Hello all,

As some of you might know, there is a bit of Others data missing from the VGC database. And a decent bit of it is for the X360 (obviously, there are tons for every system too).

At any rate, I have put together some numbers I'd like everyone to look at, and jugde for themselves, to see if this is a semi-viable method for understanding sales of a few X360 games that have very low, or missing data. This isn't a bash at VGC, or to promote X360 sales, but just a way I think, that can help fix a bit of missing data that we have for games.

For those that don't know, I use a lot of MGC Gamercard data to build my XBLA charts. It works very well, as there is a huge database of 2.2 million XBL users that you can pull data from. Because of this, I think it's important that we look at the following card numbers vs. VGC numbers to get an idea of where sales are most likely at for certain titles.

North America is defined as the US, Mexico and Canada. Japan is Japan-only, and Other is any other nation (Europe, SE Asia, Austrailia/NZ, South America, and so on). Another aspect to think about is rentals, and used games diluting sales for the older games. Nevertheless, I feel looking at multipliers can give VGC a good idea on where sales may be for certain titles.

Others: 182,000-303,000

Others: 85,000-142,000

Others: 235,000-392,020

Others: 148,000-247,000

Others: 111,000-185,000

Others: 99,000-165,000

Those are just a few games with some good estimations for games with un-updated numbers, or low numbers.

There are a few other games with missing data that this can work on...And I think, work well:

• Armored Core 4
• Dead or Alive Xtreme 2
• Quake 4
• Battlefield 2
• Hitman: Blood Money
• Culdcept Saga
• Phantasy Star Universe

Any opinions on this? I think it might be a good idea to look at these numbers and see if this would be viable to use for good estimations on sales data in Europe/Others for the following games.

Interesting.. keep this updated because it seems like pretty reliable daa :)

Prey is also undertracked. http://www.mygamercard.net/leaderboard.php?gt=&g=93&z=&c=&x=92&y=9

= 210k 

And you have the wrong data for enchanted arms in japan the game has 9-10k on mygamercard.net

http://www.mygamercard.net/leaderboard.php?gt=&g=47&z=&c=16&x=0&y=0

Good idea, quite interesting data. Is there no shipment data avaliable to help?

I don't think the others region is that simple. You don't seem to account for piracy

Pristine,

And you don't account for the fact that the  card would be banned for piracy by Microsoft, and taken off the servers, thus negating pirated games.

Furthermore, what countries are they going to be pirating it? Others is 80% Western Europe, Taiwan, South Korea, Austrailia/NZ.....All countries with very little pirating presence. So I think the numbers are justified.

Oh, and about Enchanted Arms: I meant to put a note. There are 2 version of Enchanted Arms. The NA/PAL version "Enchanted Arms" and the Japanese version "Enchant arM" - I just included, and referenced sales from the NA/PAL version.

This data should be used in the absence any other way to verify sales. The other markets sales cannot be made any less reliable through this process. In fact I welcome the prospect of actually getting something approaching full sales data for dozens of games which VGC cannot seem to be able to track in the other regions. Despite the fact that you know they are selling.

I think however your a little aggressive with your multiplier. I find it hard to envisage a 360 title in Europe tracking near the 360 titles sales in North America. Even Grand Theft Auto IV has tracked at about forty percent of North America. What I am meaning is to say is your estimates are too positive. Anything beyond fifty percent of North American sales should be discounted immediately.

A better multiplier would be have a percent. Use the MGC data multiply it by half a percent and then add the result to the MGC data. That should give you better data that is both conservative, and probably closer to reality. For example this would have Blue Dragon being just over 90,000. Which is closer to forty percent of North America.

I think you should use Grand Theft Auto as your measuring stick. That should define your limit for estimates.

My multiplier lies between 3-5x, which is below most American titles on the low end.

What games are you arguing are favoring PAL regions too much? Stranglehold, Blue Dragon, and Enchant Arms are the only 3 titles that have a higher-than normal ratio. Two Worlds, Overlord, and Eternal Sonata fit well within your 40% argument.

Grand Theft Auto merely proves my point in terms of MGC Accuracy:

There is a 0.5% difference between VGC's PAL ratio, and MGC's! That is amazingly close! Why is it that MGC tracks GTAIV perfectly, and all of a sudden, fails to track older games so imperfect, that I have to reduce the ratios even further?

What about games that ARE more popular in PAL territories, such as Top Spin 3?

This number is quite a bit larger, in difference, than the GTAIV number, but it goes against your argument of 40% sales max. VGC is tracking Top Spin 3 as having a 82% ratio of PAL vs. NA sales, and MGC is undertracking it at 72%. Therefore, MGC is undertracking European sales, not overtracking them as you argue.

So again, I feel this is a viable method, and your argument made me go back, and do more research, which proves I my methodology is fine, and your idea of increasing PAL numbers by a percentage just would not work, as it doesn't tie in to an specific methodology of tracking sales...Games have different sales patterns, and thats why I gave a variable rate on the multiplier, to account for a minimum and maximum number.

I don't know about this one. It's a great idea, but so many games on every platform are missing sales.

Good job stickball. I think this is a good fill-in for the missing data, just so long as we don't start using it alone(without actual reported sales) to account for Others data. Having a thread like this with your numbers is welcome in my book.