The North Pole is a region too. Seeing as how it's unpopulated, I would say that's the easiest to track region - if that's what you're looking for. However, I must say your logic completely escapes me. It's probably smarter if we compare countries to countries, continents to continents, and so forth. I'm also confused as to how you think vgcharts is roughly 30% off in Japan, but you feel that is "not far off" and have "no problem with it". Especially if it is 30% off in the "easiest to track region" as you claim. That doesn't strike you as odd at all? That doesn't worry you about the other harder to track regions? So, to summarize... you say you *know* they are off by 30% in the "easiest" to track region (your opinion). You also acknowledge that they are off by about 400k in NA. However, you feel confident about the numbers in the rest of the world? Wowzers... I'm literally shocked beyond belief.

The 4.5 million sold in 2006 was from NPD, however, and not the same as the CNBC story you are citing. Added to the 610K figure from NPD for 2005, that would equal 5.1 million. I doubt it'll change much from those estimates, especially considering the 4.5 number that was from NPD. But, we'll have to wait and see! The funny thing is that most people here are saying to me "400k" isn't anything. However, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if they find out *I* was off by 400k, they'll let me have it and it suddenly won't be "close". I almost hope I'm really, really wrong just to see if they jump the fence on that issue.

Monty, I’ve been following this debate for awhile, and hopefully I can help. Since we’re looking primarily at NA sales right now, lets see what vgcharts has so far for NA sales… ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 X360 Nov 05 362,000 362,000 2 X360 Dec 05 312,500 674,500 3 X360 Jan 06 277,000 951,500 4 X360 Feb 06 178,000 1,129,500 5 X360 Mar 06 213,000 1,342,500 6 X360 Apr 06 328,000 1,670,500 7 X360 May 06 245,000 1,915,500 8 X360 Jun 06 307,500 2,223,000 9 X360 Jul 06 228,500 2,451,500 10 X360 Aug 06 226,500 2,678,000 11 X360 Sep 06 288,000 2,966,000 12 X360 Oct 06 242,000 3,208,000 13 X360 Nov 06 567,500 3,775,500 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Now lets look at what you listed for NPD numbers in US only… ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nov/2005 330,000 Dec/2005 280,000 Jan/2006 250,000 Feb/2006 160,000 Mar/2006 190,000 Apr/2006 300,000 May/2006 220,000 Jun/2006 280,000 Jul/2006 210,000 Aug/2006 20s0,000 Sep/2006 260,000 Oct/2006 220,000 Nov/2006 510,000 http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11067 Add those up and you get 3.410 million units sold. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lastly, let’s look at the percentage of sales that the US number accounts for each month… Nov2005: 91.16 Dec2005: 89.6 Jan2006: 90.25 Feb2006: 89.89 March2006: 89.20 April2006: 91.46 May2006: 89.80 Etc. These numbers are extremely close and consistently put US sales at about 90% of the NA totals, but IMO with enough variance that we know vgcharts are not merely adding a certain percentage on beyond US numbers. Puh-leeze don’t accuse them, directly or indirectly, of fabricating the numbers. I’m sure we can give them THAT benefit. Now, I would guess, though I don’t know, that these numbers don’t include Mexico. I would guess that the 10% increase in vgcharts data come entirely from Canada. However, if solid Mexican numbers don’t exist, and if they account for a statistically unimportant amount of data, and assuming that vgcharts doesn’t count them for any console, then there is no problem with that. It doesn’t show bias towards any console. If its important to you, you could look up vgcharts numbers and the reported US numbers for other consoles, and see if the appearance is about the same in terms of percentage US. Now, lets address December sales. NPD reported that XBox 360 sold 2 million in November and December through the 25th, right? Wrong. CNBC reported that NPD was their source but NPD denied it. Oops. http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/752/752823p1.html Official NPD numbers won’t be out until the 11th. Now vgcharts doesn’t do “up to the second sales,” so lets not go off their “old estimate” which may not have even included all of December. Lets take their current number and say, for the sake of argument, that it goes through December 31. Right now, their number is at 5.26 million. 5,260,000 - 3,775,500 --------------- 1,484,500 December sales currently estimated by vgcharts That means that vgcharts is estimating December sales are a 262% increase over what was sold in November. Now the original XBox was only the primary console MS had on sale for 4 years, but due to the console launching in November, and Halo 2 also launching in November, we only have TWO comparable years to use for comparison with the XBox. In 2002, XBox went from 518,000 to 1,144,500, a 221% increase, and in 2003, Xbox went from 512,500 to 1,198,000, a 234% increase, both far less than 262%. The 1,484,500 number exceeds the 1,432,500 estimate for December we’d get by subtracting the 567,500 number from the unsourced Nov-Dec 25 estimate of 2,000,000 by only about 50,000, which seems low for those last week of Dec sales, but then again the 2,000,000 number is a giant round number which we don’t know the source of. Bottom line here is that vgcharts may actually be estimating a particularly large Nov to Dec gain for 360, but that’s due to change when actual NPD numbers come out on the 11th. Now, if you want to say that the numbers are off merely because of the possibly missing Mexican numbers, go ahead. But you can’t say that shows any BIAS unless you can show where the other consoles are charting considerably different in a NPD US sales vs. VGCharts NA sales comparison like I did above. Other than that, you should wait for ACTUAL NPD numbers, and in turn, VGcharts ACTUAL December estimate. When we see their actual number for December, there won’t be all this guesswork. I mean, some of the discrepancies we’re talking about of 200,000 or 400,000 or whatever, could be covered by a single week of December sales, and we don’t know the date the current estimate goes through! No point in talking about this until the 11th. One last comment. We can say it ought to be easier to track one country over another country outside of the context of VGcharts, but its more relevant to say that the VGcharts Japanese estimate ought to be closer than their NA estimate when those are the estimates they actually MAKE--a fact which is true BECAUSE NA is tracked only by country, and Japan tracked as a whole.

Xbox 360 hits 10.4 million, announces IPTV To be announced at CES this Sunday according to Joystick.

Yes ,shipped . Remember when Sony announced back in july that they had sold 20 million PSPs ?Well they are now getting there . This is the same ....Microsoft announced september they had sold 6 million but where around 4,5 by then ...and until end october didnt reach those numbers .And now they are going to announce ,proud and glorious ,that they have hit the 10 million mark (as they promised!) but they are around the 8 million sold and wont hit ten until march or april .This is marketing ladies and gentleman ,and Microsoft is reputing themselves for lying a lot when speking numbers .

In any case, i really think VG Charts should put on their main chart some DATE. December jap figures are out, so I guess estimations (for every console) are update, including december. US/NA figures are not yet out (NPD ones), yet, they seems to included (are they ?). And european figures (or NA percentages)... Are december ones included yet, or not ?

There are some things to consider in this thread. 1) NPD is an estimate, but it is very accurate, just because it does not include some retailers means nothing. They get 60% of the total "REAL" sales from retailers and approximate the remaining 40%. Unless retailers sell in vastly different ways there is no way they are off by that much. 2) NPD is for all of NA if I'm not mistaken. This includes Canada and Mexico. That's why on the site right now when it says NA it includes Canada and Mexico, both of which NPD includes. 3) The CNBC report for the console numbers was wrong. NPD came out and said so themselves. You can google it if you like. I believe the words NPD said about their information once they saw the figures was "simply inccorect" and then they went on to say CNBC did not even talk to them at all and they obtained those figures from other people. (i.e. they got them from an analyst who says he thinks this is how much is sold) Just like in November, when analysts were saying 360 was going to sale 750k to 1 million, uhuh. That would be 511k. This site is pretty reliable thus far...much more so than nexgenwars.com who is way off on PS3 and Wii sales.

Ever noticed how nexgenwars.com has inaccurate numbers? Check this out: I looked to see who registered the domain name here and it says James Simpson from GoldFire Studios. On the GoldFire Studios website James says that he just turned 18. And this site has an interview with James who says, "I've looked at the trends of the sales of consoles from the past few years, and then I take press releases from the companies and sources like NPD, and I take those and I compile them with the trends so I can estimate and extrapolate the numbers out." James also says, "I've figured out a way to estimate the rate at which they sale, so on the server it's actually got it counting up so people can see those changing in real time." So in conclusion, nexgenwars.com is ran by an 18 yr old who guesses the rate at which the consoles are selling using trends and press releases, LMAO!

@Erik Aston - thanks for the well thought out and informative reply. It was an interesting read. The only thing we'd probably differ in our stats is that I was taking the 4.5 million in US sales for 2006 (as reported by NPD, and linked to twice in this thread) and adding in the 660k from 2005 to get 5.1 million US sales. If the rest of NA is 10% as you say, then it would be 5.6+ million for NA. I guess we'll have to see when final numbers are released. @TalonMan - Once again, I'm sorry my pointing out that vgcharts was 400k in NA didn't meet your standards of being noteworthy. I'm still confused as to how you continue to "rely" on vgcharts although it is nearly a half a million off in a very easy to track area? I guess your just one of those people that swallow's everything, questions nothing, and is fine if vgcharts is off by a million or so... although, it's probably highly likely that the 360 isn't your console of choice, which is why you could care less about this difference. I'll just say that if the 400k means nothing to you, then quit spending your time in this thread giving me long winded excuses and saying we shouldn't care about the 400k difference. I do care, that's why I'm here. @bcsd - Thanks for the 10.4 million sold information! It's definitely likely that MS means "sold to retailers", however that would definitely prove the 360 is above 9 million, and that the 8.1 million cited by vgcharts is complete bunk. @Cryoakira - I definitely agree... vgcharts needs a date as to when its figures are accurate through. If it's currently showing stats through mid-Dec we may all be on the same page (as far as 360 stats go) and just not know it. @Stromprophet - We've already been through this NUMEROUS times in this thread and shown that NPD data (as we commonly debate here) is US only. NPD does have a separate Canadian division, but those numbers are very hard to come by. Apparently nobody tallies Mexico. If you want sources, look back further into this thread for this discussion... @UltimateNinja9 - I'm not sure why everybody brings up nexgenwars into this thread? I've never backed nexgenwars and frequently said I believe them to be as every bit as screwy as vgcharts. I'd start a new thread if you want to debate vgcharts vs NGW... it doesn't really belong here. However, I will note one thing... it's been a LONG time since I've been 18 years old, but I remember being a smart lad then, and I do know some pretty smart 18 year olds. Age alone doesn't mean much, and I would never use that as an indicator that somebody is full of crap.

I'm guessing that 4.5 million number (which, according to your link, came from "Lazard Capital's Colin Sebastian regular analyst preview of NPD's North American charts"), was actually an NA number, and Mr. Sebastian misspoke when he said "US." It would be very consistent with what vgcharts is reporting so far for overall 2006 NA sales, which is 3.1 million through November, plus that 1.4+ million December number. According to the list you posted earlier (providing this link: http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11067 ), NPD is only reporting 2.8 million US sales in 2006 through November, meaning for that 4.5 million number to be US only, there would need to be 1.7 million US sales in December only. I already showed how an NA Nov to Dec jump from 567,000 to 1.484 million would be an impressive 262% increase, and if you believe that 4.5 million number is for US only, it would require a 510,000 to 1.7 million jump, an astronomical 333% increase. Given that a 4.5 million NA total for 2006 would be consistent with where vgcharts is headed, more consistent with the month-by-month NPD US numbers you posted as well as other numbers, and that the link you posted cited its source as a preview of the North American charts, I think a more likely answer is that your source made an error. We'll find out on the 11th; no need to discuss this further until then. Once again, 400,000 is a very significant amount to be off. But it is insignificant until we know the exact period of time we're talking about. Why even talk about it until we see vgcharts actual December estimate? How would that prove anything? Sorry, but we can't assume there is a certain amount sold to end users based only on reported sold to retailers numbers. Well... They'll have a date when they report December numbers... They're probably throwing every little bit of data they have into those front page estimates, regardless of date... So let's drop it until at least the 11th, when we can talk December numbers. One glance at the amount of data nexgenwars has should reveal how worthwhile of a source they are.