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Carl on 23 November 2013
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Boutros said:

VGChartz Methodology

Data-Collection Methodology

All sales estimates on VGChartz are arrived at via a number of proprietrary and ever-developing methods:

  • Passively polling end users to find out what games they are currently purchasing and playing
  • Polling retail partners to find out what games and hardware they are selling
  • Using statistical trend fitting and historical data for similar games
  • Studying resell prices to determine consumer demand and inventory levels
  • Consulting with publishers and manufacturers to find out how many units they are introducing into the channel

All data is regularly checked against manufacturer shipments and data released publicly from other tracking firms to ensure accuracy. VGChartz holds no responsibility for the use of our data – any business decisions made are made at your own risk.

http://www.vgchartz.com/methodology.php


Yep. This is part of what I was going to post.

I was also going to post this - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/82746/editorial-why-it-is-so-easy-to-blame-vgchartz/ - Got a lot of information about the methodology.

VGChartz said:

"What VGChartz offers is timely data that isn't meant to be 100% accurate but be in the right range. We don't compete with the likes of NPD, GFK or ChartTrack; we offer a service that is totally different. One that is not based on comprehensive and direct retail tracking, but rather uses modern and alternative methods to quickly arrive at estimates, combined with a database of historical sales - constantly adjusted and tweaked to be as accurate as possible. " 

Basically, VGChartz is the best youre gonna get for regularly updated worldwide numbers... For free. The numbers arent the most accurate numbers in the world, but they give us a great idea of how things are actually going.

I also like this bit -

VGChartz said:

However, even with the greatest of diligence, our data is still just an estimate so whenever quoting a figure from VGChartz it should be listed as an estimate and readers should be made aware that there is a margin of error associated. With this in mind, VGChartz data is fine for most applications - from a year-on-year genre analysis to first-day estimates for a major title to a ballpark estimate of total sales to date for a given game. It just requires the user to have a little common sense and realise that an estimate is not exact but better than having no information and intended to point you in the right direction.

Dont take VGChartz as gospel, treat the numbers for what they are - Estimations.

Sleepyprince said:
Wouln't it be more simple to ask (force by law ?) the worldwide retailers to list the number of games and console they sell ? 

Good luck with that.