Mr Stickball vs. Microsoft - XBLA Actuals (and I'm pretty close!)

[mrstickball]

A follow-up on the accuracy of my new XBLA sales charts versus the only legitimate published charts of XBLA sales.

There's only one actual person that has access to, and publishes, legitimate XBLA charts. That's Larry Hyrb, aka Major Nelson. He's the XBLA god right now, and does alot of good for the XBLA community.

Once a week, on Sundays, he posts actual XBLA sales information. His info, unlike mine, only tracks legitimate full sales. However, despite this, he gives absolutely no numbers. I think this is key, because no one knows exactly how many sales a given game gets.

So here are his charts, versus mine. I removed the freebies from my list such as Carcassonne, Hexic 2, Yaris and Aegis Wings, since he seemingly did the same. Now, remember: Major Nelson tracks to late Sunday, I track to early Saturday.

Rank	Major Nelson		Mrstickball
#1	Switchball		Switchball
#2	Word Puzzle		Word Puzzle
#3	Sonic the Hedgehog 2		Uno
#4	Uno		Geo. Wars Evolved
#5	Screwjumper!		Sonic the Hedgehog 2
#6	TMNT 1989 Arcade		Puzzle Quest
#7	Shrek-N-Roll		Texas Hold'Em
#8	Bomberman LIVE		TMNT 1989 Arcade
#9	Worms HD		Mutant Storm Empire
#10	Tetris Splash		Pinall FX

For refference, Screwjumper! is #59, Shrek-N-Roll is #18, Worms HD is #11, and Tetris Splash is #12. Removing the freebies from the chart(s).

 Now, having said this, we can sort-of justify the 2 new releases: the actual XBLA charts had an extra 36hrs to track sales vs. myself. Therefore, this data can be scewed a bit. Not only this, I suspected that Screwjumper!'s achievements are difficult, therefore under-represented in my charts for now.

So in the end: I feel that my charts actually are pretty accurate for the older (2wks+). The top 2 were intact, Uno was close, as was Sonic the Hedgehog. The only questionable ones are Puzzle Quest and Texas Hold'Em. However, i'd attribute these to the fact that PQ had a huge debut, to my knowledge, and new versions are getting activated using my methodology.

Any comments or questions? Overall, I'm excited that 7 of 12 titles were in the top 10 for Microsoft actuals. I think it's exciting that I was able to forecast the implosion of Battlestar Galactica (was #1 last week on Nelson's charts). The only real bad spot was Screwjumper! Outside of that, it seems pretty good.

 

Update: Week #2.

Rank	Major Nelson		Mrstickball
#1	Undertow		Switchball
#2	Screwjumper!		Undertow
#3	Shrek-N-Roll		Uno
#4	Switchball		Word Puzzle
#5	Word Puzzle		Sonic the Hedgehog 2
#6	Battlestar Galactica		Puzzle Quest: COTW
#7	3d Minigolf Adv.		Geometry Wars Evolved
#8	Bomberman LIVE		Texas Hold'Em
#9	Bankshot Billiards		Boom Boom Rocket
#10	Alien Homnid HD		Pacman CE
		#12	Bomberman LIVE
		#14	Shrek-N-Roll
		#35	Battlestar Galactica

Also, for refference, Alien Homnid was #41, Bankshot Billiards is #24, 3d Minigolf Adv. is #27 and Screwjumper is somewhere in Oblivion, ie #70, taking out the free games.

Now, one might wonder why the discrepancies. This week, for top 10 games, I was a mere 3/10, but improved to 5/14 once adding in Bomberman and Shrek. Here are a few notes from looking @ my numbers

Undertow getting #1 isn't suprising at all. With Nelson tracking an extra 1-2 days (as he said he would), new releases are vastly higher-selling on his charts. However, on mine, Undertow was prepared to out-sell Switchball pretty shortly, and it did.

The biggest difference, atleast from what I see, is Screwjumper! It's been vastly undertracked both weeks. Why is that? I believe the achievements on the game are very, very hard or don't always go with typical gameplay. Because of that, it must be vastly undertracked. Over the next week or two, I will see what I can do about this. Shrek-N-Roll, however, was much closer this week than last. Also, it should be noted that I do believe Nelson tracked his numbers a little bit longer than a full week, which would increase sales for new(er) games.

As for the anomaly in Battlestar Galactica - I took a look at the charts, and it seems that it got some strange boost in between Saturday and Tuesday morning, when Nelson ran the numbers. BSG should be much higher than #35 next week to reflect that.

This is all still a work in progress. Hopefully we can work, and do everything possible to get the numbers closer together. But remember: his #s are perfect, whereas mine relies on achievements from MGC. Because of this, my numbers take longer to show up than his. But in the end, I do feel the actual LTD numbers are pretty close and good for the older games.