sonycowboy
Member
This is more of any FYI for those of you interested in our whole "sales-age" bent here on NeoGAF. I've been following them since they started up and found it interesting.
I know some of you are already aware of The simExchange.com , but I thought some of you might not and be interested in it. They were recently included in Pachter's monthly NPD preview and they've raised some eyebrows out in the industry with their forecast application. One of the more difficult things for the industry is to try and be more accurate in SW forecasting. The big franchises can sometimes follow a predictable trend from release to release, but frequently do not and new titles... Forget about it. It's a complete crap shoot much of the time.
They've applied prediction market's methodology to the VG industry. Essentially applying a stock market model where gamers buy and sell contracts based on their expectation of how a given game or system will perform. Predictors who do better are rewarded with more funds to make predictions and those who do worse with less funds, weighing the prediction towards the better participants.
They've got more information on the whole methodology on their site, but in the end, it's a "wisdom of the crowd" application, which studies have shown to outperform individual analysts the majority of the time.
I've talked with them and the interesting thing about it is that they don't make any predictions themselves. It's all based on the user participation and performance. I haven't done a comparison for their forecasts vs ours, but I believe neoGAF has done better the majority of the time when we compare HW results against our average, so it will be interesting to see how these trend against each other over time.
Since I've done it for Pachter, I thought I'd see what you guys think about them, and just clue you in on them as I think you might be hearing more about them in the future. I'm also including their latest monthly preview as fodder for discussion. It's really more of a recap of what the forecasts are, but it does pepper in commentary for what it means for the various parties involved.
I'm interested to see what you guys think and to make sure that NeoGAF raises it's prediction game up a level as I'll make sure we include TSE (the sim exchange) along with our predictions and Pachter's each month.
More of the preview is available @ http://www.thesimexchange.com/research.php
I know some of you are already aware of The simExchange.com , but I thought some of you might not and be interested in it. They were recently included in Pachter's monthly NPD preview and they've raised some eyebrows out in the industry with their forecast application. One of the more difficult things for the industry is to try and be more accurate in SW forecasting. The big franchises can sometimes follow a predictable trend from release to release, but frequently do not and new titles... Forget about it. It's a complete crap shoot much of the time.
They've applied prediction market's methodology to the VG industry. Essentially applying a stock market model where gamers buy and sell contracts based on their expectation of how a given game or system will perform. Predictors who do better are rewarded with more funds to make predictions and those who do worse with less funds, weighing the prediction towards the better participants.
They've got more information on the whole methodology on their site, but in the end, it's a "wisdom of the crowd" application, which studies have shown to outperform individual analysts the majority of the time.
I've talked with them and the interesting thing about it is that they don't make any predictions themselves. It's all based on the user participation and performance. I haven't done a comparison for their forecasts vs ours, but I believe neoGAF has done better the majority of the time when we compare HW results against our average, so it will be interesting to see how these trend against each other over time.
Since I've done it for Pachter, I thought I'd see what you guys think about them, and just clue you in on them as I think you might be hearing more about them in the future. I'm also including their latest monthly preview as fodder for discussion. It's really more of a recap of what the forecasts are, but it does pepper in commentary for what it means for the various parties involved.
I'm interested to see what you guys think and to make sure that NeoGAF raises it's prediction game up a level as I'll make sure we include TSE (the sim exchange) along with our predictions and Pachter's each month.
More of the preview is available @ http://www.thesimexchange.com/research.php
SimExchange said:October Preview Report
Jesse Divnich
November 12, 2007
Key Points
Wii and Nintendo DS expected to lead their product groups
40GB PS3 Model expected to increase sales
Activision expected to dominate the holidays
First-person shoots are cannibalizing each other's sales
Halo 3 sales not affected by PS3 hardware news or PS3 exclusives
Sony continues to struggle with its PS3 exclusives
Introduction
This report is intended to aid industry professionals and the press in drawing insight and discovering trends occurring in the video game industry through the use of the simExchange video game prediction market (www.thesimexchange.com), a data aggregation system in which gamers, developers, and industry investors trade virtual video game stocks and futures to predict how video game products will sell and how they will be critically received.
Results based on NPD data have consistently shown that The simExchange prediction market can predict results not only more accurately than traditional models and surveys, but also more quickly adjust forecasts based on industry and product news.
The simExchange's Market Predictions
US Hardware in October 2007Title Predicted unit sales
Xbox 360 412,000 units
PLAYSTATION 3 136,000 units
Wii 467,000 units
Nintendo DS 460,000 units
PlayStation Portable 251,000 units
US Software in September 2007Title Predicted unit sales
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC) 124,000 units
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of The Lions (PSP) 132,000 units
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360) 502,000 units
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) 213,000 units
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3) 113,000 units
Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (Xbox 360) 419,000 units
Halo 3 (Xbox 360) 738,000 units
Project Gotham Racing 4 (Xbox 360) 89,000 units
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3) 131,000 units
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS) 269,000 units