It wouldnt be wise to make decisions based on neogaf opinion unless its about a really niche game and even then.
Oh, no, of course not. I assume that datum is one point of reference supplemented by other websites (including news sites and their commentators, YouTube, etc.) and potentially focus groups and market research surveys. I mostly agree. Looking at enthusiast populations aren't total wastes, though, because those same enthusiasts often help you with on-the-ground marketing and building awareness by talking about your products for them. Pleasing your core fans can definitely help with certain products. But you're right that it would be unwise to solely rely on them in many cases.
For example, is NeoGAF the target audience for Wii Fit? Probably not, so you wouldn't shape your advertising campaign around what will make NeoGAF buy it. However, you can use NeoGAF and a number of other sites to see how you are doing perception-wise among a core audience, which may or may not be important depending on the kind of game. For example, I kind of feel like they might not care what a lot of NeoGAF and people in similar demographics think of Paper Mario: Color Splash, since their audience might be kids who watch certain TV channels and casual consumers who stroll through Target looking for games. But I also suspect that the early enthusiast and media buzz for PS4 and backlash against X1 spread beyond those circles and influenced momentum.
Enthusiasts, news sites, and "influencers" do shape the perception of their announcementsI mean, who is watching Nintendo Directs and press releases and reporting on them? I also think there's a reason Nintendo stopped allowing Likes-Dislikes on Federation Force videos that relates to how the actions of enthusiasts were influencing the perceptions of casual consumers.so I think these groups have importance. However, they're a fraction of the population, so I'm mostly suggesting that when they are speaking to certain demographics or releasing certain news, websites like NeoGAF can be one resource for collecting opinions on how they're doing.
Edit: That OT post got way longer than I intended. Oops.