NPD will stop releasing monthly hardware numbers

http://www.vg247.com/2010/10/12/npd-to-stop-reporting-monthly-hardware-unit-sales-figures/

Wall Banger.

...

...

...

...Wut.

"Wall Banger."

Don't you mean Ruined FOREVER? Get your complaints tropes right.

...but, but, Without the NPD we won't be absolutely sure how horrible Other M is Selling!

The problem is that industry sites and blogs are screwed.

There are other sources besides NPD.

Which are....?

Considering I found one within five seconds on a google search and it took mere minutes to find their methodology page (linked here), I think you can find them yourself.

VG Chartz? Are you serious?

No he's talking about where Vg Charts gets their information.

I said I picked them out within five seconds and checked their methodology page. That's as "serious" as I can be. Do I look like I give a damn about blogging video games myself? I also said to look for yourself.

Your single, myopically-chosen, multiple-industry marketing and sales information source has decided to effectively drop video games from their list. They're not the only ones in the stats industry giving numbers on the video games industry. Check other sources, find ones that are reputable, and use them instead.

Doom-saying will get you nowhere.

edited 13th Oct '10 8:17:35 AM by GoggleFox

Face Palm.

No one in the industry takes VG Chartz too seriously.

^ And the Missing The Damn Point award goes to...

My point isn't "Use vgchartz instead." My point is "Look around. You're relying too much on one source and it's gone now. MOVE ON."

edited 13th Oct '10 8:24:29 AM by GoggleFox

Apparently.

^^^ Did you even read all of his post?

Edit: edit and ninja fail

edited 13th Oct '10 8:25:12 AM by ColorPrinter

The industry didn't take Nintendo seriously anymore, so I wouldn't use what they think is serious as a good reliability guideline. They still think it's more of a risk to spend less money on a game, when any understanding of economics shows why that is wrong.

Also, to put not too fine a point on it...

Barring all else you can do some of the research on your own.

I would suggest checking the corporate sites for major outlets and asking directly. Gather as much information from as many different retailers as you can on given figures.

Hell, if you want to make enough of a difference, why don't some of the video game blogging and journalism community come together and start up their own system for tracking these figures? You're gonna need more than just one person to start something like this, but if there's really no alternative to NPD in your eyes, and that is gone, the next best thing is to make one.

^ DQZ, I think you can disregard vgchartz on the grounds that they manipulate their figures to match a better-known chart supplier. Thus why one has to check the reputation of one's sources.

edited 13th Oct '10 8:41:29 AM by GoggleFox

They adjust when they get official numbers. Calling corrections to be manipulations is the kind of spin you are accusing them of.

When one is looking for an official set of numbers to replace NPD, picking one that corrects itself to match the official numbers as set by NPD is not a good idea.

That would be valid if they relied far more on NPD than they actually do, and if their corrections were of a greater percentage. Neither is the case.

Considering some of the corrections are in excess of 100% total, that's laughable at best. When they don't have access to NPD as an "official" check for their results, their numbers can still be way off anyway. For reference, NPD has access to around 60% of point-of-sale retail outlet figures. vgchartz has access to around 3%, and makes up the difference with guesstimation. Their inaccurate guesses have essentially made them useless in the eyes of the general video game journalism groups.

Regardless of how true or false you may consider the implications to be, the journalism community considers vgchartz to be corpus non grata. Don't bother trying to change their minds, it's not going to work.

Interestingly, neither NPD nor vgchartz covers digital distribution by direct figures.

edited 13th Oct '10 10:23:42 AM by GoggleFox

They used one example, and you are claiming that makes their entire correction system laughable. That is not a good argument.

3% to 60% is more valid, but the context of your comment seems to be assuming that the site does this out of laziness or lack of effort, not the fact that NPD has far more resources, for many reasons, since they cover far more than just video games, and have for far longer than VG Chartz has had the chance to do anything.

I'm discussing your arguments, not about how they feel about it. The journalism community also suffers from worse preconceived notions they need to get rid of first (like how niche games suddenly stop being niche games on the Wii, and are now supposed to sell millions when those kinds of games didn't on other systems, and then blame the Wii audience for buying games in the amounts they would have sold elsewhere).