apujanata said:
Viper1,
Can you point out proof/evidence that NPD change their figures after initial publish ? I heard this kind of thing talked about, but never got any supporting evidence (link to posting or analysis that prove it).
I can understand more frequent changes to supply restricted games like Wii Fit, but how about GTAIV ? I don't think this game are sold out like Wii Fit, and yet there are changes made to it's data (week 7 and 8, both version), which were mentioned in my openingn post.
personally, since I am not active on this forum, I didn't realize that "VGC readily admits it will update sales data as new data is received" meant not only changes related to NPD data or shipped amount from publisher, but also to changes as more retailer data are received. I think this means that the weekly data released are NOT complete retail data.
My current understanding is :
- IF VGC has 3 retailer source, and on a certain date only received data from one source, VGC will still release data using 1 retailer, and estimating the other 2 retailer, using the single retailer data and extrapolating / estimating the other 2 retailer.
- a few days later, once VGc receive data from retailer B and C, if that data didn't fit with previous estimate, VGC will change the previously released data.
Is my understanding correct ? |
NPD doesn't often admit to changes to thir public data because they have no responsibility to do so. Ask any major publisher or retailer and they'll tell that NPD updates their figures pretty often.
Off the top of my head though, they have publicly corrected their 2007 top PC sales list and Dec 2006 (and 2006 overall) console software lists.
An easy way to see that they correct things is to compile all their monthly hardware data and comapre ti to their end of year data. It should match, right? Well, you pull the numbers and comapre them to what NPD states at the end of the year. I'll grant they don't have to adjust their data as much.
Keep another factor in mind. NPD no longer receives data from Toys R Us which is a larger percentage of Wii and DS sales than the vide game retail chains like GameStop. NPD's data correction here is higher because of it. Same goes for Wal-Mart whom NPD hasn't had a retail contract with since the start of the GC days.
Your current understanding is currect. VGC covers just 6% of the retail market but even at 6% that includes hundreds of retailers. As I mentioned before, distribution can play a huge role in regional or state sales. Each state is provided product by a specific distributor, such as those I listed before. Each distributor has sales volume contracts with the publishers and the retail outlets. Some distributors can acquire more product than others based on these contracts.
For instance, Take Two Interactive owns the distribution company Jack of all Games. They only distribute to 9 states (plus the western half of Pennsylvania). Obviously Take Two (parent company of Rockstar Games) would be able to cheaply ship more product to those 9.5 states. It's logical to assume those 9.5 states would have more GTAIV units for sale at retail than the remaing 41.5 states. In this example, let's assume (I don't know this part for sure but for the sake of my side of the debate, I'm asking you to bear with me) that VGC's initial retail sample doesn't come from those 9.5 states. This can hinder the accuracy of the intial sales data.
To be honest, the ability to correct the data in real time is a superior format than delayed static data that still may not gurantee absolute accuracy.
