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CES 2007: Gaming Roundup
jasoncart writes "Traditionally, gaming's calendar year of expos, conventions, and trade shows doesn't generally kick off in earnest until March's fanfare arrival of the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, which thus opens the floodgates for a host of industry platform events. However, before July's new-fangled E3 Media and Business Summit (the now scaled back, renamed, and invitation-only E3 of legend) shifts into view alongside August's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), September's Tokyo Game Show (TGS), and the newly announced and ESA-endorsed Entertainment for All Expo in October (previously known as the Gamepro Expo), it falls to January's annual Consumer Electronics Show to whet our collective appetites-at least where related hardware is concerned."
The article itself mentions the NPD only covers around 60% of retailers. Lets do some simple math, working under the assumption of evenly distributed Wiis.
.183 million (10% of retailers) .183 million * 10 = 1.83 million
1.1 million / 6 =
Also, the NPD does not cover online stores. I find it easy to believe that, given the large number of exclusive online events at websites such as Amazon and Gamestop, 170k consoles could easily have been sold online.
In short, to claim this as evidence of Nintendo lying is dubious at best. The article itself only notes there is a discrepancy, but does not pass judgement on whether it is the NPD underestimating figures or Nintendo stretching them.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Obviously, the quantity of sales of a new game system in its first 6 months do not represent that large of a portion of its userbase but they're still important. Typically if a console sells well for the first several months after it has been released its sales will continue throughout its lifespan; on the other hand if a console sells well and then drops off of the radar it will typically sell poorly throughout its life.