I kinda bet they do. I bet it sells more than they say.

Here's what I mean and a question to ioi. Ioi gets samples of sales, and then they extrapolate that to try to get total sales as verified by NPD. Well, I'm willing to bet money that he has to push 360 sales DOWN and Wii sales UP to match NPD.

In other words, I bet the raw data that ioi gets has 360 selling just as much as Wii. Yet in NPD it's 1/2. Confirm ioi?

I bet NPD just counts Wal Mart as 90% Wii sales.

It just seems like in real life 360 is a lot more popular than numbers suggest. There's no way Wii is selling 3X as many as NPD claims.

If that was the case, then why were his projections the most accurate for the Xbox 360 vs. NPDs actual numbers? The Wii is selling much quicker. The 360 has been out for more than 1 and 1/2 year's without a pricedrop. There are only so many systems consumers are willing to buy given a certain price for the same piece of technology. NPD doesn't count Wal-Mart in their projections.

It doesn't matter how accurate they were. He's working off a formula.

Greatly simplified example: Lets say one month ioi's data has Xbox 360 selling 100 hardware, and Wii 100. and PS3 30. Cus lets say ioi only has data for 5 stores or so. Then the NPD come in showing Wii at 400k, 360 at 200k, PS3 at 90k. If after several months things proceed accordingly ioi can make a formula that says, Xbox 360 salesX20k=NPD, Wii salesX40k=NPD, and PS3 sales times 30k=NPD, will get close to NPD numbers. It's just a formula. Ioi doesn't ask questions, he just tries to hit NPD numbers, the number that NPD say are right.

All I'm saying is I bet in ioi's RAW DATA, 360 sells much closer to Wii than NPD has it. Which would add to my theory.

Or I bet if you or I worked at a gamestop, we'd notice as many 360's sell as Wii's. We'd probably shrug it off and go "well that's just my store, obviously in the rest of the country Wii does a lot better, because NPD says so". But my theory is that no, that's not the case, we need to start asking questions. Maybe NPD is bullshitting. Maybe they sit there and say "well, Wal Mart must sell a crapload of Wii's because it fits the demographic, well put that in our estimations" but they really dont know what they are talking about and actually Wal Mart sells more 360's.

If that was the case, then how come NPD and ioi have been very close to correct with MS shipping figures plummeting so severely (500k in Jan-Mar)? MS has never once tried to counter-argue NPD numbers. If NPD was rigging the numbers to the Wii's favor, then Sony and MS for any purpose has the right and good reason to argue the validity of the system. Nintendo was the only company to really argue with NPD due to low December numbers (then admits only 3.2m units were shipped upto Dec 31st). Every place works off a formula, NPD, ioi, MC, Famitsu based off wherever they are able to get actual numbers. Lets take the Toys R Us thread: The person that works there has stated they haven't sold an X360 in a few weeks. If that was part of the polling data, then it'd show that Xbox 360 hasn't sold anything, but that's part of the formula. Lets wait and see what MS's shipping numbers are for the next quarter. The shipping numbers mean everything. They cannot ship systems that they can't sell.

All good points, but still, I bet at any given store 360 sells way more than half wii, and I bet ioi has to big time downconvert his raw 360 data to make it match NPD, and I hope he comes in here and confirms.

MS is still showing 11m shipped, while NPD has only 5.2m sold in USA. Sure, there is EU and so forth, but it's hard to make up the whole 6m missing.

Also ioi guessed way low on Wii last month vs NPD. It was the only console he estimated low on.

That tells me Wii does not sell in a ratio as NPD suggests, and requires heavy UPconverting of the raw data. ioi is scrambling adjusting those Wii figures UP and UP and UP to match NPD, who knows how much lower his raw numbers are, but I guarantee a LOT lower.

I'd rate this as a 3 out of 10 on the conspiracy charts. I don't give any conspiracy theory a passing grade unless it at least has a motive. Why exactly would sales tracking charts wish to jeapordize their credibility by lying about a consoles sales?

Give us one reason to believe NPD numbers less than a random person saying a sentence which starts with "I bet that"...

OK. Dont you think it suggests that the RAW WII DATA is LOWER that ioi ONLY estimated Wii sales LOWER (by ~20%) than NPD last month? And every other console he estimated HIGHER (Usually by ~20%, a FORTY PERCENT difference to Wii sales)?

What would that suggest to you?

It would suggest Wii raw data numbers require TWEAKING to match NPD and they require massive tweaking in the UP direction. Which suggests to me NPD numbers do not match reality in the case of the Wii!

Never mind that ioi was surely tweaking them UP to start with, and it still wasn't nearly enough for Wii last month!

I'm willing to bet that Wii BARELY OUTSELLS 360 at ALL in the raw data! Period! Whether ioi will admit it, I dont know. I also remember a GAF gamestop employee stating that Elite sold as many as Wii!

Especially with the Elite flying off shelves and selling out just as much as Wii the last few weeks!

The raw data ioi gets I Guarantee he is converting 360 numbers DOWN and Wii numbers UP. I'm not suggesting ioi is biased here (though he is) but simply that he massages his numbers to corrospond with NPD. And to do that, he has to move Wii UP and 360 DOWN. Guaranteed fact! You all know it's true. I already gave you my evidence+a hunch plus other retail employees message board posts+common sense..

If anything ioi was being conservative with the Wii last month to avoid claims of being biased. Face it, the 360 isn't selling that well compared to the Wii right now, get over it.

I knew the April NPD report was causing Sony fanboys to have nervous breakdowns but now also Xbots? It's going to be a long 4 years for some people.