The Road to 160m+ for Nintendo Switch

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firebush03 said:

Norion said:

How would the main draw be changed? Other than forums in general declining big time from what I've read the biggest issue is the owner of the site never gets directly involved any more which really limits things. I'm not what would could make a notable difference at this point due to that so I'll just keep doing my part to keep things alive until activity levels get too low which hopefully won't be for at least another few years.

“VGChartz is unreliable” is the line I hear every time this site is brought up. I want to change that. In particular, while I would like for the focus to remain centered on tracking video game sales data, I want to expand this site’s reach a little bit.

Whenever looking up historical sales data for a system like GBA, I have to visit some obscure spreadsheet hidden away on the NeoGaf forums. There is no site that offers easy access to this data. Being that VGChartz is a sales data site, why don’t we have a dedicated page for [console X] which compiles a collection of all known reliable estimates on sales/shipment data? And as another example: Why am I visiting Fandom.com in order to find quarterly shipment data for systems like Nintendo Switch instead of on the site which literally markets itself as being a database for sales figures? This is a major untapped market that VGChartz should be taking advantage of.

Also, imagine if we had some code-savey users be able to come up with commands which allow users to quickly site these VGChartz pages. Like imagine if the command “Nintendo Switch” created a hyperlink to the Nintendo Switch data page I’ve suggested in the previous paragraph. Al the sudden, VGChartz becomes the ideal site for discussing gaming data.

Looking beyond official shipment data: Imagine if on these dedicated console pages, we also included a catalogue of estimates from a variety of sources? E.g. while we have no official XBSXS data, we do have access to many insider sources claiming to have accurate estimates. Having a section on this console-dedicated page on VGChartz which compiles all these estimates (alongside information regarding the reliability of this source) gives people online easy access to so much data all the sudden, and it would be VGChartz which caught the market first.

And I can keep going on and on. Change the site name to something like “VGStats” or “Gaming Stats,” in addition to a major shift in focus, and you have a refurbished brand.

We do add official software figures from publishers and developers, but only the most recent ones pop up on the front page. There are a ton of software sales figures, but you have to go to the GameDB and search for what you are looking for. You can select specific platforms, developers, publishers, etc. Ie. here are the top selling NS games https://www.vgchartz.com/games/games.php?console=NS

Maybe a page similar to the old Weekly/Yearly charts when we used to do our own software estimates could work (https://www.vgchartz.com/yearly/2018/Global/). So any software figures that are added in a given month can appear in a list with the ability to easily swap to other months. Plus have that months hardware figures on the side. 

A dedicated page for each console is a cool idea. Perhaps have it show the hardware sales on a graph/chart that shows lifetime sales overtime (whether its our estimates or official shipment figures when available), as well as a list of the best-selling games for said console. 

At the moment Bandorr is the one coder on the team, but he is a volunteer. We don't have the money to pay a coder to do any major overhaul of the site. 

As far as changing the site name or a rebrand. That isn't happening unless we get a new owner. I'd be in favor of a rebrand to say VGCharts (drop the Z in favor of an S) and a new logo that is a simplified version of the current one.