360/Wii/PS3 US pre-orders vs first week worldwide sales (2010)

[binary solo]

yo_john117 said:

binary solo said:

You really shouldn't do a ratio between America's pre-orders and WW week 1 sales because there's no record of pre-orders for the rest of the world, which means the ratio is distorted and doesn't truly reflect the pre-order to Week 1 sales sell through.

For instance Madden's ratio looks like crap compared to Mafia II's. But in the America pre-orders vs America week 1 ratio Madden's ratio is better than Mafia II's. Clearly Mafia II had reasonable pre-orders in other countries, whereas Madden probably had almost none.

Well until we get European pre-orders and whatnot this is the best I can do.

The best you can do until we get Worldwide pre-orders, in terms of mathematical integrity, is for your ratio to be Americas Week 1:Americas pre-orders.

If you get Europe and America and still do a ratio with WW week 1 sales then it would still be a non-rational ratio, especially for a game that does particularly well in Japan (RE5, MGS4, NSMB Wii, GT5[no doubt]). Outside of Europe, Americas and Japan there are about 10 million PSWii360's. While not a huge % of the market it can still have a distorting effect on numbers.

Of course America's Software sales numbers are also not completely related to the pre-order chart given VGC weekly data is for Nth and Sth America whereas the pre-order chart is for North America only (does it include or exclude Canada). I guess for data approximation it would be best if the America's week 1 sales were reduced by about 18% (what the Source does to estimate / compare with NPD). That would be about as close to accurate for sales:pre-order as you could get I think.

What you're doing is great, and the more interesting data I get to see on this site the better. So I totally support what you're doing and appreciate the effort you're putting in to it. I was going for constructive criticism, trying to help improve your good work. Apologies if it didn't come out that way.