@Laoldar, just to add, I would point out your posts are an example of good analysis to go on. You and many others post good reasoning on how a game must be selling.
@Laoldar, the alternatice is your own analysis and those of the people on this site. Like others had mentioned here, the personal estimate of anyone here is likely as accurate if not more accurate than VGC. At least here, people post some analysis as to why they think a game has sold X units. On VGC, its just a guy with no credentials who makes a bunch of guesses on tons of games and posts them on a website. How is that something to go on more than what people post on this message board?
The only reason it caught on originally was it leaked NPD data. Now they got stomped on by NPD and have tried to keep traffic by making up their own numbers. Have people not noticed how off these numbers are? They only make our forecasts off. For September, I looked at their numbers, saw they were all huge, and traded the opposite way because I knew they were unrealistic. Turned out the actual numbers were even smaller than I thought they would be.
While it's not exactly a stellar source, what alternative is there? Without SOMETHING to go on, we're literally just arguing about which guess is "correct". Just another reason for lifetime stocks to disappear shortly after release.
@Joe80, perhaps for US sales...which are still off by an unbelievable margin for a source that supposed does research at the retail level. But I can guarantee they have no research analysts running around stores in Europe or other parts of the world. They just make these numbers up.
Isn't the site ran by some kid who says he just likes video game statistics? It is crazy how people take these numbers as truth when they have never demonstrated any accuracy.
@Just_Ben, "Their overall hardware data is really really correct."
Are we looking at the same data? VGC was off 43% last month on the PS3 units sales figure. They were off 38% the month before that. In July they were off by 37%. If anything, they are just getting worst. Basically, take VGC data, then trade the other way is your best bet. The one thing they are reliable at is being off by quite a bit.
Their Hardware date weekly hardware data is accurate about +-10%, also for others. Their overall hardware data is really really correct. While they have an error in the U.S. software, the hardware data is much more reliable.
@Alpha, Yes, we should be critical of all VGC data. They do show trends though, and it looks like the PS3 pricecut paid off atleast for last week, particularly in comparison to 360.
@Alpha, That's not what I was referring to, that part is obvious. I was referring to the fact that they say the factory now owned by Toshiba is only able to produce 65nm size Cell CPUs, while the New York factory will start making 45nm Cell CPUs.
@Joe80, I'd be very wary of those numbers considering how inaccurate VGC is for the US market. The error is substantially more for the European and "Other" market. I don't think they do anything short of pulling numbers out of a hat for areas like the Middle East. In fact, I'd bet those are complete fantasy numbers.
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