Second, about your stats:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Sony-Reaches-1-Million-PSN-Users-in-Japan-86720.shtml

It is not a strange thing to see people that don’t have user accounts for online networks on their respective console. I mean, PSN is totally FREE, but the userbase? About 65%. In fact, 60-70% network connectivity is probably what will be average for these consoles for the rest of this generation. And to add to this, users can easily create multiple accounts on PSN and XBL (usually to pick up demos/content from other regions that aren’t available in their home region), which really adds to the total number artificially.

So the true amount of online users is probably in the 55-65% range.

It’s just the availability of internet connections, bottom line. With something like Itunes, it’s a GUARANTEED internet connection, so your numbers are drastically skewed towards products/services that have guaranteed internet connections to use.

Consoles don’t always have guaranteed, because you can enjoy them without online.

Hey “blogger”, I’m sad to say, that all this “data” is highly a misinterpretation. You say you use NPD and Microsoft’s shipment numbers. Ok, great. Guess what? What about the rest of the world?

It is common knowledge that what NPD presents is sales figures for the North American Region. All of your “actual sales figures” are NPD numbers, which are just North America! How can you base an article of this caliber on just those two figures??

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/200801301744.jpg

THIS graph is incredibly…incredibly, wrong. First of all, it does not show the shortage in Q4 ‘05…which actually was there…with some reports saying it lasted till the end of Q1 06. Secondly, you honestly, from the looks of it, only used NPD data for sales. Thirdly, it honestly looks like you used December 06 only reporting for Q4 2006.

This whole article is spin, because it honestly does not take into account world sales at all. 6 million consoles were reported by vgchartz.com by september 06. And if you haven’t been to that site, I suggest you visit it, because their figures are NOT from actual Microsoft shipments, but from research companies around the world that report from retailers and the likes. Your graph does NOT even represent that data at all! 10.96 million by March 07. If the channel was “stuffed” for all of 2007, as you so eloquently put it, by this data alone, it was stuffed until only March, by 1-2 million units. Does it look like that’s the case at with this graph at all?

No matter how you present this article, it is not a “factual representation” of what you are trying to prove as a “doom” to the console. I really suggest people do some research before taking any of this to the brain.