I approve of this message.

But but... Microsoft said they sold 10.4 million units in January you mena they only sold 100K...or But but Sony said they sold 5.5 million PS3s in March.

Luckily these posts have stopped here but when VgChartz articles are digged these comments appear again.

Just a small typo: change "data rom tracking firms" to "data from tracking firms".

Great to know the retail coverage percentages. They are higher than I had imagined. Also, how is your coverage of Canada? Is it enough to maybe split the American numbers like you do for Europe? Canada is showing pretty unique trends, it would be interesting to have that information available here (even if only for hardware).

Too long, no one is going to read it.

It needs to be more concise. How about something like:

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Video game sales numbers aren't freely available; companies must buy them. VGChartz makes their numbers available freely, collects their own data, and can be easily compared to professional tracking firms. In fact, they post comparisons as the data becomes available. Their accuracies are typically very good, and where they diverge from the professional tracking companies, they update their data.

VGChartz gathers data in the same way professional firms do -- they collect the data from retail and online stores. VGChartz has 3-5% coverage, which isn't as high as most professional firms, but it provides its numbers for free. While the VGChartz team is not 100% accurate, and no tracking firm is, it has proven through time that its accuracy is quite high.

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Ioi, this is a great text but maybe you should mention how accurate vgchartz already is and that the data will get an adjustment if it is 10%+ off.

If that´s in it than we can say "but look at vgchartz.com vs. NPD data - it is within 10% difference, so very accurate" if someone tries to complain.

ioi: I've thought about this some more, and I don't think it will necessarily be positive if boards end up getting spammed with stuff like this. VGChartz will get the credit it deserves in due time, but trying to compress that time line will be difficult. Places like Arstechnica are beginning to accept it and a lot more of the intelligent forums on the Internet accept it as well.

Keep up the quality work and people will recognize it as such.

dam I found out ioi's real name!! the mesage is too long man.

Unfortunately people who don't like your numbers will always be there to critique you. So in that regard the fight will never end.

With that said, I would like to echo the sentiments of TheBigFatJ, I don't think many sites will appreciate a canned message being spouted every time VGchartz is brought up. It will most likely just add fuel to the fire. Ultimately people will accept the site more if they find it on their own rather then have someone tell them. People like to think they discovered something, where as they don't like people to tell them what to think...or at least that is my experience.

Most of the bashers right now don't even know that NPD is only estimating just the same as you folks are. So educating them is the only answer, but I don't think a talking points or a prepared speech is the way to do that.

For what its worth it's a good write-up and articulates your points quite well.

TheBigFatJ said:

>>It needs to be more concise. How about something like:

My thoughts is that if criticizers aren't going to read the thorough explanation, they definitely won't appreciate the concept no matter how terse you make it!

Just my thoughts...