Just some thoughts on all of this.

1. It is interesting that the gist of the NY Times article -- that the Wii can't sell software -- is not receiving more play. Sure SSBB is down 90%, but its still a top seller. Plus, its start was the best ever for a Nintendo game and its total sales penetration is at the 35% range for install base in the Americas, close to where Halo 1 & 2 finished. (If there is a thread on this, please let me know).

2. In reading the one unlocked thread, it appears that IoI tried to make suggestions and comments on methodology and some people did not like that. I will say that the tracking process used appeared to be sloppy and fragmented and confusing.

3. What console bias I observed in the thread on NeoGAF tended to run in the opposite direction of what most people around here are acused of having.

4. The best revenge is to live a good life. VG Chartz is being seen as the de facto "go to" place for quick tracking estimates. This in an industry which likes to see itself in the entertainment business but without any accepted source for weekly numbers in US/North America. Books (NY Times), Music (Billboard), Movies (don't know who does the Box Office numbers), TV (AC Neilson) all have weekly lists that are considered "official" and that are released to the press and to the people. NPD does not do that for video games -- but VG Chartz does. (It is also important to remember that all of these are samples and estimates and can be wrong. But only when you have a situation where shipped is less than reported sales can you say with certainty that one estimate is wrong).

Just my thoughts.

Mike from Morgantown

mike_intellivision said: Just some thoughts on all of this. 1. It is interesting that the gist of the NY Times article -- that the Wii can't sell software -- is not receiving more play. Sure SSBB is down 90%, but its still a top seller. Plus, its start was the best ever for a Nintendo game and its total sales penetration is at the 35% range for install base in the Americas, close to where Halo 1 & 2 finished. (If there is a thread on this, please let me know). *snip*

 The gist of the article was so poorly thought out that I, for one, don't think it deserved to have its main point even discussed.  That adds a legitimacy to the argument that I don't think it has.

 However, since you asked:

The article is terrible.  It uses a single theory ("Nintendo Wii Doesn't Sell Software") and tries to find evidence for that (SSB:B dropping 90% in 4 weeks).  Never mind that SSB's at what, a 30% attach ratio right now?  And more copies of it are being sold in America than Wiis per week (a Tier ratio, I think i've heard this called, of >1).  Never mind that the system now has 6 4M+ sellers, and.  Never mind that GH3 (a game they say sold poorly, with less than the 360 and the 'playstation family') is trending higher than all the other consoles, and is still selling 80k/week.

Especially never mind that Halo3 dropped 95% after its first 4 weeks (on the system that sells software better per the article).  Especially never mind that huge drops after the first few weeks are the NORM for the industry.  Especially never mind that the Wii outsells the software of its competition, week in and week out.

The article was horrible.  I feel dirty for giving it the amount of thought necessary to write this rebuttal that I feel utterly destroys its premises and the [lack of] evidence they use to support it.  It was a troll article that should never have gotten past the NYT's editors, who I feel are above posting utter tripe like that.  Sure, they may have posted an unprofitable quarter, but that is no excuse to become the Cable news of Newspaper.

More and more I find myself agreeing with Ars Technica's assessment of the media industry.  Right now all they have to offer us over the distributed, technical, specific journalism of the blogosphere is professionalism and 'good' journalism. As they start to leave this behind, the less reason I have to go to them, and the more marginalized they get.  

Maybe we should be mature and adult about things and start writing (or having the mods do it for us) ****** instead of NeoGaf? That is apparently how the proffessionals handle it.
There are no words in english to describe how idiotic it is to actually censor a goddamn word every time it is written because the mods don't like the site.
I seriously can't stop laughing, and lol @ them dragging in the most base comments in this thread to make us seem childish.
The only good news is that at least this whole mess is providing grade A entertainment!

apujanata said: Neos said: We somehow have to search the offense to put a final stop to this. We, yes we, all need to somehow show (especially GAF), what a great thing ioi is doing for the outside world, giving us free data every single week. I am more than sure they know this site is accurate, they are just jealous and then come up with such claims saying this isn't accurate. What I think we need to do is : Put up enough articles on the site, that proves our credibility, reliability and that ioi (or the team as a whole), only use legal ways to collect data. Also it would be nice if (just like that bitbag article), we somehow get invited for another interview of how VG Chartz works etc. Furthermore, we have to find more newspapers, internet sites, or podcasts that use the VG Chartz data. The more we find, the more credibility we build up. There is still a lot of work to do in order for them to finally believe this site, but they will eventually, once the big companies will quote this very site. If you agree, let us use Mario Kart Wii, the upcoming big game as proof of the accuracy of this site. Let us compare NPD data with the US data from this site, and see how accurate it is. Let's post the new data every week in a new post, and when NPD April 08 data was released, we compare them. I will publish the result on NeoGAF, whether it is good or bad. What do you think ? Do you agree ?

 That would assume that NPD's numbers are "correct" which we all know they're not. VG Chartz's numbers aren't "correct" either. They both sample retailers and project this across all retailers to predict sales. NPD just samples more retailers in order to make those predictions. Neither NPD nor VG Chartz publish sales figures, they both publish predicted sales figures.

 

mike_intellivision said: Just some thoughts on all of this. 1. It is interesting that the gist of the NY Times article -- that the Wii can't sell software -- is not receiving more play. Sure SSBB is down 90%, but its still a top seller. Plus, its start was the best ever for a Nintendo game and its total sales penetration is at the 35% range for install base in the Americas, close to where Halo 1 & 2 finished. (If there is a thread on this, please let me know). 2. In reading the one unlocked thread, it appears that IoI tried to make suggestions and comments on methodology and some people did not like that. I will say that the tracking process used appeared to be sloppy and fragmented and confusing. 3. What console bias I observed in the thread on NeoGAF tended to run in the opposite direction of what most people around here are acused of having. 4. The best revenge is to live a good life. VG Chartz is being seen as the de facto "go to" place for quick tracking estimates. This in an industry which likes to see itself in the entertainment business but without any accepted source for weekly numbers in US/North America. Books (NY Times), Music (Billboard), Movies (don't know who does the Box Office numbers), TV (AC Neilson) all have weekly lists that are considered "official" and that are released to the press and to the people. NPD does not do that for video games -- but VG Chartz does. (It is also important to remember that all of these are samples and estimates and can be wrong. But only when you have a situation where shipped is less than reported sales can you say with certainty that one estimate is wrong). Just my thoughts. Mike from Morgantown

I just wanted to comment on this one and this works as a bumb to provide us more entertainment, especially when we have few people from GAF participating.

1. It's commonly known that the papers in US are nothing but wraparound for ads, so what can you really expect. Although NYT is usually considered as somewhat respected paper, while articles like that tell something else.

2. I think we had thread about it a year ago, where someone said that ioi and the mods didn't share the same views in tracking methods. If i recall, ioi thought that you can estimate the number of products sold with the data you are getting from different places, while others didn't agree.

4. Definately. The easy to find data also creates higher profile for the industry.
And you did mention the reason why NPD undertracks, since you really can't call it being wrong.

Everytime there's a longer thread that i can post with my mobile, it sends a double. Or is it the sites lag that's causing it?

Those topics are OLD. Old sales related data are moved to a different forum "
Sales Archive forum", which might need registration / log in to access. If that is the case, I am sorry you couldn't see those topics.



The main problem is the BIG discrepancy. Like this :
March 2008, for PS2, NPD is 216,000, while VGC is 420,090. VGC is almost double NPD data.
Same significant difference in March 2008 data for PSP, X360, PS3. Which mean out of the 6 H/W data tracked, 4 are significantly different, while only 2 (Wii, DS) are relatively close.

In Japan, Famitsu and M-create, the 2 different tracker, they also have discrepancy. But never in the range of 50% (or double) difference. Usually it is between 10% - 20% difference, max.

The main problem is the BIG discrepancy. Like this : March 2008, for PS2, NPD is 216,000, while VGC is 420,090. VGC is almost double NPD data. Same significant difference in March 2008 data for PSP, X360, PS3. Which mean out of the 6 H/W data tracked, 4 are significantly different, while only 2 (Wii, DS) are relatively close. In Japan, Famitsu and M-create, the 2 different tracker, they also have discrepancy. But never in the range of 50% (or double) difference. Usually it is between 10% - 20% difference, max.

 You want to elaborate on the VGC number of 420,000 because I added together the 4 weeks of PS2 sales in March and got around 250,000 and America is not US only.

totalwar23 said: apujanata said: The main problem is the BIG discrepancy. Like this : March 2008, for PS2, NPD is 216,000, while VGC is 420,090. VGC is almost double NPD data. Same significant difference in March 2008 data for PSP, X360, PS3. Which mean out of the 6 H/W data tracked, 4 are significantly different, while only 2 (Wii, DS) are relatively close. In Japan, Famitsu and M-create, the 2 different tracker, they also have discrepancy. But never in the range of 50% (or double) difference. Usually it is between 10% - 20% difference, max. You want to elaborate on the VGC number of 420,000 because I added together the 4 weeks of PS2 sales in March and got around 250,000 and America is not US only.

@ totalwar23:  NPD tracked 5 weeks in March, actually.

[edit3:  OH GOD THE SHAME.  apujanata, I publicly admit not having the wit to check VGC's very own VGC/NPD comparison news article, which is where you got your 420k number.  Applying the usual (NPD*1.1~NA) estimation, we arrive at the following differences:  VGC was:  Wii 133 under, DS 91 under, PSP 55 over, 360 55 over, PS3 70 over, PS2 182 over.

[I really don't know why you say that the Wii and DS were much closer than the rest.  Really, considering the difference in sizes of numbers, off the top of my head I'd guess that they're all comparable in deviation except for the PS2.  The Wii is actually further away I think, but I'm not going to bother running the numbers.

[I do recall seeing the PS2 numbers at the time and wondering why TheSource didn't at least mention the huge discrepancy.

[Anyway, the numbers have since been adjusted to where VGC is:  Wii 5k under, DS 14k under, PSP 53 over, 360 39 over, PS3 60 over, PS2 64k over.

[As you can see, there has obviously been a significant reevaluation of the data based on NPD (and probably other data) but it is not blind retrofitting as the numbers guys clearly remain confident in (for example) their PSP numbers.

[In any case, you have to admit that all this tends to even out over time and having the whole system of powerful graphs and comparison tools and this HUGE wealth of only somewhat questionable data is immensely valuable.  In fact, if you chose to you could become a very valuable poster here to keep the numbers guys on their toes, as long as you didn't do so merely by quoting NPD as gospel.  Several longstanding members strongly question the site's accuracy and no-one who does so rationally has been banned to my knowledge.  (As opposed to the infamous PS3 undertracked in Spain!  Sorry, that one's an in-joke for those of us who have been here a few months.)

[On a final note, I would like to personally curse thank you, apujanata, for causing me to do all this work.  I have long wondered just how much these numbers get adjusted after they are first posted to the site and now I know at least one example of this in action.

["Oh, I've wasted my life."]

ioi said: Shio, flawed all over 1. NeoGAF is neither well-organised or strict. How can two giant boards be considered as well-organised? Their team of "mods" invent rules to ban every other big site on the internet - vgchartz is not the only one they attack, joystiq, kotaku and many others also get the brunt of their hate (all incited by mods). Hardly a forum for free speech and discussion? If you'd posted this equivelant post on GAF you'd have been banned. 2. VG Chartz obviously is a reputable source as it is being sourced all over the place - numerous major newspapers, most big gaming websites etc. It is only the GAF posse (of which it is obvious you are one) who have this constant undying aim to discredit us. You know absolutely nothing about how we put data together, so how do you seriously try to assert what we do and where out figures come from? 3. When was the 300k shipped figure as of? The game has likely sold more by now but to be honest if the best example you can give of our accuracy is that we have a game 10% higher than it should be (where does your random 150k figure come from) then we're obviously doing a damn fine job. 330k, 300k whatever - does it really make a difference in the grand scheme of things? Thanks for your trolling.

Lol................. Burned by the big boss.

That's something worth reading.

I always wondered when somthing like that would happen. =P