Would it be possible to use this website to set up a feature assessing Walmart hardware sales? With 100 or so forum users, it would be feasible to call 5-10 area Walmarts to see how well PS2, DS, PSP, 360, Wii, and PS3 are selling. It could be set up like this: Users 1-100 call five local Walmarts. Each week the user would tally the totals in the following format: Number of Console X sold/ Number of Console X inventory, per week. This would be done for each console. Then, the process would be repeated for the other Walmarts in the same week. This would be done 4 times each week in odd months, and 5 times each week in even months. Then, each user would enter the data online (on this website?), from which Shipment data would be extrapolated by expanding the field to all Walmart's in the USA (3800 or so?). The claim is that NPD consistently underestimates hardware, because after getting hard data for 60% of sales it fudges major retailers like Walmart in estimates, this would be a good way to prove or refute that claim.

While it sounds good in theory, in reality it would have little-to-no positive effect on the accuracy of the site's numbers, odds are you'd have to have hundreds of people willing to do so at the very least for even a slight chance at an increase in accurate number predictions.

Not only that you'd have to trust the honesty of the reporting people. If you got someone like Kwaad, who is a PS3 advocate, he could easily attempt to fudge the PS3 numbers to inflate sales. This isn't meant as an insult to Kwaad in anyway, it's just using one user to explain my point.

Walmart would not give you that information, and they would probably get very mad at you for calling them asking about something like that. They already hate when people call in general to find out if they have a console available for sale.