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noname2200 on 19 January 2009
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mike_intellivision said:
noname2200 said:
palancas7 said:
Come on VGC. Too many wrong numbers now.

Normally I think the top 50 on this site are "good enough" for our purposes (I'm growing increasingly skeptical about numbers below a certain threshold, as too many games have too great legs for there to not be something fishy), but I have to agree that at least with December in the U.S., something went wrong. Here's hoping it's just an anamoly.

 

It always amazes me that people take NPD to be the Gospel.

It -- like VGC -- is an estimation. And given the strangeness of the console numbers, I think there may be more "wrong numbers" in NPD than VGC. Estimating Wal-Mart and Toys R Us can be tricky, especially if you are using models from the last generation.

Fully and freely granted, and even the pros can get it wrong on many occasions (see the discrepancies between Famitsu and Media Create numbers, for example). That said, the NPD is far larger than VGChartz, employs several people full-time to get their numbers, has a much larger sample size, and only has to analyze a single market. They can get away with charging massive amounts of money for their data, because people feel it's reliable. By contrast this site, much as I like and appreciate its services, doesn't pretend to be super-accurate.

Add to that the fact that every publisher out there repeatedly cites NPD data in its official press releases, and I'm willing to excuse myself for favoring the NPD over this site.

All that said, the two are usually close enough that I will continue to put some faith in this site's numbers, although I still feel that the numbers for this month are too far off.