Rumor: Is Microsoft cheating their sales?

This is bound to be a controversial topic for many people, especially the fans of the Xbox 360 and the other consoles, so let’s take it step by step. According to a post on Softpedia, there are rumors circulating about the accuracy of Xbox 360 sales figures, with Microsoft rumored to be the culprit of a little bit of cheating to up their numbers.

The site explains that it’s not a matter of units sold in stores, but the count of units pushed out by Microsoft to stores that changes the numbers somewhat, regardless of whether they’ve been sold or not. As Softpedia explains,

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.

There are a couple of things that make this rumor very juicy for many fanboys. First is the backlash associated with this kind of activity. If any company were to be found doing something like this, wouldn’t retailers be a bit wary of stocking their shelves with products from that company? More importantly, wouldn’t they be risking the ire of their shareholders by cheating? Lastly, wouldn’t this be the type of rumor applicable to other companies as well, if such were the case?

All in all, there are some sobering thoughts with very broad implications for any company if that were true. That being said, would you buy from Microsoft, or any other company for that matter, if they were cheating their sales?

This is bound to be a controversial topic for many people, especially the fans of the Xbox 360 and the other consoles, so let’s take it step by step. According to a post on Softpedia, there are rumors circulating about the accuracy of Xbox 360 sales figures, with Microsoft rumored to be the culprit of a little bit of cheating to up their numbers.

The site explains that it’s not a matter of units sold in stores, but the count of units pushed out by Microsoft to stores that changes the numbers somewhat, regardless of whether they’ve been sold or not. As Softpedia explains,

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.

There are a couple of things that make this rumor very juicy for many fanboys. First is the backlash associated with this kind of activity. If any company were to be found doing something like this, wouldn’t retailers be a bit wary of stocking their shelves with products from that company? More importantly, wouldn’t they be risking the ire of their shareholders by cheating? Lastly, wouldn’t this be the type of rumor applicable to other companies as well, if such were the case?

All in all, there are some sobering thoughts with very broad implications for any company if that were true. That being said, would you buy from Microsoft, or any other company for that matter, if they were cheating their sales?