VGchartz Not Credible? Think Again

Well right now im hearing the stampeding wolves running at me to feast on their prey. But seriously all I hear about is Vgcharts is trash blah blah blah. Its complete BS!!!! Its been proven wrong thousands of times! I have never seen anyone on these forums completely prove them wrong except THEIR WRONG. Wow that sure convinced me. I would like someone to actually prove that they are beyond a reasonable error wrong.

They have a nice compilation of information for people on their site that people shouldnt completely discredit. Am I saying that their completely accurate? no not at all obviously there not 100% accurate. But why shouldnt their information not be used if its based off of NPD, Media Create etc. Its a very nice source to go back and look at sales of consoles and games since there sales are reasonable close.

So aside from their monthly predictions for the Americas (which they adjust when the final numbers come in) Im ready to not ever bring up vgcharts again if you guys can completely discredit them and their numbers.

Also im seeing a lot of people saying that NPD is completely unreliable because they dont include walmart and such. I dont know if these people are living under rocks or what but for the record they DO include estimates for all stores that they dont get direct information from. If you want to argue the accuracy of that go ahead. But theres at least numbers there unlike what some people think.

The rest of this post goes credit to IARSHAUN because he came up with a wonderful post that almost all the people will ignore because they dont know what to say so here it is again. Since he was nice enough to come up with this information I decicded to use it :D

""

OK, XBox 360 defenders, step up to the challenge. You provide data from independent researchers that show your totals, and I'll do the same, ok? Everyone simply quotes Microsoft's HIGHLY confusing statement - 10.4 million sales.

But you see yourself that to Microsoft, sales = sales to retailers, NOT consumers.

Check the quotes in the first post again. Are you going to argue with Microsoft? Game companies do NOT track sales to consumers... how can they? They only know what they do with retailers.

Now, let's do the math from independent sources and see what we have. I'm seeing around 7.7 million sales to consumers like what vgcharts reported on 12/31/06. Here are my numbers and sources... let's see your breakdown too (through the end of 2006):

X360 sales to consumers through the end of 2006

4.5 million U.S. sales to consumers, confirmed by NPD's research:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12375

.25 million Canada sales to consumers, confirmed by NPD's research:

.26 million Japan sales to consumers, confirmed by Media Create's research
6.) Xbox 360 - 264,702 (I took out the unrelated figures in that line)
http://www.cubed3.com/topic/19971/

2.6 million Europe sales to consumers (a generous estimate)

Europe is the only one with tough numbers to nail down. Chart Track gives the UK numbers, which is the biggest market in Europe. You can see this article citing Chart Track that the XBox 460 (and PS2) sold less than handhelds like the PSP last year:

http://www.mcvuk.com/PSP-to-hit-1m-UK-sales-in-2006

Since the PSP sold 1 million units in 2006 and the X360 was definitely below it (the article says PSP's lead was 'comfortable), then in the biggest European market you can't really come up with more than 1 million since its launch. However, I was VERY generous and gave the region 2.6 million units sold through 12/31/06 from launch. Let's add:

4.5+.26+.25+2.6= an estimated 7.61 million worldwide XBox 360s sold to consumers from launch through the end of 2006.That's with my generous European estimate. At the end of 2006, www.vgcharts.org had the figure at 7.7 million sold, so I'm close by being generous when it may be actually less.

To get 10 million sold, you'd have to show that Europe somehow sold over 5 million units to consumers. Not even Microsoft claims Europe outsold the U.S. 4.6 million, and we see the PSP led in the UK.with 1 million over the X360 sales.

Now, please. Can someone show me how numbers add up to 10 million? Why we shouldn't believe Microsoft when they say 'sold' to them means sold to retailers (which most people call shipped)?

""

So if you guys are up to the challenge go ahead and prove them wrong for all of us so we dont have to debate this again. But otherwise you are all just blowing a bunch of hot air by just "claiming" their wrong. Im completely ready to not use them if theres actually proof that there wrong beyond a reasonable margin. I know theres going to be plenty of fanboys bashing me but if your going to bash and "own me" do it with proof and have a decent arguement besides "your a noob".

MasterChumly

Some people need a little refresher. 8)

Why are VGchartz so off then?

Also sold to retailers is the same as sold to customers. The company still got the profit from the consoles, now all the money is left to the retailers. So when M$ or Sony or Nintendo says they shipped out 20 million consoles to retailers, they collected the money for 20 million.

I have seen people saying that Sony has shipped out X amount of units and counted them as sold and then they sit in a warehouse. You have no idea how wrong that statement is. When Sony or any company ships out units, they sold them to retailers unless they are directly selling to consumers.

VGchartz is always off by to much for anybody to really count them. NDP and official statements by the companies are the most reliable source of sales info.

Grab your Sheild.

they can be a bit off at first, but they always adjust their numbers to be as close as possible. vg chartz is the best source for game sales on the internet.

if italy is any indicator, they are pretty close with european console sales.

compared to official numbers from GFK.

VGChartz Italy (real numbers are in brackets):

1,846,564 (1,819,500)
1,003,890 (992,500)

5,237,001 (5,195,500)
346,334 (357,500)
279,409 (273,000)
349,604 (331,000)

they can be a bit off at first, but they always adjust their numbers to be as close as possible. vg chartz is the best source for game sales on the internet.

if italy is any indicator, they are pretty close with european console sales.

compared to official numbers from GFK.

VGChartz Italy (real numbers are in brackets):

1,846,564 (1,819,500)
1,003,890 (992,500)

5,237,001 (5,195,500)
346,334 (357,500)
279,409 (273,000)
349,604 (331,000)

---OkeyDokey---

Yep, 1 country proves VGchartz is 100% reliable WW :roll:

VGChartz was off by about one million for total American sales at the end of last month.Erebyssial

Tell that to Mr Italy above you....

they can be a bit off at first, but they always adjust their numbers to be as close as possible. vg chartz is the best source for game sales on the internet.

if italy is any indicator, they are pretty close with european console sales.

compared to official numbers from GFK.

VGChartz Italy (real numbers are in brackets):

1,846,564 (1,819,500)
1,003,890 (992,500)

5,237,001 (5,195,500)
346,334 (357,500)
279,409 (273,000)
349,604 (331,000)

---OkeyDokey---

It's easy to get numbers after they come in. Hard to get accurate in real-time.

Funny how you said that VGchartz wasn't credible when the X360 sold more than the PS3. :|club-sandwich

Its Renegade what did you expect? :|

No one outside of this forum uses VGChartz as anything other than a joke.

I think that MAY say something.

Funny how you said that VGchartz wasn't credible when the X360 sold more than the PS3. :|club-sandwich

Most cows were saying that 6-8 months ago. Now VGChartz is the #1 sales sites for all cows. :lol: It's hilarious. VGCharts sales charts are not accurate. Their US and Japan are close because both of these regions do have official numbers and VGChartz adjusts those numbers when the NPD is released. The European numbers are not accurate. They could be off by 10-25% for all we know.

[QUOTE="---OkeyDokey---"]

they can be a bit off at first, but they always adjust their numbers to be as close as possible. vg chartz is the best source for game sales on the internet.

if italy is any indicator, they are pretty close with european console sales.

compared to official numbers from GFK.

VGChartz Italy (real numbers are in brackets):

1,846,564 (1,819,500)
1,003,890 (992,500)

5,237,001 (5,195,500)
346,334 (357,500)
279,409 (273,000)
349,604 (331,000)

DXGreat1_HGL

Yep, 1 country proves VGchartz is 100% reliable WW :roll:

lol, where did i say it did :?

[QUOTE="club-sandwich"]Funny how you said that VGchartz wasn't credible when the X360 sold more than the PS3. :|Ballroompirate

Its Renegade what did you expect? :|

[QUOTE="club-sandwich"]Funny how you said that VGchartz wasn't credible when the X360 sold more than the PS3. :|blackace

Most cows were saying that 6-8 months ago. Now VGChartz is the #1 sales sites for all cows. :lol: It's hilarious. VGCharts sales charts are not accurate. Their US and Japan are close because both of these regions do have official numbers and VGChartz adjusts those numbers when the NPD is released. The European numbers are not accurate. They could be off by 10-25% for all we know.

If you look at official numbers by the big three when they come out vgcharts is always under those totals of their shipment numbers. That tells me their European and others numbers are not that far off.

Here's the deal if you can get me the real data, I can run a regression or at least do a statistical test to see just how far they vary from the real data.

Seriously man. Its not credible.

Good luck with that.

Why are we still arguing about this? We all know VGChartz is not 100% accurate but it's all we have to go on between NPDs so I don't see why we can't use between official numbers. And no, I don't care if it doesn't work for your argument on any given day, if you're going to act like that then go back to elementary school.Tiefster

[QUOTE="blackace"]

[QUOTE="club-sandwich"]Funny how you said that VGchartz wasn't credible when the X360 sold more than the PS3. :|-Renegade

Most cows were saying that 6-8 months ago. Now VGChartz is the #1 sales sites for all cows. :lol: It's hilarious. VGCharts sales charts are not accurate. Their US and Japan are close because both of these regions do have official numbers and VGChartz adjusts those numbers when the NPD is released. The European numbers are not accurate. They could be off by 10-25% for all we know.

If you look at official numbers by the big three when they come out vgcharts is always under those totals of their shipment numbers. That tells me their European and others numbers are not that far off.

The problem is there are NO official numbers for the European market like there are for the U.S. and Japan. Even the companies that do track European number unofficially are not getting every country accurately, so we really don't know how close VGChartz European numbers are. We do know the U.S. and Japan are close because we do get official numbers for those regions every month. Like I said before, VGChartz adjusts those numbers every month to match NPD and Japan figures. Their software numbers are a completely different story. Last month they were 15-40% off on many of the top games. I'm sure that was embarrassing for them.

VGChartz was off by about one million for total American sales at the end of last month.Erebyssial

Uhh.. what?

Off by millions? Now you're just making up bull****.

Why are VGchartz so off then?

Also sold to retailers is the same as sold to customers. The company still got the profit from the consoles, now all the money is left to the retailers. So when M$ or Sony or Nintendo says they shipped out 20 million consoles to retailers, they collected the money for 20 million.

I have seen people saying that Sony has shipped out X amount of units and counted them as sold and then they sit in a warehouse. You have no idea how wrong that statement is. When Sony or any company ships out units, they sold them to retailers unless they are directly selling to consumers.

VGchartz is always off by to much for anybody to really count them. NDP and official statements by the companies are the most reliable source of sales info.

Wasdie

People here are always coming up with problems but never with solutions. There's lots of people here screaming "VGchartz is unreliable!" just because they saw some high level posters claim this. Sure they've been off in the past but generally their estimates are pretty decent. So as long as you don't have a better source, don't be screaming VGchartz is unreliable. Since it is for some parts of the world the only source available, it automatically is the most reliable source for these regions.

And since there is so many people spewing bull**** in this thread, saying how far off they were in the December NPDs. I'll just go ahead and post factual information, December could be considered one of VGChartz' better months.

System | NPD USA   | NPD Total est. | VGChartz    | Accuracy
-------------------------------------------------------------
1. NDS | 2,470,000 |      2,650,310 |   2,876,040 |     1.08
2. WII | 1,350,000 |      1,463,950 |   1,638,849 |     1.13
3. 360 | 1,260,000 |      1,349,460 |   1,289,516 |     0.96
4. PS2 | 1,100,000 |      1,162,700 |     951,764 |     0.82
5. PSP | 1,060,000 |      1,118,300 |     960,885 |     0.86
6. PS3 |   797,600 |        876,562 |     774,795 |     0.88 

[QUOTE="---OkeyDokey---"]

they can be a bit off at first, but they always adjust their numbers to be as close as possible. vg chartz is the best source for game sales on the internet.

if italy is any indicator, they are pretty close with european console sales.

compared to official numbers from GFK.

VGChartz Italy (real numbers are in brackets):

1,846,564 (1,819,500)
1,003,890 (992,500)

5,237,001 (5,195,500)
346,334 (357,500)
279,409 (273,000)
349,604 (331,000)

DXGreat1_HGL

Yep, 1 country proves VGchartz is 100% reliable WW :roll:

US Numbers are not that far off either

Link

Why are VGchartz so off then?

Also sold to retailers is the same as sold to customers. The company still got the profit from the consoles, now all the money is left to the retailers. So when M$ or Sony or Nintendo says they shipped out 20 million consoles to retailers, they collected the money for 20 million.

I have seen people saying that Sony has shipped out X amount of units and counted them as sold and then they sit in a warehouse. You have no idea how wrong that statement is. When Sony or any company ships out units, they sold them to retailers unless they are directly selling to consumers.

VGchartz is always off by to much for anybody to really count them. NDP and official statements by the companies are the most reliable source of sales info.

Wasdie

Lol you fail too see that the numbers sold too retailers are irrelevant too the console war.... In this war developers won't take into consideration if there are 100 million consoles sold too retailers and none sold too consumers.. Only devs applying your excellent logics would do so....

Also, how exactly does it benefit Sony if they sell a million PS3 consoles too retailers? The only thing that happens is that they bleed cash until consumers picks these consoles up and start buying games for them... In reality the winner of the gen is not the company with the most consoles sold, but with the most games sold. The consoles are merely a medium for game sales.. No matter how many consoles are sitting on shelves there won't be any additional games made for these. Without hardware sales too consumers developers won't develope games for the consoles, which means instant failure.

Sony estimating PS3 will have shipped 9.5 mil units by March 08. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6185359.html?tag=latestnews;title;0

Vgchartz already have 9.62 mil PS3 sold OOOPSS Vgchartz=nonsense

And to people using NPD numbers and comparing them, VGChartz changes their figures for the US when NPD numbers come out. If you'd checked weekly sales for Japan and VGChartz before they were changed VGC were off by almost 50% on EVERY hardware and more on software sales.

VGchartz weekly sales (guesses)Japanhttp://vgchartz.com/japweekly.php

vs

real sales http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26139541

off by over 50% on almost everything! Yay vgchartz. Man its just the best source ever

vgchartz:

Hardware: 352,766 259,892 200,838 57,906 20,946 7,022 207 45

actual:

DSL 195k
WII 162k
PSP 158k
PS3 49k
PS2 30k
360 9.2k

software wiifit figures were off by 300%!!! Feel free to see thread in which we discussed it more detail http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26139496&page=0

Renegade just let it go man the articles are all year old and your looking like a desperate fanboy.Gh0st_Of_0nyx

You never realized that to begin with?

Sony estimating PS3 will have shipped 9.5 mil units by March 08. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6185359.html?tag=latestnews;title;0

Vgchartz already have 9.62 mil PS3 sold OOOPSS Vgchartz=nonsense

blue_hazy_basic

Sony were talking about the fiscal year, meaning March 31st 2007 - March 31st 2008, not overall sales.

Wow, what a shocker, Vgchartz is credible when it says what you want it to say.

This site is so overrun with fakeboys and viral marketers it makes me want to puke.

[QUOTE="blue_hazy_basic"]

Sony estimating PS3 will have shipped 9.5 mil units by March 08. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6185359.html?tag=latestnews;title;0

Vgchartz already have 9.62 mil PS3 sold OOOPSS Vgchartz=nonsense

Floppy_Jim

Sony were talking about the fiscal year, meaning March 31st 2007 - March 31st 2008, not overall sales.

it's interesting how lemmings are now defensive about everything. they resemble cows some time ago...SambaLele

Yeah we're on the defense because everyone knows how VGChartz has always and will always be correct.:roll:

it's interesting how lemmings are now defensive about everything. they resemble cows some time ago...SambaLele

People here are always coming up with problems but never with solutions. There's lots of people here screaming "VGchartz is unreliable!" just because they saw some high level posters claim this. Sure they've been off in the past but generally their estimates are pretty decent. So as long as you don't have a better source, don't be screaming VGchartz is unreliable. Since it is for some parts of the world the only source available, it automatically is the most reliable source for these regions.

NielsNL

Your post goes against the base tenets of any reasonable analysis. Just because they're the only ones who exist, doesn't make them reliable at all. In fact, precisely because they're the only source it's that you cannot really use them reliably.

I can tell you: The X360 has sold fifty million in mexico lifetime to date to the PS3's 10 million. Should this be used?

[QUOTE="SambaLele"]it's interesting how lemmings are now defensive about everything. they resemble cows some time ago...blue_hazy_basic

I have always used since I found the site when it first started in 2006. At first I they only really did past system sales and NPD after every month so they were a good source to see how the systems of the past sold. I would always find myself scouring the net to see when Sony first crossed 10m or 30m then I found vgcharts and that scouring stopped. They are a pretty good source.