Why does VGC get a bad rap?

[bdbdbd]

Osirus said:

Sqrl said:

Its definitely a fair question to ask. I think you will find that people don't mind it when someone questions the data, but only when they don't wait for an answer before making up their mind. A lot of people new to seeing this type of data make simple mistakes regarding NA vs US or WW vs NPD or NPD vs NA, etc...and occasionally folks have a hard time understanding the subtle differences between those and things.

 

Yeah the posters on that site don't understand much I figured they where spreading FUD thats why had to come here for honest answers. 

Most of the reasons already is posted to this thread, but the reasons Sqrl posted basically is the most common (along with confusion between manufacturers shipped to retail number and sold to customer number, that the tracking companies track. VGChartz track sales in similar way that NPD, Famitsu, Chart track does, with the difference that VGC only has smaller sample size. Because of this, the instances that track with larger sample are naturally more accurate, but it doesn't make VGC wrong, and even less, when you compare the numbers. There's also a certain marginal of error which should be taken into account when looking at VGC (or every other) numbers. Also worth noticing is that VGChartz numbers are adjusted whenever there's reliable accurate data available, which proves that VGC has been wrong. And if you compare the VGC numbers to the other trackers numbers, you can see that VGC is pretty much in line with them. And to a question about which is correct, it depends about who are you using as reference. If we are going to use VGC as reference, it's the most accurate source available, if we use NPD, then NPD is the most accurate source. This is because they track different markets. VGC tracks worldwide, NPD tracks USA. And even the VGC Americas number is not the same number with NPD, because VGC number has the whole continent and NPD has one country from the continent. The funny thing is, in context with above, that people complained VGC number missing 1,7 M 360:s, but nobody complained NPD missing 7 million 360:s from their numbers, when M$ announced their shipped figure earlier this month.