ioi can you answer my question on how you plan on keeping duplicates from happening again? I ask because for example FIFA 08 had been fixed but then as soon as it was released in Japan, another duplicate.

There are a couple more examples like that of the top of my head that a game had one single entry and as soon as it released in one region or another, it got a duplicate. So how do you plan to keep that from happening? Thanks

well theres not much that hasn't already been said but i would like a few improvements to the forums. make it so there is the option to have an actual poll when creating a thread (similar to the ones in gamespot forums) which can be useful for some topics. also, this is just a small thing, but i'd like to be able to edit my thread title :P

i like the kudos idea :)

First off great site.

As far as additional content, the more the merrier. with a caveat. It needs to be sales related. Roundtable discussion, developer interviews, and game previews are good if they have sales stuff in them. If not let the thousands of other sites fight over it.

As far as improving numbers, I am sure you are doing all you can. One thing that would be great is improving numbers for older titles. Companies may be tight lipped about current gen, but what do they have to lose telling sales for 10 year old games. Even if companies are secretive old earning statements are archived somewhere. Once every one of the 8500 games has a sales history then we can really crunch some numbers.

A partnership with Gamerankings would be good as long as they added your sales numbers in return.

Also please oh please make the news section easier to work with. When I click to read more I just get a page with all the news crammed together. It should link to a dedicated page that has articles grouped. There should be a search feature. Japanese Prelim, Japanese First Day, NPD comparison and so on could all have there own heading. That way if there is one I like I can easily get at all the similar articles. Admittedly there would be a lot of noncatagoriezed stuff but there are many regular articles. Also a page/ blog featuring all of the content from The Source. He puts out much more analysis than big industry guys and we should be featuring him.

The game database could and should include games that aren't out yet but just set it up to reset the comments and the use rating the day the game is released. Hotlinks to other games in the series and the title on other platforms would also be useful.

Also a mod or someone who you deem to fairly even handed could write a primer for people new to this sales data. It could explain holiday effects on sales, relative size of the different markets, price drops, previous console war winners etc. It could also cover current trends. This would have greatly helped last month. People were all assuming Japnease sales were gone for good and a Tsunami must have killed all the gamers. Part of it was the casual trend but another part is the November slow down that happens every year in Japan. There is a lot of info that regular users take for granted that would satify many newcomers curiosity.

It's probably obvious but when the "trust/kudo/point" system is put into place, implement it so that abuse of the system will be less likely to occur...

I'd love to see the "Change Password" feature added to the site ;)

Otherwise everything is pretty good for me!

ioi,

Here is an example.

Say I put Heavenly Sword in my tracked games. I look in the "My Tracked Games" section and see it sold 40k this week. It would show my the sales breakdown in each region.

This would help users keep track of their favorite games without have to dig through the charts.

Haven't read much of the thread, but here's my 0.02c

Don't lose focus. Sometimes by trying to "expand," you can undermine what you've already created.

Just focus on sales data. You can add to that sales data analysis, or sales data discussion, to break down sales in different ways, and a game database that focuses on sales. Reviews, social network, non-sales news? Start VGReviews or VGNetworks or VGNews.

Better yet, pump in MetaCritic averages and Kotaku news, and do VGChartz networking through MySpace or Facebook groups. Why develop all that stuff internally and compete with those sites, when they aren't the original thing that made VGChartz great.

Think about it: in one year's time, VGChartz went from trailing NexGenWars in perceived credibility around the net, to being poised to pass NPD as the premeire NA sales info provider, had they gone through with stopping providing data as they threatened. That came from one thing alone: improving the scope and accuracy of sales data.

@ioi,

Are you planning on starting everyone with points based on their post counts or a clean slate? I'm somewhat torn on the issue honestly. On the one hand I wouldn't mind a little boon for my past participation, but on the other hand I can see the merit in avoiding bickering by starting everyone clean.

Also, I think post count should be a minor factor in the points, I think others votes and how high their score is should have a much larger impact.

Well ioi community points are a good idea, So is a "user news" thing like ng4.com.

What crosses my mind is a "System wars" part of my site. Thats something I wanted to implement my self as forum bot, but I don't have time for it.

There are often discussions in the forums what helps/is importand and there would be a metric that trys to get everything under the head: Consoles Sold, Games sold , third party games sold etc.

Wanted to make such a thing a weekly. Well I'm on my laptop and typing is hard without a space key, so if you interested , I write you an Email how this thing could work when i come home.