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donathos on 14 January 2010
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ioi said:
donathos said:


Right.  They're not exact numbers.  But exact numbers, for our purpose, don't exist--NPD, in this month and every other, releases some estimation, based on whatever data they've access to and the formulas they use to extrapolate that data.

If we're going to assign a "winner," or a first, second, and third place... it ultimately has to be based on whatever numbers NPD comes out with, at the end of their calculations.  Do the NPD estimations necessarily match the "reality" of the situation?  If NPD says that PS3 sold more than 360, does that mean it's necessarily so?  Of course not.  But we'll never find out if they're wrong, because nobody seems to be in a better position to tally the sales.

What we *do* know is this: by whatever process NPD uses, for better or worse, PS3 calculated to have a higher number of sales than 360.  And that *is* victory, in this context, because there's no more sophisticated or more precise calculation to appeal to.

Consider: in an election, votes are tallied.  Mistakes are made during these vote tallies, and the final vote counts aren't 100% accurate; there's a margin of error.  And yet, the candidate with the higher vote tally--even if by one solitary vote--is declared the "winner," even if its within whatever margin of error, because that's the only system available to count the votes.

Well the specific issue here is that VGChartz data, which also is based on real sample data from stores, shows 360 to be ahead of PS3.

I don't care less which of the two consoles won, I'm just saying that they are so close (even on VGC there is only a 15% difference between the two) that it's hard to really say which sold the most. All of our sample data but one source had 360 ahead of PS3 by a small margin, evidently NPD's data sets had PS3 ahead more often but by a small margin. When you have issues of stock shortages and so on, it is hard to make an accurate estimate.


I agree with you, and nor does it matter to me which console "won."  For my money, 360 fans would be fully justified in declaring "victory" based on VGC calculations.  Either way, it wouldn't be much difference.

It's kind of like 1978 US College football.  Who were the national champions that year?  It depends on who you ask.  (But the correct answer is USC, of course.)