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Forums - Sales Discussion - Do you think tracking services lie and hate Xbox360?

GotchayeX said:

I've been lurking to date, but I had to register to explain to this guy what's going on.

Look, I don't know how the system works, but let's suppose it's as you say - ioi has worked out an algorithm for extrapolating NPD numbers from a small sample that he tracks. As ought to be obvious to everyone, the formulae clearly only apply as long as the numbers of Wiis/360s sold throughout the US (which is presumably what the NPD reports) continue to bear the same relationship to the number of Wiis/360s that ioi actually knows about. What happened last month? Wii sales in the US skyrocketed. Now, you could write this down to fraud immediately, or you could remember that Nintendo's been promising to increase supply for a while now, and was arguably creating an artificial shortage earlier.

Let's suppose for a moment that the NPD numbers were accurate - the Wii sold like crazy. If the Wii sold like crazy, is it reasonable to expect that the total US sales could still be extrapolated by the same formula from tracked sales? Of course not. We already have anecdotal evidence and common sense that tell us that Nintendo would have altered relative shipping allowances - Toys R Us wouldn't have seen many more Wiis, while Gamestop's would have seen many more. Unless ioi's tracked data is exactly representative of the stores in the US, this would have skewed his formula. His Wii numbers were low because he couldn't anticipate a large surge in the supply of Wiis.

That, to me, seems a far more reasonable explanation than NPD bias. I mean, given that ioi's only been trying to hit the NPD numbers, it just seems absurd to take his findings as the more accurate, since what he's doing is essentially curve-fitting.

 

All of this makes sense. However, NPD only tracks about 60% of sales directly in the USA. The other 40% which includes the famed Wal Mart, they do not have access to and I'm sure run very sophisticated algoritms to make an estimation for.

 

All I'm saying is if they're biased, that 40% of the market NPD estimates for could allow for a lot of skewing if they so desired...

 

If NPD gave me hard figures from the 60%, then of course there would be nothing I could say about those. After all, they'd be simple hard numbers. I suspect they're Wii-biasing the other 40%, though. 

 



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WTF sharky get real. Fighting reality shows childish behavior.



Ok, you have no evidence, nothing to back up your claims, so this thread is serving no purpose and is just spam, I'll be locking it now as the point has been made and nothing new will be gained by repeating it over and over.

If ioi wants to insert a comment to your ridiculous claims I'm sure he can.



dude, you dont think that if Microsoft had SOLD or even for that matter SHIPPED close to 12 million consoles to the US they would be touting it like non other.  The reason you dont here MS complaining or bragging about X consoles sold is because its embarassing and only looks okay compared to the pile of poo that are PS3 sales.

 The 360 has been just as big a bomb as the PS3 the only difference was the expectation.  The 360 moves craploads of software  but to have the games it does yet less than 10 million sold WORLDWIDE after over 18 months is reallybad seeing as how it was also the only console available for 12 months at a decent price as well.

Once you come to terms that the 360 isnt the second coming to the majority of the world and even country i think youll be okay.