MikeB said: @ Avinash_Tyagi  Actually size of a sample isn't the main judge of accuracy, how representative that sample is is a bigger issue Assume you count 99% of the market and have extrapolate the remaining 1%. You know that this 1% only relates to small shops, however you have data for 80% of similar small shops within the 99% data, so based on this you extrapolate 20% of uncounted sales for small shops and thus 1% of the market as a whole. The end estimation would be very reliable. This method can be expected to be more accurate than just directly extrapolating 1% from the whole market. The sample volume and diversity of sources is directly related to reliability above. Would the above example have been (an alledged) 15% of the market, not knowing what kind of stores they are, dedicated expensive game stores, budget pricing game stores, mass deversity retail stores, toystores, audio-visual stores, etc. In this example 15% of maket coverage is very much useless if you don't have a good understanding what kinds of shops these are and what the rest of the market looks like. The NPD has the knowledge, expertise, manpower and connections to much more accurately estimate the missing data (much better than VGChartz for sure). The bigger sample size is of course most welcome and helps a lot as well, but also with regard to resources NPD >>> VGChartz.

 No tracking service has 99% sample, NPD is 60% sample, so a good chunk of the market is outside their sample, in addition you're making a lot of assumptions about NPD and VGC and their ability or lack of ability to accurately extrapolate for the rest of the market.  Unless you have something which you can show to ioi as incontrvertible proof, i'm afraid you'll just have to wait for him to recheck the numbers and decide

Avinash_Tyagi said: No tracking service has 99% sample, NPD is 60% sample, so a good chunk of the market is outside their sample, in addition you're making a lot of assumptions about NPD and VGC and their ability or lack of ability to accurately extrapolate for the rest of the market. Unless you have something which you can show to ioi as incontrvertible proof, i'm afraid you'll just have to wait for him to recheck the numbers and decide

I just tried to make my example as simple as possible while stil making my point.

@ Avinash_Tyagi

"The NPD Group, Inc. is a leading global market research company founded in 1967 and provides consumer and retail information to manufacturers and retailers. Using actual sales data from retailers and distributors as well as consumer-reported purchasing behavior, NPD offers consumer panel and retail sales tracking services, special reports, modeling and analytics, and custom research. Covered industries include apparel, appliances, automotive, beauty, consumer electronics, food and beverage, foodservice, footwear, home improvement, housewares, imaging, information technology, movies, music, software, toys, video games and wireless.

The NPD Group is headquarted in Port Washington, NY with offices across the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and across the European Union."

Sales tracking isn't even ioi's main occupation, I think we can safely assume the NPD Group has more resources. Really, we shouldn't even be arguing about this, it only makes matters worse for the website and sheds a bad light on the users.

As others have said, this website is getting ridiculed left and right at the moment. It's kinda sad to see this website get tarnished so badly off these NPD numbers. Practically every gaming forum I've been on is now calling this site biased or unreliable in some way.

I don't know what ioi can do to change peoples perceptions so I feel bad for the position he's in at the moment.

YoppaDo said: As others have said, this website is getting ridiculed left and right at the moment. It's kinda sad to see this website get tarnished so badly off these NPD numbers. Practically every gaming forum I've been on is now calling this site biased or unreliable in some way. I don't know what ioi can do to change peoples perceptions so I feel bad for the position he's in at the moment.

You get ridiculed for using vgchartz as a sales source in neogaf. I really dont know why ioi is trying to make this seem like some sort of competition? NPD is the most accurate between the two(siginficantly), and if vgchartz wants to gain respect Id say they should put them as close to the real thing as possible.

Maybe they are short on supply due to all the ones breaking.

^doesn't make sense.

The online community I am associated with always made fun of this site. I always said "they adjust their numbers when companies come out with theirs. I just use the site as a guidline so I have a general idea of what's going on until then" Now I really can't say that. They always told me this site isn't creditable and their numbers really are just pretty much guessing.

I doubt this

hihihi said: I doubt this

u highly doubt what?sorry I didn't get what u mean

Well its clear NPD has the expertise ,manpower and resources this site hasnt .They are proffesionals too .Its not like they have all the resources needed but are dumb as monkeys and ioi is just a smartass that does everything better .They are proffesionals for gods sake and with lots of years of experience at the subject .

Ioi is doing quite good for what he has (2% of stores if I remember well ) but lets face it NPD has a way better sample and the same stadistical expertise if not better (they havent recruited their people from the Mc Donalds mind you ) .

People are making fun of the site in other places but this can be avoided .Just adjust the numbers .

Big problem is that by not adjusting october and november numbers plus other months the LTD differences in some consoles as the DS ,the Wii and to a lesser exent the 360 are starting to look massive .The PSP and PS3 number have been kept always at the minimum possible so its LTD pretty much coincides with NPD when you add the canadian data .

By the way ,NPD sometimes corrects their numbers too .I remember at december last year they said they had overtracked the 360 by 400k all throgout the year .