Reasonable said:
We don't know for sure, which was my point, but unless they're totall generating fake numbers Brett's tools should be taking most recent data (which they apparently get) and it's pretty easy (and standard) to have the algorithms skew to any major shifts immediately apparent in the data. Hence, if SW was seeing a spike it would be in their sample data and it should be extrapolated out using their algorithm. After all, how the heck are they picking up the HW spike? By your logic they wouldn't have as they'd follow the previous trend. No, if they can pick up the HW spike they can pick up a SW spike. Besides, there's plenty of evidence there is a fair bit of re-buying. On all major UK online sites I checked plus some stores the 360 HDD transfer kits were also spiking massively with the 360s - that has to be a re-buy, a new customer isn't going to buy a transfer kit with their brand new and only 360. Only existing 360 owners will want a transfer kit. Also, logically you can see from the specs that the 360s will attract re-buys. |
Even a small sample of stores which is what Vgchartz likely has access to is able to give a reasonably consistant statistical sampling when you're dealing with a few SKUs of hardware. What it cannot do is give the whole story in regards to software sales. I know for a fact that Brett has admitted that much of the software under a certain level of sales is difficult to track accurately and unlike hardware we don't have shipment figures coming out every 3 months to help correct for inaccuracies. Software itself isn't consistant, it varies from region to region in regards to taste and certainly doesn't follow anything like a normal distribution like you would see more with hardware. We have seen Vgchartz out by a factor of 2:1 over data released by publishers.
Even with the increased numbers of transfer units sold, do we have an attach rate of transfer kits vs Xbox 360s sold? Its simply a guess, just as the number of consoles sold / given away would also be a guess. Noone is doubting that people are rebuying the console. The real questions are in relation to the proportion sold to current owners, the proportion of older 360s sold onto the used market or given away from the people rebuying consoles and the number of new owners buying the console along with the effects of this event on the software market for existing owners who have rebought consoles.
What im saying is that the software sales aren't accurate enough to tell us what is happening in the market. I remember the PS3 slim came out and people stated that because the software didn't seem to increase that current PS3 owners were buying the console. The same is happening here within a similar timespan. Its simply too early to cast judgement even though that is tempting in itself.
