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NPD will no longer release monthly hardware/software unit sales
- Thread starter Kobun Heat
- Start date
Haunted said:On the one hand, he should be a bit worried that he can't correct his own numbers once NPD hits as easily now. On the other hand, since fewer people know the actual numbers now, his made up bs should be even safer to spread. Being called out on his false numbers regularly didn't stop him, now he doesn't even have to be that worried about it.
Sloane had two accounts.
He probably gets leaked numbers. This is nothing but positive for him.
Psychotext
Member
Wont affect the figures they publish... just the ones they massage on the sly later when they realise that their guesstimates are less accurate than half of the people in the GAF prediction thread in an average month.confuziz said:
FunkyPajamas
Member
I think you missed the joke. Shyamalan twist:poppabk said:
He was basically saying Cahill was Sloane's second account.
FunkyPajamas
Member
poppabk said:
Psychotext
Member
IOI is doicare?!?!confuziz said:
NOOOOOoooooo!!!!!
SolarPowered
Member
Hell, any kind of numbers are better than none around here. The bullshit and misinformation in Wii threads was on a whole other level compared to regular trolling on gaming side. The release of move and kinect are going to bring the silliness over the edge. Sales age has only recently begun to set itself apart from the craziness, but I fear that it's going to come back with this vacuum.FunkyPajamas said:
Sales age has really matured over the last couple of years. People are much more reasonable than before. I guess it should be expected when we're more than half way done with this generation.Kenka said:
FunkyPajamas
Member
But isn't "any kind of numbers" also "misinformation"? I mean, I could pull numbers out of my ears right now, but without the means to back it up (and without current data to prove me wrong) I'd basically be lying or trolling. So What I'm saying is that I wouldn't be surprised if referencing current sale numbers without solid sources to back it up ends up being bannable.SolarPowered said:
Note: I'm not saying that sales talk should be bannable, just that if misinformation and ignorance are going to be used as trolling tools, then we could probably use some rules in place for that.
SolarPowered
Member
Yeah, I got ya.FunkyPajamas said:
Mods who frequent the gaming side are probably pretty annoyed by this development.:lol
plagiarize
Banned
probably?SolarPowered said:
they've been banning people cheering the announcement already. i think we can say they're definately annoyed about it.
plagiarize
Banned
i think losing substantive info from the biggest market it worse news. japan may give us more complete info, but NPD was giving out just enough. more info would have been nice, but we had 'enough' i think.Chris1964 said:
Rocket Punch
Member
This is bullshit! That's it! I quit gaming!
John Dunbar
correct about everything
poppabk said:
So if the chartz numbers are revised based on NPD, does that mean they're ultimately accurate?
SlipperySlope
Banned
DMeisterJ said:
Just like the good old days of Sales-Age... except with sadness for all...
Dang it, this news destroyed an otherwise good day yesterday.
Also, why the heck does IGN pay 120K a year for NPD numbers? They're not allowed to report what's not publicly available anyway.
Ah, who am I kidding. I want to work at IGN now.
Psychotext
Member
What are they using to revise their EMEA numbers?John Dunbar said:
SlipperySlope
Banned
a Master Ninja said:
Yeah, it will definitely hurt the site. It's the reason I first signed up. And it's the reason many others here signed up.
John Dunbar
correct about everything
Psychotext said:
fuck should i know, i'm talking about their north american numbers.
test_account
XP-39C²
If this was the case, in what way would this hurt Nintendo though? Doesnt NPD still provide sales numbers to those who pay for them, so the inverstors can still see how much things sells, both when it comes to individual platform sales and hardware sales numbers?Dave Long said:
Perception is a huge part of public relations. Without legitimate numbers for the public to view, PR statements take on added weight among the public, simply because that's all they've got left.
Think about how many times GAF has blown up a Sony press release about the "PlayStation Family" or called out a Microsoft dodge and feint in their PR because we had the numbers at hand to see where they were distorting the truth. We won't have that option anymore except from shadowy Bunkums that pop up from time to time.
Think about how many times GAF has blown up a Sony press release about the "PlayStation Family" or called out a Microsoft dodge and feint in their PR because we had the numbers at hand to see where they were distorting the truth. We won't have that option anymore except from shadowy Bunkums that pop up from time to time.
test_account
XP-39C²
That is true. But does the sales numbers affect people's buying behaviour in general though? In this case, would people stop buying Nintendo games if the games charts a few places lower due to that mutliplatform titles are counted as 1 entry? Or if a Sony and/or Microsoft PR statement says something like "Move/Kinect is selling really great!", would this affect Nintendo's sales? But i see your pointDave Long said:
redbarchetta
Banned
botticus said:
Indeed, and they actually track products for Microsoft (and I think Sony too), at least as of 2006 when I worked at Nintendo.
Isn't that like, illegal? It's anti-competition practices. Unit sales aren't intellectual property, so putting up financial barriers to compete in gathering and analyzing these numbers is not only unethical, it also creates problems with potential abuse and conflicts of interest since they're the only legitimate way to get ahold of these types of figures.KJ_Wii said:
Zero-Crescent
Member
Information is a product like anything else, so companies can legally charge the market research group money for access to their sales information or for access to their stores systems to track sales.
doomed1 said:
My memory's a bit hazy on this since it's been awhile, but from what I remember it has to do with NPD owning the POS-tracking system and paying to have it installed at certain retailers. Thus any would-be competitor would have to re-create all of that work, up-front installation costs, and on top of that provide some kind of incentive to get them to want to switch over in the first place.
This only applies to a small selection of retailers but is enough that a competitor would pretty much always have a lower coverage. Makes it nearly impossible to compete with the same business model, would need a model that focuses on something besides "high quality-high price" (probably something actually disruptive).
KJ_Wii said:
That doesn't make sense, though. Microsoft has stated before that they get weekly reports from their retail partners. The store has to have a way to track its own inventory/sales. Put those two together, and you have a company-owned POS tracking system that NPD pays to get access to. Nintendo has their own system, because they use the individual barcodes to validate individual system sales for warranty purposes. NPD doesn't care about that level of granularity.
Kenka said:
Worst news was November 2006. Pretty sure there was a lot more hand-wringing, then. NPD assuaged it by making their completely bold-faced lie deal of providing a Top 20 with numbers and Top x per system sales. That never materialized, obviously, but it dulled the reaction some.
charlequin
Banned
AdventureRacing said:
In fact, you can consult the Backlogathon thread and see confirmation of this. :lol
FunkyPajamas said:
Compiling nationwide sales from retail data is quite difficult. At best, without some work developing a system you're going to get lump-sum numbers from the big boys (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Gamestop) with no geographical distribution and no info from stores that buy stock via distribution. NPD, Nielsen, etc. spend a lot of money constructing the systems they use for this sort of reporting, which is a large part of why they're so protective of the data.
SolarPowered said:
I've been happier, to be sure.
doomed1 said:
Nope. A single company using their resources to keep out competitors is generally fine under anti-trust laws. Where you run into trouble is multiple companies conspiring with one another, or a single company using their advantage in one market to gain an unfair advantage in another.
A lot of why NPD has a de facto monopoly has to do with the lack of profit other players see in that space. Due to a lack of an advertising market (like in TV) or a live-performance-and-promotion industry (like in music) there are far, far fewer potential subscribers for game data, and NPD already has all of them as customers. A new competitor would need to offer a dramatically better product for cheap enough that NPD couldn't easily match them in order to win business, essentially, and that'd be hard given the upfront costs of getting into tracking games.
If someone were going to challenge them, Nielsen would be the obvious choice, I think, because they could expand the SoundScan system -- but I'm not sure it's worth their while.
charlequin said:
And how is this different than what NPD has data for? I don't recall ever seeing geographical distribution of sales from NPD, and NPD doesn't cover the full market, anyways. Therefore, they would be missing direct-sale retailers unless that retailer has a deal with NPD.
Edit:
Oh, and no, they wouldn't get lump-sum data from Wal-Mart.
B-Rad Lascelle
Banned
As with many people, I came to GAF for the Sales Age banter.SlipperySlope said:
But I STAYED for the Off-Topic Forum.
crazygambit
Member
onken said:
I kinda disagree. It will never really be a monopoly since there will always be PC gaming. If it starts becoming too restrictive people will gravitate more toward PCs until it starts becoming less draconian.
Also competition is NOT always good for the consumer (for an easy example see HDDVD - Bluray). When there are big economies of scale, consolidation can result in lower prices than a competitive market. I fully believe gaming consoles is one such a market. Even if the console itself is more expensive it wll still be much less than buying all the consoles available right now and you get every game ever made (except PC) and fully optimized for the machine, a la first party efforts, but even by third parties.
I wouldn't fear you example too much, it would definetely lead to a class action law suit. You really can't make a game sold for a certain system not work on said system anymore (though working of future versions of the system is quite another matter).
Also I hope we get leaked numbers eventually, GAF without Sales-Age is not really GAF IMO.