think of. I got lucky with the IGN one, and then this one (lowest score so far). View

You got the shout-out from Naughty Dog's twitter account, so it MUST be postworthy! View

It could be arranged. I'll Derby you if you E3 me. View

PAX is lame. Are you going to be at the 136th running of the Kentucky Derby? ;-) View

Stop lying! Show us a picture of your paystub from Microsoft!

*grabs pitchfork and torch* View

No problem. It was a really good interview.

I really hope they follow through with their claim of 2 years worth of DLC support. I was disappointed by their lack of Mass Effect DLC, but I have a feeling they'll be supporting their products better now after seeing the community's response to their over-promise with ME. View

Plagiarism:

http://www.pcworld.com/arti...

http://n4g.com/industrynews... View

Maybe you should actually know something about posting stories before saying that. The story is categorized as an "article," which is inherently opinion based by definition. Putting that in the title is not needed, and overkill. View

They said they could change objects in the foreground on the fly, not the background. That includes stuff like weapon placements and propane tanks. That doesn't mean they can change level geometry on the fly. View

Yeah, playlists are updated every month and sometimes weapon layouts are changed too so the gameplay stays balanced, all without patches. They use patches when the new map packs come out so they are enabled in the level select, as well as 1 major v1.1 patch.

Naughty Dog is a great developer and are very community-driven. They'll do everything they can to support this game long after it launches. I'm glad they are working so hard to make this a GOTY contender. This game looks amazing and is definitely a day 1 buy! And yes, I stayed up and watched this GTTV episode.

I'm still wishing they'll make another Crash Bandicoot someday. :) View

Halo 3 does this currently. Bungie is able to change the multiplayer playlists as well as weapon placements on the fly with no patches.

Its a very good feature, and I'm glad more games will take advantage of this. There is nothing worse than wanting to play your favorite game and having to waste time downloading patches. View

Very true. The cell shading turned some people off to the game, but there really is some beautiful lighting and effects. I really hope they make a Crackdown 2. View

Companies that supply all the components that make up the PS3, like the case, capacitors, fans, screws, etc...

I think the purpose of this article is to say that Sony is working hard to take cost out of the machine and make it cheaper. All companies do that after they launch a product. View

Do something about it. Report your problems here: http://forums.n4g.com/tm.as...

P.s. AdBlock Plus is your friend, and you should use it. View