I'd suggest keeping it focused on the numbers... add to much and i think you'd risk taking the numbers getting a bit lost and the focus being taken off them and quite possibly them being treated less seriously.

It ain't right, but i think that's how it goes in most peoples minds.

Partnering up with respected media gaming sites sounds like the better move in my mind.

@ ioi

No, not really, unless people are paid, but to want to just have people on this site review games would be extremly biased.

leo-j said: We need OFFICIAL REVIEWS like gametrailers, or gamespot, someone on the site makes a review of the game they played and give it an unbiased score.

That would be the worst idea ever. Official reviews or anything offical about the quality of games would hurt the sites credibility. Heck even the user reviews are tough on it. Say some big MS game gets a bad offial review... then someone is going to claim that Ioi is intentionally undertracking the game. Whether it seems like he is or not. Even if it's a bad game like Lair. Hell look how many people tried to defend that game. One systems review ends up higher then another and then your overtracking that system. It's just a bad idea. Heck this can even relate to things like interviews, previews.

I love how the site is now, but i do check other gaming sites basically for news reviews and previews. I think the most easilly accomplished feature would be news and reviews, though for the later it's hard to achieve credibility in a short period of time. Vg Chartz previews would maybe be the hardest to do. Maybe if based on some early demos...

If we do reviews i suggest that there shouldnt be a certian criteria for jugding bc ever game is different like graphics for a game like Wii sports means nothing. Something like review it say the strengths and weaknesses focus on game play and only graphics if it adds to the game or hinders gameplay. Also in a review i would like at the end stating who would enjoy this game.

I hate how reviews always take into account how it is a sequel and they use the original as a basis for their review. Thats just my opinion.

pr0n=insta traffic! I'd be willing to help out anyway I can of course, I'll e-mail my video resume and pics to you straight away ioi (though you may have to forgive the quality of the pics, for taking a picture of yourself with a cellphone in some of those positions is very difficult to do).

Seriously though, becoming a jack of all trades and master of none wouldn't be wis, so trying to create a completely comprehensive news/reviews/ect ect wouldn't be that great of an idea. Networking with other larger sites may not be a terrible idea, but I'm not overly informed of the benefits and drawbacks as such. But being able to partner with IGN would give some definate pull and credibility to the site, which in turn makes you more powerful, and gives more partners to increase the accuracy of the data.

Personally, I think focusing on the meta-game that sales has created, as well as social networking (which is all the rage with them whippersnappers these days) is the way to go. A well organized predictions league that anyone with an account can participate in would be a big draw I think. Have moderators that work specifically on that, setting up contests (console sales for the month of january, 1st month sales of wiifit in the us, 1st week sales of MGS4, endless possibilites) and have a way that they participants can easily submit their predictions in a way that it's not ridiculously overwhelming for a couple of mods to sort through hundreds or thousands of entries, and then keep scores based on accuracy (nailing it within a certain margin of error can score 3 points, getting within 50,000 range or what have you scores 2 points, ect).

The sales meta game has become huge largely because of your site as well as NPD releasing public numbers. People are interested in that, will argue for hours about it, and thats alot of the reason we are here now. But aside from the occasional crow eating thread, we aren't held accountable in any meaningful way about our predictions.

Now imagine this. Say your prediction league becomes incredible successful, thousands are playing it, scores are tallied regularly, some people are great at it have high scores, high accuracy % at predicting sales of games, or platforms, or how a company will fair in it's quarterly report. You now have your own freelance team of market analysts with a trackable record. A large group of minds that know how the market works, all acting in tandem to produce data that on a regular basis is accurate within a certain margin of error. Wouldn't it be incredible if two years from now news sites were quoting VG chartz as a source of future predictions? Instead of an MSNBC story quoting pachter it states "The consensus from the VGchartz predictions room is that there is a 70% chance that Madden 2010 is going to sell considerably below EA's estimations". How awesome would that be? Now that's a pie in the sky, best case scenario thing, but the potential is there. If organized well, if data is constantly collected and disected (which is what this place does so well) then you could make useful application of the knowledge of hundreds of analysts that are better at the job than the ones that get paid to do it.

Anyway, that's my idea. (by the way if you make millions off of it, can I at least get a little bit of it?)

This is my opinion:

- Having reviews and previews for each minisite is a great idea. As was previously said, have some people assigned to review games (much like a lot of other sites have them). Also can keep the User review box on the side as well. This way, it'd be the only site that has sales figures ALONG with reviews. No other site has this.

- Add some movies and pictures for previews and reviews

- News would be great, but only videogame news, I don't come here to look for TV news

- Have a link to a walkthrough and codes/cheats on each game. Maybe this would work better as a partnership between VGChartz and Gamefaqs or something because they already have a great DB in hand

- Be concise and have one "mini page" for each game, there are a lot of duplicates and sometimes the duplicates come when new sales charts come, ex. FIFA 08 for Wii, 360 and PS3 got a new duplicate when they released in Japan.

- Have up to date sale figures for each game. I know this is hard, but if the goal is to provide the most comprehensive and up to date Games database, then it must be done. Plenty of games with missing data, plenty of games with missing Euro/America/Japan numbers and plenty of games with outdated numbers, i.e. numbers are static for 3+ months even though we know they are still out and selling.

@ioi
For my last 2 points you mentioned improve data, and it's being improved all the time. I believe that, but I also believe that doing it alone is a very hard, if not impossible task. You need to designate some people (10+ members) to help clean up the database. I feel this is important as the site grows bigger and bigger and you try to get more partners for the site. I'd be willing to help clean up the DB if you want me to.

@rudyrsr8
I'm sorry but graphics can make the gameplay better. Gears of Wars graphics made it a better experience IMO. Of course we must consider the console in hand. I wouldn't grade a Wii game and expect it to have Uncharted's graphics, but I'd expect some graphical fidelity based on other Wii games.

That's all I have for now, will come back later if something else pops up in my head.

I would love to have Preliminary American/Others sales articles as we have for Japan, that would bbring me back more often and I think we need one more mod to clean up the forum it has been a lot of trolls lately. Also if you could make an PC section for how many copies computergames sold every week that would be nice.

* A kind of a calendar / notebook on the main page with the times for updates like 

= Preliminary Japanese Sales from the source Today between 02.00 and 03.00 GWT

= Others software and hardware today between .....

= ....

-> Ioi could put it there if number would be on earlier or later so we don't have million of thread about when numbers will be on. 

* Happy Birthday Card

= When it's your birthday your avatar will be shown at the main page and people can wish you a happy birthday if they want. *Only for friends otherwise if someone starts trolling ...*

* Sticky's in other threads

= Gamertags for PSN - XBL - Wii Friends code or something

= NPD in sales

= Media create and Famitsu in sales

= ... 

* Member of the month (Could be with a hall of fame)

= How you did in the prediction league

= Contribution to the site  

= Useful comments or threads

= Voting ? 

= ...