No problem.  Thank you for doing them!

Don't worry, it's not just you.  I used angle brackets in my username, not realizing the site would think it's an HTML tag.  I was initially going to start over but it's kind of become an identifying feature in its own right now.

Anyway, my username is "ColdFire" - it's in my sig.

What exactly are the sales figures you used here, by the way?  Are they NPD numbers, global sales, etc?

Also, please forgive my inclusion of your charts.  I know you wanted them deleted from our replies, but I wanted to comment on each one.

This is, I think, the best match of them all.  It really only misses one major sales spike, and it begins to trail off a little at the end, but it's otherwise quite representative of the overall trend.

Here, the Amazon numbers appear to anticipate the big sales spike, but then they fail to drop as sales decline.  They remain fairly level, even rising a couple of times, while overall sales steadily decrease.  They do eventually start to drop a little before shooting up again, apparently anticipating the second rise in sales.  Overall, this one seems to do a good job of predicting sudden bursts in the market, but not so much at representing gradual changes.

Hmm... I'm not quite sure what to make of this one.  The Amazon figures start to rise well in advance of the actual sales spike, and then continue to rise after the spike has ended.  It's not until the actual sales bottom out that the Amazon figures peak and begin to decrease.  Shooting around the target a little, but overall, not bad.

Yeah, the absolute values are off, but to be honest, that was never what I wanted to compare (I'm actually surprised the absolute values in these charts match as well as they do, to be honest); I was more interested in whether Amazon could be used as a guide for overall market trends.

This one doesn't really have any massive sales spikes to compare, but the most dramatic rises and falls do appear to be slightly anticipated by the Amazon figures, and there's definitely a broad correlation between overall trends.

WTF?  This one is all over the place!  The Amazon figures drop while the sales figures rise, and then when sales top out and start to fall, Amazon's figures start to climb again.  I'd say that the Amazon figures were anticipating (or perhaps even lagging behind) actual sales, but then they do seem to match the sales trends on the right side of the chart.  They match the spike in the middle (though they remain high a little too long) and they appear to, once again, anticipate the rise in sales towards the end.

So, yeah, this one has a bit of a bumpy start, but overall, it manages to pull it together by the end.  Not a terrific correlation, but also not as bad as it might seem at first glance.

Don't be too hard on the 3DS chart.  It actually correlates well trend-wise.  And that's what I was interested to know - if Amazon was representative of overall trends.  I honestly never expected the absolute numbers to match.  I just wanted to know if Amazon could give you a snapshot of what the market is doing at any given time.

Overall, I'm kind of surprised by how well it works.  I realize this is just a small slice of the data, but based on what we have here, I have two major takeaways.  First, it does seem that Amazon is at least somewhat representative of overall sales.

And second, Amazon appears to be slightly predictive of sudden changes - big spikes (or big drops) in sales tend to be preceded by a sudden rise (or drop) in interest on Amazon.

Again, this is all based on the admittedly small sample we have here, but assuming this data is all accurate, I don't think any of this is too unreasonable.  And now that we know how the correlations look, it will be particularly interesting to see if these ideas hold up going forward.  So, I hope you'll keep working on this because we'll get a better look at the big picture as more information comes in.  You're off to a good start and I look forward to seeing how the data builds over time.

Thanks for your work on this.

Thank you for your interest in this. :)

Ah, gotcha!  Yeah, those can be annoying.  Someone quotes a really long post in full - which is directly above theirs anyway - and you scroll to the bottom and it says, "Me too!"

Possibly.  The Amazon trend is declining at the start of that chart.  But it looks a little too far back to me.  Perhaps it just didn't spike very high, but I don't know if you could project it much farther back because it would throw the rest of the correlation out of whack.  And as it's currently aligned, I think the overall trends match quite nicely.

That's interesting.  So, it seems that it's remained more popular on Amazon since the Titanfall bundle despite overall sales going down.

Ah, I see.  So, it's not just sales or preorders that make the Amazon numbers go up?  That would certainly explain some of the discrepancies.  It's easy to imagine how an item's "popularity" on Amazon - like, say, the Titanfall bundle - could remain steady, or even increase, while its actual sales decline.

My pleasure.  Thanks again to you for actually doing the work!

And thanks for the additional info.  It definitely helps to put things into perspective.

Weekly update :

PS4 continues to trend up.

After a nice boost following Playstation TV at E3 and Freedom Wars + value bundle in Japan, Vita is going down badly.

WiiU still holding well.

XBO trending up thanks to Japanese launch incoming (this week boost is titanfall bundle appearing in the list).

OP charts have been updated.

Weekly update :

PS4 still trending up. Hype growing because of the big third party games incoming (Destiny, COD...) ?

WiiU still holding surprisingly well. MK8 + Good E3 still carrying momentum ?

XBO trending down. Mainly due to expected loss of steam in the Japanese list.

Weekly update :

Graphs in OP were updated.

PS4 still on its way up. XBO stable this week. WiiU trending down despite Hyrule Warrors going up strongly (small boost in japan though...). No comment on Vita and 3DS.

Hardware by region for information :

We can see PS4 rise is hapening in all three region. Strange behavior of XBO before launch in Japan with huge spikes fading down quickly. Concerning WiiU, it is trending down slowly in NA and Europe after MK8 spike but there is a rise in japan most likely due to Hyrule Warriors release incoming.

nice thread. I like looking at Data and making assumptions based on it. (that is my Job in real world)

What stands out most to me is XB1 games rise in a similar pattern as PS4 games, but once release it hits rock bottom fast. PS4s have an initial big drop then tapper off. Best examples you showed were WaDo PS4 and WaDo XB1, and then Titanfall and Infamous.

The assumptions I make from are
-More people are still waiting to get PS4s (possibly back in March they were still trying to find one), while the people who want a game for the XB1 have the system and are buying sooner thus reducing the "most wanted" status.

-XB1 owners are more "core" type gamers, they know the game they want then get it, to me this is a big deal, I think it is showing more mainstream gamers shifting back to the Playstation, but I think this will allow the XB1 to have a higher attach rate.

These assumptions can lead to predictions- like
1. PS4 demand (not nessecarily sales due to possibly supply issues) will increase more % wise during the holidays than XB1 (mainstream effect)
2. As a general rule PS4 games will open comparably to XB1 versions of the same game (XB1 bigger when you account for install base differences), but will have better legs (even when adjusted to account for most console sales)

Anyways thanks for the data, looks like a lotta work but it seems you are having fun doing it.

Hey Symbios, is that a mistake?  On the right side, you've got "XBOne" where I think "Japan" should be.

Great work