Doesn't anyone follow the Japanese numbers? There's two sets of "official" numbers that come out every week, and they can be wildly different. As different as NPD and VGC, many times. NPD can assure a higher degree of accuracy, because they're tracking >50%. But accuracy does not increase linearly from the

nintendo said: Exactly, so when NPD posts numbers very different to VGC I'm of course going to side with NPD and question VGC, so I wanted to see if VGC could give a valid response. Most of this thread is drowning in ignorance though, as I expected.

Great. No one is telling you to trust VGChartz more.

But first, without access to NPD's numbers it's a little hard to correct VGChartz' by them. And second, if neither NPD, Media Create, Famitsu, Chart Track, etc publish their sources and/or methods, why should VGChartz?

VGChartz tracks retailers, that much is public info: it's on the about page. It most likely tracks a much smaller sample base of retailers than NPD. But this as been said, and anyone with a background in statistics knows it, accuracy doesn't grow linearly with sample size - consumer polls don't poll 50%+ of the market either, do they? Having a varied sample can be much more important than having a big sample.

To put it simply, you came here with nothing to offer, demanding answers nobody ever answers. You started with "are you full of it?" and you're finishing with "drowining in ignorance, as I expected". People responded to you with "defensive bs". What else is new?

nintendo said: rocketpig said: Legend11 said: Umm NPD is a very professionally run company and their business relies on it's reputation of accuracy. They have over 800 employees, bring in hundreds of millions of dollars yearly, they're ISO certified, etc, as I said very professional. Oh and they don't "review" products, not sure what you were getting at there. Also does anyone really think NPD cares what the numbers are? They just report them. They also have Microsoft, Sony, and very likely Nintendo as clients and if people at NPD were to somehow "cook the books" don't you think it would be quickly discovered and their reputation and company would be in ruins? Exactly. The NPD makes money by selling the information they gather. If that information was found to be biased and intentionally inaccurate, people would stop buying that information and NPD would go out of business. It's that simple. The NPD doesn't stand to gain by favoring one company over another, in fact, it would hurt their image. They don't care what the numbers say, only that they are as accurate as possible. Exactly, so when NPD posts numbers very different to VGC I'm of course going to side with NPD and question VGC, so I wanted to see if VGC could give a valid response. Most of this thread is drowning in ignorance though, as I expected. Btw johnlucas Wal-Mart is the #1 retailer for video games in NA by a large margin.

Uhm.. you guys are much too gullible if you believe that. Havent any of you worked for big business? They all twist the truth. Hell every commercial you see twists the truth. So lets say company A went to company B (NPD) and said "hey there brother, ill give your company free -insert trade here- if you take care of us when the numbers come out." Thats an oversimplification of course but you wouldnt believe the crap that floats out when people make "connections." Ive seen much worse in my time at Sony.

And NPD is pretty much a monopoly. If you dont buy from them, who will you buy from? (crickets)... Thats right. You have no choice if you must have the data and if no one is really competing who can verify if their numbers are true? Again no one.

The idea of "people would stop buying" only applies to an open market. This is not an open market. Did any of you stop buying windows when MS was found guilty of dozens of things? Nope because you really have no choice. But everyone knows they achieved their monopoly through illegal means... but no one cares except for those who of course lost their jobs and lives working hard for smaller companies that were blocked by MS's practices early on but hey thats not us right? Big company with a gazzilion employees means Jack and Diddly. Look at enron if you dont like what i said about MS.

But what do i know? Im just another "ignorant" fool right?

marc said: Uhm.. you guys are much too gullible if you believe that. Havent any of you worked for big business? They all twist the truth. Hell every commercial you see twists the truth. So lets say company A went to company B (NPD) and said "hey there brother, ill give your company free -insert trade here- if you take care of us when the numbers come out." Thats an oversimplification of course but you wouldnt believe the crap that floats out when people make "connections." Ive seen much worse in my time at Sony. And NPD is pretty much a monopoly. If you dont buy from them, who will you buy from? (crickets)... Thats right. You have no choice if you must have the data and if no one is really competing who can verify if their numbers are true? Again no one. The idea of "people would stop buying" only applies to an open market. This is not an open market. Did any of you stop buying windows when MS was found guilty of dozens of things? Nope because you really have no choice. But everyone knows they achieved their monopoly through illegal means... but no one cares except for those who of course lost their jobs and lives working hard for smaller companies that were blocked by MS's practices early on but hey thats not us right? Big company with a gazzilion employees means Jack and Diddly. Look at enron if you dont like what i said about MS. But what do i know? Im just another "ignorant" fool right?

Yeah, okay. Everything is one giant conspiracy. And BTW, I've worked in advertising for the past six years so I am definitely not naive when it comes to back-scratching. Crap, I bet you don't know half the dirty tricks advertisers pull on each other to get a leg up.

Everybody buys from the NPD. They're whores. All they want is for companies to continue to buy from them. If that is compromised in any way (say MS goes to them and asks them to cut Sony sales figures), don't you think Sony would go ape**** and stop spending millions with them? Sony knows what their numbers should be; if they're not arguing with the NPD, there's likely nothing going on. It's not as if MS can just bully Sony out of a market here, Sony's pretty damned big themselves and carries a lot of clout with their power.

Oh, and I stopped buying Windows products five years ago. Obviously, there must be a choice in the matter because I own four computers.

In short, when dealing with monolithic companies (Sony, MS, etc.), the NPD is self-regulatory because they can't afford to anger (and lose the business of) one of these corporations. The minor rewards and back-scratching that they would receive for it are greatly outweighed by their public perception and future profits.

NPD does market research for a ton of markets, not just videogames. If they got caught fudging on numbers in one area, they would lose customers from other areas where there may be competition. They also have to compete with websites like this one and with each companies own internal tracking, meaning they have to assure that their numbers are the MOST accurate--enough to be worth hundreds of thousands (and maybe millions) of dollars. What's more, if they were known to be faking numbers, the ESA would likely establish an alternate system, akin to RIAA Gold and Platinum certification. Lastly, companies would already have to be cooking the books in the first place to need this. They stand to gain very little from a marketing standpoint, and it would be obvious there was error if they weren't already misrepresenting their sales to shareholders.

Erik Aston said: NPD does market research for a ton of markets, not just videogames. If they got caught fudging on numbers in one area, they would lose customers from other areas where there may be competition.

This is really key. There's a lot of money involved here and it extends far beyond the borders of the videogame industry.

 

Full of it, no, ahead of NPD, yes. NPD is a MONTHLY  calculation, VG Charts is accumulating weekly at this point it'd put them 3 weeks ahead in sales so the difference is easily justified.

rocketpig said: Yeah, okay. Everything is one giant conspiracy. And BTW, I've worked in advertising for the past six years so I am definitely not naive when it comes to back-scratching. Crap, I bet you don't know half the dirty tricks advertisers pull on each other to get a leg up. Everybody buys from the NPD. They're whores. All they want is for companies to continue to buy from them. If that is compromised in any way (say MS goes to them and asks them to cut Sony sales figures), don't you think Sony would go ape**** and stop spending millions with them? Sony knows what their numbers should be; if they're not arguing with the NPD, there's likely nothing going on. It's not as if MS can just bully Sony out of a market here, Sony's pretty damned big themselves and carries a lot of clout with their power. Oh, and I stopped buying Windows products five years ago. Obviously, there must be a choice in the matter because I own four computers. In short, when dealing with monolithic companies (Sony, MS, etc.), the NPD is self-regulatory because they can't afford to anger (and lose the business of) one of these corporations. The minor rewards and back-scratching that they would receive for it are greatly outweighed by their public perception and future profits.

Right... well for someone in the ad industry youre not a very good thinker. If a company wanted a favor they would never do what you are suggesting because it would be plain <fill in the blank>. Instead of fudging with another companies numbers they simply bolster their own. Who can prove it right or wrong then?

Everything is a conspirace? Dont put words into my mouth. There is a difference between using your head and following like a blind sheep or do you claim to work for NPD and can guarantee they are 100% clean? If not then I say use caution and dont believe everything you read but wait you should be all too familiar with that since you are in the advertising business right?

"Oh, and I stopped buying Windows products five years ago. Obviously, there must be a choice in the matter because I own four computers." - hehe well since it takes oh more than 5 years to make a new OS that seems about right to me. You probably have at least 1 legal copy on those systems and if you dont it just means you dont play any current PC games. Congrats but what do PC gamers do? Your argument will be something like "well they dont have to play on the PC. Its your choice blah blah... bs" Its a monopoly or are you going to say that both the US and Euro courts are wrong? I mean seriously, NPD is ok but all the courts are all wrong and corrupt since they dont agree with your opinion!? 

 

marc said: Right... well for someone in the ad industry youre not a very good thinker. If a company wanted a favor they would never do what you are suggesting because it would be plain . Instead of fudging with another companies numbers they simply bolster their own. Who can prove it right or wrong then? Everything is a conspirace? Dont put words into my mouth. There is a difference between using your head and following like a blind sheep or do you claim to work for NPD and can guarantee they are 100% clean? If not then I say use caution and dont believe everything you read but wait you should be all too familiar with that since you are in the advertising business right? "Oh, and I stopped buying Windows products five years ago. Obviously, there must be a choice in the matter because I own four computers." - hehe well since it takes oh more than 5 years to make a new OS that seems about right to me. You probably have at least 1 legal copy on those systems and if you dont it just means you dont play any current PC games. Congrats but what do PC gamers do? Your argument will be something like "well they dont have to play on the PC. Its your choice blah blah... bs" Its a monopoly or are you going to say that both the US and Euro courts are wrong? I mean seriously, NPD is ok but all the courts are all wrong and corrupt since they dont agree with your opinion!?Â

Now you're resorting to insulting my intelligence. Nice. Way to drive home your point that, might I add, completely lacks anything involving evidence or anything past your own unfounded theories.

Again, the NPD has little to gain by fudging numbers, yet they have everything to lose by heading down that slippery slope. I don't know how to make that any clearer. And nice touch calling me a "blind sheep" for not buying into your baseless accusations about the company. They may not be the most accurate company in the world, but if they want to continue to make money, they're going to try their best. It's what they're there for. When you're selling your product to everybody, it makes no sense to help one company at the risk of losing another. You're already getting money from both, why risk it? There's absolutely zero incentive to do it.

Oh, and about the computer thing:

I own Macs. It's not as if Windows is the only OS on the planet. If you really hate MS so much as to stop running Windows, there ARE other options. Your refusal to acknowledge them does not make them any less real.

And why do you keep bringing up monopolies? What does that have to do with anything we're talking about here?

rocketpig said: Erik Aston said: NPD does market research for a ton of markets, not just videogames. If they got caught fudging on numbers in one area, they would lose customers from other areas where there may be competition. This is really key. There's a lot of money involved here and it extends far beyond the borders of the videogame industry.

Once again this is irrelevant. If the monopoly is in 1 sector or multi, it makes no difference. They can simply fudge the sectors that are monopolized and no one will know the difference since those who are only interested in other sectors will not know the difference since they don’t even get the data for the monopolized sectors to begin with.

These free sites are about as much competition to NPD as BEOS is to Windows. Money is also irrelevant. Plenty of folks make money. It doesn’t mean they do good work or that we should trust them just because they have some high position somewhere in a billion dollar company. Again, look at any company that has done something illegal and all the lawsuits being thrown around at everything. <- This is why we have the saying "buyer beware.” It’s not a conspiracy theory. It is just means your should use your head and not just trust because someone has a nice suit on.