I'm 13 again, I think. Well I hope that can continue.

I am number 1 PS3 again and PS3 overall. 360 I am doing terribly. And overall everything I am not doing well.

How did you guys make your predictions?

This year, I simply used a statistical method to get my predictions.

(1) I looked at the sales from the past 2 years, and calculated the percentage of the total over the 10 weeks that was sold in each week. So my predictions have the machines trending exactly as they did the average of the last 2 years.

(2) Then, to predict the total amount sold over the 10 weeks, I looked at the total sold up to mid October in 2012, and then compared that to the 2011 and 2010 numbers. In other words, with this method I assumed that the trend that was held through the entire year up to now would keep. That's a slightly flawed assumption, so I added in another method.

(3) I looked at the numbers from the start of September to mid October 2012, and compared those to the 2011 and 2010 numbers in the same period. Then I found the ratio, and assumed that this trend would keep into the holiday season.

(4)In the cases of the X360, Ps3 and 3DS, I weighted (2) and (3) equally, simply using the average between the two. I multiplied that average ration with the total sales in the last 10 weeks of the year for 2010 and 2011. That gave two expected total sales for 2012, and I took the average of those as my prediction for total sold for the year.

(4) With the Wii and Vita, I weighted (3) twice as strongly as (2), as they trended downard for the year. I then did the same as above to make my prediction for total sold. For the Wii, I multiplied the results with 0.85, because I felt the method gave it a too high prediction.

With (1) and (4) I now had both a prediction for the relative sales between the different weeks, and a prediction for total sold. Thus, I simply divided the total sold between the weeks as dictated by (1).

And that's the method in its whole. It's worth noting that with the 3DS and Vita, I added together the DS and 3DS data and the Vita and PsP data, because otherwise I wouldn't have enough data to make a prediction. In other words, I made the assumption that the 3DS demographics is identical to the DS one and the the Vita demographics are identical to the Psp one. Naturally, this is a flawed assumption, but one that had to be made for this method to work. I'm thus very surprised that the Vita is the machine I'm predicting best.

This method is completely different from what I did in past years, which was mostly just following my guts.

I'm first overall with 3DS and second with 360.

In the others rankings I'm pathetic.

Pretty much did what you did except in a much faster and exxagerated way.

Well, handhelds make me cry.

Looking at the sales performances over Q1-3 and in October I made the assumptions that PS3 and X360 would be down but a little less than Q1-3 would suggest. I though Wii would at least be down at least as much as Q1-3 or a little worse. Vita would continue it's low trend and not magically explode, typically the hardcore PSP and PS3 have never shown as much of a jump during the holidays as the casual Wii and 3DS. IMO you are right that 3DS and Vita pretty much are the DS and PSP audiences. For 3DS I pretty much entered the same numbers as it did in 2011. The lack of compelling software is seemingly killing this assumption. Now it's time to construct a first trend from the end of October onward.

Then there's a little reshuffling of weeks due to the big software releases or lack thereof such as AC, COD, Halo, Animal Crossing (Japan), Paper Mario (Japan). Also Christmass falls on a different week having an effect on week 9 and especially 10. I also made a regional breakdown as say PSP was much stronger than Vita in Japan. 

Next I look at graphs and percentages to see if it all makes sense based on historical trends. Lastly there's some shaving here and there if I think the Total sales are still too high/low. In previous years I also thought about whether I thought VGChartz was over or undertracking a platform in October, but I hadn't been following sales much all year and had less time to think about my predictions.

Before adjustments throw off the October numbers this method has mostly worked in previous years. Right now I'm hoping Vita can be adjusted downward again. Don't know if NPD had something to say on the matter. Vita is vastly outperforming my predictions in the US.

... Guess what.

More adjustments!

Week 6

Previously:

Now:

Most adjustments are made to week 5

Results for week 6 on adjusted numbers. A copy of last week as Pineapple wins the week , with darkjonnyx not far behind, leaving once more the top 2 Overall in tact.

 If there's a tie, the names are ranked alphabetically.

More results can be found in post 3: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4840872