@Stever89, Again, when I say "trends" I don't mean "hard numbers." The example I used was the PS3 and 360 sales (and I'm starting to think the Wii numbers will be lower than what's predicted, unless Nintendo releases a good deal more consoles for the week ending May 31st). With the PS3/360, I don't know what the actual numbers will be, but I can guess (within about 15%) that it won't be in the 225k-250k range that the PS3/360 stocks have been at.
And yes, I do realize that the PS2 being off so much is a problem, but that was a joke (and jokes don't translate well on the internet, so I was just making sure everyone was on the same page).
And finally, for just about every "crazy different" number that VGChartz has, there are many "relatively close" numbers. Even in that March comparison, once you add in the rest of the NA market (which includes Canada, Mexico, and South America in VGChartz' numbers) to NPD's USA numbers, you get pretty close numbers for the PSP, PS3, and the 360. The Wii and DS remain high, since VGChartz had them lower, while the PS2 still suffers from the major disparity. For the record, I normally use 10-15% of the USA market to be the total for the rest of the NA market.
But like I said, I'm not going to try and argue so that people believe it's accurate or not. I would rather people just respect it for what it's trying to do.
@apujanata, Well I'm not really going to argue that VGChartz has numbers that are close to NPD like numbers every month for every console, because it's not going to. Even the Japanese tracking firms (in the week that the news article I linked to covers), had a PSP sales discrepancy of 21%. Still not as bad as the 50% "error."
Now what will be interesting to see is if NPD May PS2 numbers are much higher than VGChartz May PS2 numbers, because it seems NPD sometimes corrects errors by adding (or subtracting) part of the error in the next months data.
I'm not here to try and "convince" anyone that VGChartz is accurate, because it won't be for what you and I want it to be, which is what NPD will announce. I have been using it for basic trends, but that doesn't mean I don't leave room for error.
For example, VGChartz is showing that there's little chance that the PS3 and 360 will hit 200k in May (especially since VGChartz includes Canada and SA in its NA totals, so USA is smaller still). So I sold a good bit of 360 and PS3 stock when it was still at 25 DKP. 360 has since dropped to 22.7 DKP, and if drops much lower I'll probably buy it back before NPD comes out, because I have a feeling NPD may adjust their May numbers up a bit (for the 360 and PS3) because their April numbers were a bit low, especially considering GTA4 having been released the last week in April. Now some may say that sales simply increased the following weeks (which they could have), but you have to remember that few games give large increases the week of that games released (such games include Halo games, Final Fantasy games (in Japan at least), Gran Turismo games, and GTA games), but those elevated sales don't last, and since May is normally a lot slower than April, I doubt that GTA4 would push hardware after the first week. If anything, sales should only decline very slowly. But I have a feeling NPD will adjust for underestimating (or well, under-calculating after they looked at their collected data) Aprils number, so anything under 200k is probably too risky to hold onto.
Basically, I feel it's a good place for trends, a good 85% of the time. A little intuition wouldn't hurt either.
Also, we don't predict PS2 numbers, so why does it matter if it was that far off? ;)
@Stever89, Just wanted to mention something : VGC has H/W error of roughly 50% in March 2008 for PS2. Go here and view this post (by me) to get an idea of VGC's "accuracy".
I agree with you that S/W discrepancy will be much bigger than H/W, but for H/W to have 50% discrepancy "NPD is 216,000, while VGC is 420,090" is a little bit too much to accept. What do you think about it ?
I'm a member of VGChartz, and I would say that they are fairly reliable, but since no two tracking firms will have the exact same numbers (even if they are both considered reliable, and within 10% or so of each other), VGChartz can't be used as a source to predict what NPD will have.
Though I noticed when VGChartz announced sales for the week ending May 24th, Wii May shares dropped a good bit, but have since regained much of that.
Here's a link to a news article VGChartz did comparing two Japanese tracking firms, Famitsu and Media Create, both of which cover about 2/3rds of the Japanese market. Hardware-wise, they seem to be spot on, but software can be all over the place. Japan is a smaller market, and not as diverse as the US and NA market, so US/NA numbers have a greater chance of error (especially with a lower percent of market that's actually tracked).
All in all, I'd say VGChartz is a good source to view for trends if nothing else.
@Neisan, I think the reason for the sell-off (drop in price) of Wii Fit May NPD (I assumed you are talking of this future, instead of the GLS) could be caused by : A. someone (not me) that decide that the previous price of 17x or 16x is too high (could be based on his own analysis, or just rumour he heard), and decide to short the up (to 14x price, which is the lowest it went yesterday, IIRC) B. someone (Just_Ben perhaps ??) decided that their long position is not secure, and decided to cover their long (sold them at a loss NOW instead of getting even bigger loss at NPD expiration). I mentioned Just_Ben because he is one player in the Top 10 that I am aware of that has long position on Wii Fit May NPD.
I think the fact that this information currently only have 5 net upbids speaks for "what other players" think about this information. Usually, information from sources other than VGC (like NPD, or publisher PR) would have 10+ or even 20+ net upbids by this time.
How reliable... well, accurate I guess be a better word, is VGChartz when it comes to sales figures? Although granted all reports will have give or take percentage, but, I often see VGC information being discarded. Some even stated that their information is out right false.
A possible reason for putting more shipments the way of Europe rather than US for the time being is the weakness of the $ and relative strength of the Euro. The same thing has been suggested for the Wii console so why would it not apply to WF as well?
And yes a shortage for a while is not going to cause a massive crash in lifetime sales but im sure it certainly has an impact, this theory of Nintendo witholding stock to increase hype is, if true (which i doubt), complete madness. Whilst shortages may generate a small amount of attention, im certain that Nintendo would be wanting to see consumers hand over their cash as soon as possible as prolonged shortages do harm sales i believe. Who knows how many Wii's could have been sold by now if the supply was there to keep up with demand.
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Again, when I say "trends" I don't mean "hard numbers." The example I used was the PS3 and 360 sales (and I'm starting to think the Wii numbers will be lower than what's predicted, unless Nintendo releases a good deal more consoles for the week ending May 31st). With the PS3/360, I don't know what the actual numbers will be, but I can guess (within about 15%) that it won't be in the 225k-250k range that the PS3/360 stocks have been at.
And yes, I do realize that the PS2 being off so much is a problem, but that was a joke (and jokes don't translate well on the internet, so I was just making sure everyone was on the same page).
And finally, for just about every "crazy different" number that VGChartz has, there are many "relatively close" numbers. Even in that March comparison, once you add in the rest of the NA market (which includes Canada, Mexico, and South America in VGChartz' numbers) to NPD's USA numbers, you get pretty close numbers for the PSP, PS3, and the 360. The Wii and DS remain high, since VGChartz had them lower, while the PS2 still suffers from the major disparity. For the record, I normally use 10-15% of the USA market to be the total for the rest of the NA market.
But like I said, I'm not going to try and argue so that people believe it's accurate or not. I would rather people just respect it for what it's trying to do.