NPD: Analyst reaction (NPD not using Toys R US?)

[Vengi]

DreamsCast said:
NPD have responded:

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/npd-defends-integrity-of-its-video-game-data/18586/

"This month, NPD did not receive data from Toys R Us for the first time," Wilson said. "It appears that mass-market titles on the Wii, DS, and PS2 are underrepresented in the data."

Curious, GameDaily BIZ contacted The NPD Group to get the scoop on what happened to their data this month. Naturally the data trackers at NPD don't feel their results are underrepresenting any particular segment.

"In any given year, we typically add a few retailers and lose one or two," explained Martin Zagorsek, Vice President, Games & Software at The NPD Group. "This year both the adds (e.g. amazon.com) and the losses (Toys R Us) were a bit larger than usual, but overall our market coverage has not changed very much compared to last year."

He added, "Also, since the retailers we've added are actually increasing in importance and share, we feel that our data accuracy may improve rather than deteriorate due to these changes."

NPD's data is generally based on reporting from around 60 to 65 percent of retailers in the U.S., so the removal of one chain such as Toys R Us is not likely major so long as solid replacements (like Amazon) are added. As Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter says in his reports, "While we cannot be certain that the NPD games data is accurate, we believe that the data provides a relevant benchmark for tracking U.S. retail sell-through."

 

2 thoughts :

1) I love how Pacher talks about being accurate :)

2) It's interesting that he doesn't consider them anything more then a benchmark, which is what I consider VGchartz.

 

Dolla Dolla is going to be SOOO pleased that NDP uses Amazon