Did. Didn't.Did. Didn't.
The general feeling of "Wow, video games are going mainstream with 1.23 million Day One sales of MW2 FTW" generated yesterday by Chart-Track's figures have been somewhat undermined.
Casting doubt on the veracity of the Chart-Track figures, analyst Michael Pachter told VG247 that, "(Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter’s) 7 million is therefore a very reasonable estimate, if we accept that the UK figure is accurate. My guess is that it’s not. I don’t know how anyone could aggregate UK sales that fast."
Not taking this professional insult lying down, Chart-Track's Dorian Bloch, who we know to be a respectable and respected source, has responded. The full reasoning is here. Key points are:
- Chart-Track captures "daily sales from 99% of retailers on our panel. That’s over 6000 retail outlets plus all the etailers – currently 25 different store fronts."
- "Every retailer on our panel supplies Electronic Point of Sale data. In the specific case of pre-orders through retailers with high street stores."
- "When the product goes live we begin to track sales on the actual barcode for that product, along with the actual selling price for every single transaction."
- "Online retailers have to ship the product in advance in order to hit the street date, so we will pick up actual sales (shipped to the customer) prior to the day 1 release. These are re-dated to day 1."
Mr Bloch finishes off with, "Of course, with so many retailers and stores, we will release a final figure for day 1 / week 1 sales of Modern Warfare 2 after we have produced the week 46 UK entertainment software chart, this coming Sunday...
"The reason why we call the 1.23m a day 1 estimate is because with so many retailers, it is always possible that some data will actually arrive later in the week, due to technical reasons or transmission problems. We will therefore release final figures as indicated above."
We await a Pachter apology or justification, shortly after Mr P has responded to Reggie Fils-Aime regarding Wii HD.
Casting doubt on the veracity of the Chart-Track figures, analyst Michael Pachter told VG247 that, "(Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter’s) 7 million is therefore a very reasonable estimate, if we accept that the UK figure is accurate. My guess is that it’s not. I don’t know how anyone could aggregate UK sales that fast."
Not taking this professional insult lying down, Chart-Track's Dorian Bloch, who we know to be a respectable and respected source, has responded. The full reasoning is here. Key points are:
- Chart-Track captures "daily sales from 99% of retailers on our panel. That’s over 6000 retail outlets plus all the etailers – currently 25 different store fronts."
- "Every retailer on our panel supplies Electronic Point of Sale data. In the specific case of pre-orders through retailers with high street stores."
- "When the product goes live we begin to track sales on the actual barcode for that product, along with the actual selling price for every single transaction."
- "Online retailers have to ship the product in advance in order to hit the street date, so we will pick up actual sales (shipped to the customer) prior to the day 1 release. These are re-dated to day 1."
Mr Bloch finishes off with, "Of course, with so many retailers and stores, we will release a final figure for day 1 / week 1 sales of Modern Warfare 2 after we have produced the week 46 UK entertainment software chart, this coming Sunday...
"The reason why we call the 1.23m a day 1 estimate is because with so many retailers, it is always possible that some data will actually arrive later in the week, due to technical reasons or transmission problems. We will therefore release final figures as indicated above."
We await a Pachter apology or justification, shortly after Mr P has responded to Reggie Fils-Aime regarding Wii HD.
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Comments
deleted 12 Nov 2009 14:45
1/1
These figures are going to be incorrect, what about indie stores sending out to buy copies from morrisons and sainsburys and then selling on through there store, they will show as day 1 sales but they might not sell those copies on day 1 or even week 1, also those indies that dont sending there sales data off would also invalidate the real figures, but i suppose they will be close to the real thing. still a fine acheivemnt for IW and i am very much enjoying stopping buzz kills!