I was thinking with the fact that this is a video game tracking site, and it is obviously not tracking each unit (since it is impossible to do and even NPD represents 50-60% of sales) why not round the numbers in the sales figures. Havind a number like 12328 makes me feel that there were exactly 12328 units sold, and if it turns out wrong the number will lose credibility, while if the numbers are more like 12330 or 12300, it definitely reminds me that this is just an extrapolation of existing data.

So does anybody else agree with me on this?

To ioi : By the way, keep up the good work. It is hard to stay neutral in such a fanboy infested environment (I mean in the internet not necassarily this site) 

I think that is due to his formula.

Personally, I prefer that they look accurate.
Not like Michael Patcher and his hardware predictions (25k increments). He could try to narrow it down just a bit more.

The issue of precision vs accuracy rears its head again.

Obviously the data is not accurate to as many significant digits as is presented, but then the question arises as to how accurate it actually is? Unfortunately, as evidenced by the sometimes drastic swings in the difference between VG Chartz data and NPD data, VG Chartz does not yet have predictable accuracy. So there's currently no way of knowing to what place to round the data. Rounding the data would be as artificial as leaving it as it is.

At least, that's how I see the problem 

I appreciate the idea, gorgepir, but really those unrounded numbers sorta go to show that ioi isn't d*cking around with his figures, and is seriously trying to deliver accurate numbers. And I think it's good for people to see that.

be it 12328 or 12300, they're just estimates. i'd like to see an error bar--an interval of confidence for instance (90% or whatever).

NPD nor those japanese tracking agencies put out error bars, probably because it's less easy to understand, but they all should.

Actualy, they're very easy to understand.  You see them in polls all the time.

I suspect the tracking agencies don't publish confidence intervals because they don't want to make it obvious that, even with their huge sample set, their numbers are still just estimates.

oh yeah, that's true, you see them in polls.  so since this is a video game site most people have a good understanding of statistics putting such a figure up would be a good thing.

the thing about vgcharts is that different games would have different error bars, because of whatever formula ioi uses.  which means it's more than just sampling where he needs to estimate errors on, and it gets complicated.

but then i guess he has repeatedly stated that +/- 10-15% is his target.

 if the numbers were rounded to 12330 it would make me think there were exactly 12330 units sold. just because a number ends in a 0 doesnt mean it must be rounded.

its like making a big deal about 360 reaching 10m units sold. what you mean its sold 1 more than 999,999! no way!

I say leave it alone. I like it and it is much easier to obtain and by far the best counts as far as I'm concerned.