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Ars Technica, VGCharts embarrass The New York Times
NihonTiger90 \| 11:21 PM on 04.26.2008	9 comments

I'm not sure if you guys caught this or not, but for "the paper of record," this is mildly embarrassing to say the least.

Most of you probably remember their recent story on the Wii. Low attach rates, poor sales, retailers freaking out, etc. It was all bad news in one of the biggest papers in not just the United States, but North America and the world.

Well, bad news. They didn't do their homework.

Ars Technica decided to do some digging and found out that... well, the Times was dead wrong on several of their assertions. All it took was a quick look at Nintendo's fiscal earnings to find the necessary info.

Now, to be honest, the fiscal info came out on the 25th of April, with the story running in the times on the 21st. But didn't the Times check and make sure those fiscal numbers weren't coming out? Especially to see if they would have torpedoed several of their main points?

Oh, but it gets worse. Turns out their initial numbers came from...

VGCharts. Who said the Times got everything wrong.

Now, it's one thing to get the numbers wrong. It's another thing to trust VGCharts as your main source for information. Even we know better than that.

Nintendo's own figures state each Wii owner has purchased 6.07 games for their system since launch worldwide, with US owners buying 7.48 games per system. There are now 26 million-sellers, including third-party games Guitar Hero III, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, Carnival Games, Rayman Raving Rabbids, and even Red Steel of all things.

So, apparently the panic over the Wii might be a bit too hyped up. It's not doing that bad yet, but that doesn't mean it can't be screwed up. :p

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9 comments | showing # 1 to 9

Samit Sarkar

Ouch! Even Wikipedia doesn�t use VGChartz for sales numbers. Bad move, New York Times.

MaxVest

I know it's fashionable to rip vgchartz figures, but they're usually within 10% (if not closer), and they're free. Let me know when NPD starts making all their data free (even though even NPD doesn't track Wal-Mart or Toys R' Us sales), and we'll talk.

Xelotath

4/5 people buy at least one other game whn buying a Wii from my experience selling them. Most take Wii Play + an other game like galaxy or smash. We do push bigger sales a lot but I don't see how the people going home with a Wii box and nothing else can have that much fun after 2 hours. You can't even play Boxing, Tennis and Baseball with two players. I played Wii sports 2 times since launch and it was to show the Wii to family. I think my sister may have played it once too. I can see why people like it but it feels more like a demo than a real game.

EternalDeathSlayer

I agree with MaxVest here, in that vgchartz, while not perfect, is pretty close. If they say a game sold 5 million, it probably came pretty close.

Also, NY Times? Embarrassed? They don't need to do anything for that, they simply publish the paper everyday. The content is embarrassing enough.

Also, Video Games Live was great.

cjpkiller

whiteboy, why havent you died in a fire yet?

good find nihon.

also...
not a big wii fan meself, the system has no appeal to me.

Wexx

Talk about a fuck up.

Sam Spectre

facepalm @ NYT

razerangel

lol uberfail! Although to be fair the NPD number are themselves fairly inaccurate digital downloads.

Wedge

NPD is about as bullshit as Nielsen ratings. It's all just a fucking scam =<.

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Oh, hi there. Didn�t see you enter. Anyways, welcome to my humble little blog. For those of you not familiar with who I am, the name�s Brian. I�m 23 years old and hail from Lorain, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. I work at the local newspaper here as a copy editor, putting my four long years of college to actual use. Kind of. I think.

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I've been gaming since the relatively young age of around 3 and I've played plenty of games, both good and bad. I'm continuously expanding my gaming collection, which has become more of an archive in recent years as I'm focusing on collecting older, less well-known titles. You'd honestly be surprised on what people are missing out on in bargain bins...

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Great Retro Quiz! Results

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