I missed the fact that wii_gamer is part of the vgcharts staff. I guess then that I should not expect something that makes sense if he can't give a logical explanation. The numbers are just plain wrong. And it is a shame, as they don't seem biased, rather misguided. I don't remember if I said it already, but when you add numbers etc to give an estimation, at the end of the day you do what is called a "reality check", against well known facts (e.g. shipped numbers). If your check fails, you have to recalculate and reevaluate your method instead of trying to argue about flying donkeys. Otherwise you don't publish the said estimates. Plain as that.

Lets see pantheon ...why do yu assume Nintendo has shipped 4 million units ? They have given the data themselves for Europe ,700 000 consoles sold and its sold out everywhere here .For japan you have reliable information by media create that points to 1 250 000 right now ....in NA they havent sold more than 1.2 million by 31 dec ...to be at 4 million total right now they should have sold 800 000 consoles in the last 15 days without noticeable shipments arriving at the stores and once finished the big selling period .It can be ,but assuming as an article of faith it is whats happening without providing any data isnt serious at all .At least the people at vgcharts here have some insider info . I think as someone pointed that the counter is giving more problemas than joys ,it should be kept static until the official information of NPD and Media Create arrived ...UK data is also available and for Europe you can do the usual UKx2.5 to have a reasonable measurement .Everybody agrees at the total hardware data in the monthly and weekly lists of US and Japan ,lets stick to that to update the counter once that information arrives and stop trying to do it realtime and everything should be fine .

My head hurts by your replies TalonMan, but let's start with the reply that was more "mainstream":

This was kind of beside the point, as my posts were on how the 360 was way undercalculated, and I just added one sentense about the wii, commenting on the 4-million figure Nintendo gave (Where I got it? On every news article about the Wii recently). So, based on that I do think that the vgcharts number is low, but not alarmingly low. Let's concentrate on the 360 which is the cry out loud case, if the Wii number is off by 200-300k (which is about my "hunch"), it would be too difficult to prove for any side of the argument. Then we go on to the silliness. You do realize wii_gamer is the one responsible for the "USMonthly" chart you are quoting, right? Since he is asking where you got the numbers, it should be quite obvious to you that they are NOT NPD numbers! Maybe becaue it says "North American Chart" on top? Otherwise it would be adjusted US numbers partially based on NPD, but they certainly are NOT NPD (they don't even claim them to be!). More: Do you even read this forum? The "December NPD" thread is really hard to miss. Also ANY news site or ANY gaming site would be a clue. Google news is your friend too. (Here is a result: BusinessWeek). By now you must have realized that you are comparing vgchart's own numbers on the monthly page, with vgchart's own numbers on the front page. If there was no consistency it would look bad. Hmm, and guess what, it seems that you have found them inconsistent - the 360 number that is, which is the one I was complaining about in the first place. Wii_gamer might be able to tell us what these numbers are. NA estimates? US estimates? They might even be NA estimates calculated before NPD released their DEC numbers.

Ok, ok, you are still claiming the sudden massive PS3 sale thing (remember, the front page numbers have been like that for a while, so the 150k units you talk about is less than two weeks - unless you forecast the future too). And you just call me biased (I did refrain from calling you biased myself - I don't draw conclusions like that), so I guess there is no point in arguing any more, I will simply shut up now and let you post whatever you want, whether it is close to being factual or not. In case it was not clear, this IS my final post. TalonMan can now claim victory of this debate ;) Edit: Post corrected per Kwaad's note. Nice to see that TalonMan did indeed claim victory Thanks for the fish.

So are you still going to post more? ;D -Kwaad

Wow... it's nice to see you guys missed me! I got accused a lot for keeping this conversation afloat and people said they wanted me to leave, but apparently my being gone for a week hasn't slowed things down a bit! I'm not sure I can answer all of your questions, comments, and ideas... but I'd like to start by clarifying a couple things. First off, I originally took on the NA argument, because it was the easiest to compare figures, and the continent that we have the most available data for. We had US NPD data readily available to us, and it seems everybody had a different idea as to what to add on for NA... some even saying that NA was already included into the NPD data. Anyhow, most of you said there is a well known 10% rule... I have always maintained... and still do... that it would have to be over 10%. You guys fought me tooth and nail over that. And, now I'm reading that vgcharts adds in 15% (if I'm reading that correctly) for the rest of NA. So, you guys have apparently switched from your "well known" 10% rule to 15%? So, if I'm understanding correctly, you guys have jumped from adding ZERO in on the NPD data for NA, to 10%, and now you're at 15%. Where will you guys stop? Just curious... As for me, unlike you guys, I never claimed to have exact data for NA... I never claimed to be all knowing on this issue. Looking back on it, I believe both sides of this made some very wrong guesses as to NA early on in the debate. It's nice to see we're meeting in the middle somewhere on that... you guys are going at 15% now (well above your initial guess at 0%), and I've definitely come well off my initial guess of 1 million, and would say it is closer to the 675,000 or so that you guys are claiming. It's great that we can work problems out like this! Anyhow, most of my argument has been using logic and common sense. It's pretty clear that MS is around 11 million shipped at this point, and I still maintain it seems highly illogical that the sales would be at 8 million (2.7 million of stock out?). I guess time will tell if vgcharts treats the consoles equally... I'll be paying very close attention when the Wii announces that it shipped 10 million... it will be VERY interesting to see if the sale reflect 7.9 million of sales at that time. I somehow doubt it, but if so, then I at least can't complain they are biased. They may be wrong at that point, but not biased.

@monty 2 milljon in stock isn't that much has you think. I mean how many stores in USA alone do they sell xbox360 ad EU and japan...no problem to reach those numbers... but I do think that the Wii and the PS3 numbers are to high.... I would think that the PS3 numbers is not that large I mean the sale in japan last week was realy bad

And, now I'm reading that vgcharts adds in 15% (if I'm reading that correctly) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You aren't

@robjoh They're roughly estimating 2.5 million in extra stock here at vgcharts (10.4 million shipped/7.9 million sold at the end of 2006). 2.5 million is a LOT of stock. That's 25% of all Xbox 360s ever made. I somehow have trouble believeing that 1 out of ever 4 360s to ever roll off the assembly line is now sitting on a store shelf. Go around to each store and see if it looks like if they have 25% of their entire stock they ever sold sitting on their shelf... that would have to be true for every store around the world as an average.