Could NPD be Wrong?

[sharky974]

sparkit34 said:

mrstickball said:
sparkit -

NPD works by obtaining data from approximately 60% of US stores. They use this data, and extrapolate the rest for their monthly charts. Media Create and Famitsu report similar numbers as well.

NPD does make corrections once in awhile, but they do not report them. NPD has been wrong before, but some here tend to think that if NPD disagrees with their favored system, it's NPD's fault. NPD is right 95% of the time. There are errors, but I'd take NPD over VGC, since VGC tracks maybe 1/10th the retailers that NPD does.

That's not to say VGC is bad, but inaccurate compared to NPD at the moment.

 

 

Thanks for that mrstickball.

I don't doubt NPD's accuracy above that of VGChartz (sorry Brett). It is just that with two of the biggest retailers in the country having in recent years decided to stop providing sales data to NPD, i would have expected NPD to report more corrections. Not having seen any, i was curious whether NPD even reported historical data.  

 

Toys R Us isnt big. I believe at the time of the switch NPD noted Amazon.com would likely be bigger in time. Hell Toys R Us is one of those retailers I half expect to go out of business anytime now.

Wal Mart of course is very big.

 

I'm pretty sure NPD tracks Wal Mart with a consumer panel of a lot of people (I want to say 30,000?) That shop at Wal Mart and track their purchases (not just consoles but everything down to socks) for NPD. Besides past data they would have for when Wal Mart was part of them...so they're doing a lot more than guessing Wal Mart sales..

It would be nice if Wal Mart would join NPD again and eliminate this problem..I imagine that would give them like 90% market coverage..