As far as trends go, a 100% record for over a year is 'just about' good enough for me to put my faith in. I'd be crazy not to, right?

It's a good source to use for console predictions since it has been correct for almost every month.

Agreed. But if you see PS4 at 8th for the month and X1 at 9-15th(ish), I wouldn't be surprised if the X1 won for reasons explained in OP.

Agreed, I think this will be the first time both consoles have been very close between each other so I wouldn't be surprised xbox one taking this one now that it's at 349 the whole month.  If ps4 take this one as well, it will just add more faith in amazon rankings from now on.

Currently at PS4 8th and X1 16th for Feb. So it will be a tight month again. If it climbs a little higher then I will suspect an X1 win.

I like how you think! I'm getting killed right now on my bet. So I hope the X1 climbs just a little and expect it to win. :D

If I recall amazon have been mostly used to determine the winner of NPD and have been 100% right for 2014 and January 2015. For software I don't remember people taking their rankings for NPD. In previous thread people have even been saying if hardware ranking is close enough maybe amazon might not get the winner right. So far it haven't happened. That is why it is a good indication in determining the winner of NPD.

Then again, who cares about software.

agree you cant get a good guage on software. That said the higher on amazon the better all things considered.

For instance, Farcry 4 had a huge sale so it will be proportionately higher on Amazon than other retailers. Walmart is selling PS3s for 179.99 so PS3 amazon would be lower proportionately there.

I do think it works as a sample to compare an apples to apples scenario. Which is why it works so well to pick the winner each NDP between the XB1 and PS4.

In fact there are only 3 scenarios where Amazon would get it wrong.

1. They are within 2 spots- basically a very close month could go either way type thing.

2. One console is supply constrained (this is actually what happened the last time Amazon was wrong, PS4 was severly contrained and Sony dumped a disportionate amount of PS4s on Amazon causing it beat XB1 on Amazon, while XB1 had more supply in all retailers and was able to win NDP DEC 13)

3. A major sale on amazon or another key retailer. If Amazon decides to sell the XB1 at 350 with 2 free games it would cause a major uptick on amazon but would have a negative effect on other retailers, or if lets say Gamestop decides to sell the PS4 for 350 it would skew the numbers, people would not buy on Amazon unless they did not have a GS near them. Either of these scenarios or something similar would throw the retail landscape out of balance.

You are dead right. Other factors can come into play to mess things up like an Amazon specific sales. But I still think the X1 can come within 10 spots to get the win explained in the OP. A couple of spots lower than the PS4 and I think the X1 would win by tens of thousands even in the slow months.

April 2014 was also another tight month, 20k difference, and yet PS4 was 8th and X1 at 24th. Do those rankings really represent a 20k gap for the month.