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ZhugeEX on 12 July 2015
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padib said:
ZhugeEX said:

I know this because I've been following the industry for a very long time and becuase my current employer has relationships with some of these organisations meaning I have access to various research reports. 

IDG are the trusted forecast vendor for a number of organisations within the video game industry. 

They fully track and forecast console hardware sales to end users on a global basis, as well as this they have a consulting service, insights service and research service that focuses around the whole video game industry including digital. They release reports every 3 months and recently released their 2015 report where they forecast a total of 34 million PlayStation 4's and 20 million Xbox One's will be sold through to end users by December 31st 2015. (Numbers have been rounded)

I believe they have over 30 years experience in doing this and they use a wide variety of sources including internal research, NPD, GfK, partner reports, financial reports and general industry contacts in order to ensure that their services that they provide to clients are as accurate as possible. 

Clients that subscribe to IDG include but are not limited to Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Square Enix, Nvidia, Sega, Ubisoft, Tencent, Facebook, Activision, Atari, Best Buy, Capcom, Konami, JPMorgan, Barclays, GameStop, Namco Bandai, Time Warner, Warner Brothers, Codemasters, Deutsche Bank, GAME UK, Morgan Stanley, Rockstar, Take Two, Viacom & Disney.

Good to know.

In reading your post I can't help but think that this sounds a lot like what Brett does, minus the 30 years experience and minus the large team of research.

"they use a wide variety of sources including internal research, NPD, GfK, partner reports, financial reports and general industry contacts in order to ensure that their services that they provide to clients are as accurate as possible."

Everyone must start somewhere.

Hmmm, I wouldn't so casually compare VGChartz and IDG. There is a reason IDG are most trusted in the industry and why VGChartz are not.

For one, IDG uses definitive values for each region as provided by NPD, GfK and Enterbrain in order to fully estimate total sell through. They of course continually use this data to update their tracking and provide a very accurate picture of the current install bases at all times. Of course in regards to the forecast service they provide that is based on estimatations and trends etc.... But their current tracking is very very accurate and you'll see IDG figures quoted by leading organisations, the latest of which I believe was Take Two during their recent earnings report. 

VGChartz does not have access to real time sales data provided by NPD, GfK or others and therefore he estimates based on shipment reports and polling. He corrects his data when one of the above sources release a public number or have a leak. That is very very different to how an actual market research organisation operates.