Their shipments paint a very different picture to that.

NPD is endorsed by the major companies, who re-report those numbers as fact.

Their margins of error are smaller than VGC, even ioi would tell you that.

10% is a significant difference, definitely not negligible.

And the fact that NPD never adjusts is actually a problem, in my view. As a mathematician and scientist, I naturally distrust any statistically-derived result that does not involve re-analysis of its data based on further information and corrections to the model.

It's funny, by the way, because you could make the same sorts of claims regarding both Famitsu and Media Create, yet they quite often disagree with each other.

Meanwhile, I find it hilarious that you go "if you wanna hang on to VGC's because they paint a better picture, have at it", all the while refusing to correct the title of your own thread to correct for the false claim that WiiU is down YOY in every region. Wii U is up in USA, even using NPD numbers.

Makes you wonder where the baseline will be for Wii U sales after the Donkey Kong bump wares off.

Its gonna be a long, long drought for Wii U games between DK and MK. Nintendo are in trouble. Gonna be a bloodbath in Europe especially.

10% on a 12k a week average is not significant, what are you talking about ...

Fact is tho it sold less this Jan than last Jan.

3 and a half long months with (no?) retail releases whatsoever? Certainly not ones that are going to do anything.

Please don't build strawmen like that, especially when you clearly have no comprehension of basic statistics. Even if NPD has 70% of all sales tracked directly, and then only estimate the other 30% through statistical estimation techniques, they can be up to 30% too high, or any (legitimate) percentage too low in their actual figures - statistically, it's unlikely to be that far from right, but unlikely doesn't mean impossible.

But then, if you paid attention, I pointed out that NPD isn't perfect, and that the source we're using certainly can't be called a perfect source. My main concern is that all of this comes from "Aquamarine", who is *not* the one that usually leaks NPD numbers. When Nintendo or NPD provide numbers, I'll accept it. In the meantime, I stand by my criticism - it seems to be putting Sony numbers higher than any other source seems to suggest, and other systems' numbers significantly lower. And some of them are marked as approximate when they couldn't possibly be approximate in an actual leak - they would be specific figures from NPD, not estimates of NPD figures.

There are no 'other' sources. It's VGC and NPD, that's it, and you're saying because NPD are putting Sony above Nintendo and MS they're wrong. That is the basis of your argument.

This is just .. funny at this point. Discredit NPD to steer attention away from the topic at hand

I'm sorry, but you are just plain wrong. NPD this year covers 5th of January to 1st of February. As such, it has missed the first 4 days of January, and included the first of February. Last year's NPD covered December 30th to 2nd of February. As such, it included two days of December and two days of February.

If you wanted to estimate the actual YOY for January, you'd need an estimate for those lost/gained days.

Your assertion is akin to those who said "the gaming industry is up YOY" for January last year, even though it was only 9% up with an extra week included. Mathematics and basic logic do NOT work that way. NPD's quirks regarding weeks tracked are NOT a valid reason to claim that Wii U is down YOY.

Jan 2013: 57k
Jan 2014: 49k

That's what it looks like on paper