Well actually, I dont follow cars much, but I do happen to know, the redesigned Mustangs have been of the few bright stars for Ford, selling very well, even basically prompting GM to bring back the Camaro soon. And again, I know that just through general osmosis, not following cars..so, you're kinda wrong, arguably.
But I'd say the closest corollary to the NPD thing is box office receipts, with maybe music sales and Tv ratings and the like a distant second. Box office is certainly a "big deal" to an extent. Especially with the summer blockbusters where it practically overshadows commentary on the movies themselves. So there are corollaries.
In fact, to the overall popularity, Movie grosses are FAR more known and mainstream than some NPD numbers. Heck there is whole forum about movie gross (boxofficemojo.com). NPD numbers are only known by hardcore video game junkies. The mainstream has less than no clue about them.
I'd say on the other hand, console boxes inspire more hardcore allegiances and fanboys than movies, though. That is a difference, in general.
As for Vgchartz, he doesn't just use NPD data and estimates. He does have his own retail sources. Which are basically probably mostly members from his forum who happen to, work at Gamestop or wherever, have access to limited store data. Maybe clerks and such, maybe some of them can even get up to district level data and the like. I know because I post on that forum he contacted me about being a source for him (though I was not in a position to supply him with numbers).
I just dont trust the reliability of his data at all. In fact, a Gaffers yesterday even mentioned they ought to do a scheme of feeding him bad data, just because they hate him so much, whether they will act out on this I dont know. But if they weren't joking..
Also funnily, I have seen David Riley has an account and has made at least a couple post on vgchartz forum (he also has a GAF account). Which I dont know, seems funny to me, since he supposedly hates the place so much.
On another topic, it is true that NPD never used to release the data. Nobody had ever said this, but I did seem to remember the media reporting NPD numbers was a new phenomenon. What used to happen, was somebody would "leak" the data to GAf, and other sources on the net, every month.
Basically what changed is, now NPD monitors GAF much more closely, and people seem a lot more aware that the numbers are contraband, whereas before it was just kinda, allowed. Now GAF is bigger, they cant get away with it, and NPD seems a lot more active on monitoring the internet. But I'm really, really curious to see, if the NPD data starts getting leaked at lesser forums, just as it did prior to the last ten months. Because I know a couple that will be prime candidates, and I will be on the lookout. Basically I'm just really interested in if NPD can keep the data secret. Heck, in the old days, much more data was posted, because hey, if it's all illegal, might as well post it all. If we get back to that, NPD will have shot itself in the foot with this move. However, the posters that used to leak the data like bunkum and Da Fonz, now seem gone from the internet. It'll all be very, very interesting to see how it goes down...and we dont have to wait long to find out, Nov 15 is the next NPD day.
We still get top 10 software, which should be good for discerning some hardware trends also.
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