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Forums - Gaming - Ethomaz's Dismantling the Myths: Amazon.com's Best Sellers is Not Accurate to the Predict Overall Hardware Sales in US (Checking: Accuracy with Software)

xmositox on 25 April 2014

So what I gather is

1 - Kasz216 is grasping at straws... looking for a piece of software that discounted drastically to try and prove ethomas wrong

2 - ethomas is right until proven wrong. He notes this works for hardware where the sku tend to carry the same price.  But even in months where a console ia practically given away, it still works like it did last month with XB1. For something with 1 sku or even 2 where the second isn't selling as much it is easy to predict which piece of hardware will be ahead on NPD.

3 - Great job putting yourself out there especially this month where VGC has XB1 winning the month so far and Amazon has PS4 clearly ahead. Get ready to eat crow or hopefully have the naysayer's silence as a result



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ICStats on 25 April 2014
Kasz216 said:

Except for the fact that we have YEARS of data of this not being the case. For example, at one point in one december Gamecube was on Amazon's best seller list ahead of the Wii, 360 and PS3.

It of course did not chart on NPD.


And of course... We've got Amazons words themselves.

The Amazon Best Sellers calculation is based on Amazon.com sales and is updated hourly to reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold on Amazon.com.

"While the Amazon Best Sellers list is a good indicator of how well a product is selling overall, it doesn't always indicate how well an item is selling among other similar items."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=525376

Remember how wrong it was about Blu-ray outselling HD-DVD?

 

Oh wait...



My 8th gen collection

-CraZed- on 26 April 2014

T-A-G-G-E-D.

I have a sneaking suspicion Ethomaz will indeed confirm his theory with reproducible data.



Normchacho on 26 April 2014

I'm not sure why, it works. To be honest I don't really care. But it seems to be working for now at least. This will be interesting to watch over the coming months to see how accurate it really is.



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Aerys on 26 April 2014

Well, it's certainly more accurate than VGC anyway



Predictions for end of 2014 HW sales:

 PS4: 17m   XB1: 10m    WiiU: 10m   Vita: 10m

 

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Kasz216 on 26 April 2014
ICStats said:
Kasz216 said:

Except for the fact that we have YEARS of data of this not being the case. For example, at one point in one december Gamecube was on Amazon's best seller list ahead of the Wii, 360 and PS3.

It of course did not chart on NPD.


And of course... We've got Amazons words themselves.

The Amazon Best Sellers calculation is based on Amazon.com sales and is updated hourly to reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold on Amazon.com.

"While the Amazon Best Sellers list is a good indicator of how well a product is selling overall, it doesn't always indicate how well an item is selling among other similar items."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=525376

Remember how wrong it was about Blu-ray outselling HD-DVD?

 

Oh wait...


Eh, I was thinking more about how it got the PS3 and 360 wrong a lot of the time in 09 and 10.  Which is why it got marked as unreliable.

 

Something I actually didn't get a chance to look up  until I saw how Ethomaz was getting different months best sellers lists.  Was using just random games before because I couldn't figure it out.  The links weren't showing the proper web addresses for me.

 

Examples, months where 360 won, but Amazon had PS3 ahead

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2009-11/videogames/ref=zg_bs_tab_t_bsar#1



ICStats on 26 April 2014

IIRC 360 had more SKUs, especially by 09/10. With multiple SKUs ranking fairly high it's practically impossible to tell what sold more overall on Amazon.

XB1 also has two main SKUs, Titanfall & Standard, but Standard has ranked around #100 or lower for a while.  Thogh today an Amazon seller has the Standard at $465 and it jumped up to ~#50, while the Titanfall bundle at $499 has been falling.  Price is a big deal.  If XB1 sticks at $499 for the month of April I don't think sales can be expected like in March.



My 8th gen collection

Kasz216 on 26 April 2014
ICStats said:

IIRC 360 had more SKUs, especially by 09/10. With multiple SKUs ranking fairly high it's practically impossible to tell what sold more overall on Amazon.

XB1 also has two main SKUs, Titanfall & Standard, but Standard has ranked around #100 or lower for a while.  Thogh today an Amazon seller has the Standard at $465 and it jumped up to ~#50, while the Titanfall bundle at $499 has been falling.  Price is a big deal.  If XB1 sticks at $499 for the month of April I don't think sales can be expected like in March.

Check the lists again.

For November


It's 3 SKU's vs 3 SKUs in the top 100... and the PS3 has two SKU's ahead of the first 360 SKU and it's third SKU is ahead of the third 360 SKU.

It's certaintly closer then PS4 and XB1, which is a 1 to 2 SKU thing.

For February.  PS3 has two SKU's in the top 100.  Both ahead of the single 360 SKU.  

 

The bolded makes my point.  It shows how much one sale on the site can upset the data.  It went to 100 to 50 off of one sale.  That most places likely didn't have.

That's before even looking at the different customer base.



JamaicameCRAZY on 26 April 2014
Kasz216 said:
ICStats said:

IIRC 360 had more SKUs, especially by 09/10. With multiple SKUs ranking fairly high it's practically impossible to tell what sold more overall on Amazon.

XB1 also has two main SKUs, Titanfall & Standard, but Standard has ranked around #100 or lower for a while.  Thogh today an Amazon seller has the Standard at $465 and it jumped up to ~#50, while the Titanfall bundle at $499 has been falling.  Price is a big deal.  If XB1 sticks at $499 for the month of April I don't think sales can be expected like in March.

Check the lists again.

For November


It's 3 SKU's vs 3 SKUs in the top 100... and the PS3 has two SKU's ahead of the first 360 SKU and it's third SKU is ahead of the third 360 SKU.

It's certaintly closer then PS4 and XB1, which is a 1 to 2 SKU thing.

For February.  PS3 has two SKU's in the top 100.  Both ahead of the single 360 SKU.  

 

The bolded makes my point.  It shows how much one sale on the site can upset the data.  It went to 100 to 50 off of one sale.  That most places likely didn't have.

That's before even looking at the different customer base.

If something is showing a pattern of accuracy shouldnt we consider it plausible. I mean be sceptical and continue to check it for accuracy. But going back months/years to find 1 or 2 things, perhaps inaccurate, doesnt mean the entire site is inaccurate. If you have to dig that it should tell you hey this actually isnt that bad.  

 

I mean if a few inaccuracies is all it takes what the hell does that say about this chart. Didnt ioi say something like a 10% margin of error is considered acceptable?



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Kasz216 on 26 April 2014
JamaicameCRAZY said:
Kasz216 said:
ICStats said:

 

If something is showing a pattern of accuracy shouldnt we consider it plausible. I mean be sceptical and continue to check it for accuracy. But going back months/years to find 1 or 2 things, perhaps inaccurate, doesnt mean the entire site is inaccurate. If you have to dig that it should tell you hey this actually isnt that bad.  

 

I mean if a few inaccuracies is all it takes what the hell does that say about this chart. Didnt ioi say something like a 10% margin of error is considered acceptable?

A 10% margin of error in exact numbers when projecting sales.

Here we're talking about a basic top 10 list, with no numbers... where a 10% margin of error still wouldn't fix times when they got it wrong even if you assume Amazon got it wrong by the smallest amount possible.  (Which is an assumption.)

Considering that Amazon doesn't give exact numbers, the actual amount they've gotten wrong vs NPD is no doubt higher.

That it got a few months "right" with NPD when Amazon doesn't have any exact numbers is nothing more then confirmation bias, as the ratio between PS4 and Xbone could be WAY different then on NPD.

 

.It's also noteable that this is a time where NPD actually gave numbers for Hardware and software officially  

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_November_2009

 

So you can't realy hide the software numbers as accurate by using the groupings.

For example, on Amazon Super Mario Brothers Wii >   COD 360

Despite NPD Having 360 outselling NSMB Wii by more then double.

 

Also, Wii being above it... etc.

 

Clearly Amazon moved a LOT less COD (Both kinds) then other retail stores.

 

In that list the software isn't remotely in order.