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Official May 2007 NPD Prediction Thread

C

Cheesemeister

Member
Cheesemeister said:
Post formatting guidelines for the parser...

List numeric values following system tags on their own lines in a post. All non-numeric characters following the tag will be stripped out, save for the first instance of the letter K in either upper or lower-case, which will be replaced with 3 zeroes. Make predictions by the set deadline, at which point the parser will be run. If a given poster has more than one post with predictions, guesses in subsequent posts will override previous guesses. By the same token, subsequent guesses on the same system within a given post will overwrite previous guesses.

Some examples of valid input follow, but do at least keep them readable for your fellow forum-goers.

[PS2] 123,456
[PSP] 123456
[PS3] 123K
[360] 123k - because of Halo 3 anticipation
[GBA]12 3 Totakeke
[NGC] 1 2 3 4 5 6
[NDS] 123456 (You will say WOW.)
[WII] 123'456

Invalid input:

Sony PlayStation 2: 123,455 plus one
PS Three - 123KK
Weeeeee ~ one hundred twenty-three thousand kajillion units!!!1lol
...

Any lines without valid input, i.e. your comments, will be ignored. Questions, comments?
Click to expand...

Because it bears repeating at the top of a new page...

Also, please refrain from using decimal points as they'll be ignored and you'll wind up with a prediction many times the amount you intended. Simply skip using K and list the full integer if you want a more precise number than in the thousands.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Re-edited for the number police

[Wii] 375,000
[PS2] 230,000
[Xbox 360] 215,000
[DS] 400,000
[PS3] 90,000
[PSP] 180,000
[GBA] 75,000
 
J

Jammy

Banned
[NDS] 426,000
[WII] 370,000
[360] 208,000
[PS2] 183,000
[PSP] 176,000
[PS3] 87,000
[GBA] 81,000
[GCN] 9,000
 
G

Gekkonidae

Member
I vote for trimming the stats. This means removing the (2 or 3) top and bottom guesses for each category. This will remove guesses that are jsut screwing around. It's a commonly used statistical technique and it'll help give more meaningful data. They do it in Olymipic judging for example.
 
D

Deku

Banned
Gekkonidae said:
I vote for trimming the stats. This means removing the (2 or 3) top and bottom guesses for each category. This will remove guesses that are jsut screwing around. It's a commonly used statistical technique and it'll help give more meaningful data. They do it in Olymipic judging for example.
Click to expand...

I support this.
 
T

Taurus

Member
Gekkonidae said:
I vote for trimming the stats. This means removing the (2 or 3) top and bottom guesses for each category. This will remove guesses that are jsut screwing around. It's a commonly used statistical technique and it'll help give more meaningful data. They do it in Olymipic judging for example.
Click to expand...
Good idea, this gets my vote.
 
B

Brakara

Member
[NDS] 425,000
[WII] 415,000
[PS2] 185,000
[PSP] 175,000
[360] 155,000
[GBA] 75,000
[PS3] 70,000
[GCN] 9,000
[XBX] 0
 
A

AzureNightmare

Banned
Gekkonidae said:
I vote for trimming the stats. This means removing the (2 or 3) top and bottom guesses for each category. This will remove guesses that are jsut screwing around. It's a commonly used statistical technique and it'll help give more meaningful data. They do it in Olymipic judging for example.
Click to expand...

Makes sense, I vote for this as well!
 
D

dammitmattt

Banned
FYI...Forza 2's leaderboards are over 200k, which means about 300k in sales so far, with a large portion of those being sold the first week. It should be a closer battle with Mario Party 8 for 3rd place behind the two Pokemon games.
 
C

Cheesemeister

Member
By request, here's now the range of guesses stands when the top and bottom two predictions on either side can be ignored...

the parser said:
Number of contestants: 173

PS2 - Avg. = 188,065; Expected Range = 175,000 to 275,000
PSP - Avg. = 169,245; Expected Range = 160,000 to 200,000
PS3 - Avg. = 78,345; Expected Range = 70,000 to 100,000
XBX - Avg. = 888; Expected Range = 122 to 2,000
360 - Avg. = 180,541; Expected Range = 145,000 to 220,000
GBA - Avg. = 78,904; Expected Range = 70,000 to 90,000
NGC - Avg. = 11,207; Expected Range = 6,000 to 15,000
NDS - Avg. = 438,488; Expected Range = 400,000 to 500,000
WII - Avg. = 345,919; Expected Range = 250,000 to 400,000
Click to expand...
 
D

dammitmattt

Banned
Cheesemeister said:
By request, here's now the range of guesses stand when the top and bottom two predictions on either side can be ignored...
Click to expand...

Cheese - your numbers are awesome...keep them coming each month.

Also, I really think we should do something similar with software sales, maybe starting next month, to make it even more interesting since we get so few numbers now from NPD. We could simply start off doing game and rank in the top 10, or we could actually guess software sales numbers. Either way, it will be great fun to be had by all.
 
T

Trurl

Banned
Cheesemeister said:
By request, here's now the range of guesses stands when the top and bottom two predictions on either side can be ignored...
Click to expand...
Awesome. It will be pretty interesting to see how close this is.

Also, it would also be cool if we could somehow play this where people's guesses are hidden until the numbers are released; I wonder if the avg would be closer or further from the truth after groupthink was removed. The participation would probably drop by a lot if this were done by PM, though.
 
C

Cheesemeister

Member
the parser said:
Number of contestants: 175

PS2 - Avg. = 188,421; Expected Range = 175,000 to 275,000
PSP - Avg. = 169,235; Expected Range = 160,000 to 200,000
PS3 - Avg. = 78,293; Expected Range = 65,000 to 100,000
XBX - Avg. = 895; Expected Range = 122 to 2,000
360 - Avg. = 180,618; Expected Range = 145,000 to 220,000
GBA - Avg. = 78,853; Expected Range = 70,000 to 90,000
NGC - Avg. = 11,130; Expected Range = 5,000 to 15,000
NDS - Avg. = 438,416; Expected Range = 400,000 to 500,000
WII - Avg. = 345,520; Expected Range = 250,000 to 400,000
Click to expand...

Pachter said:
[Wii] 400,000
[PS3] 100,000
[360] 225,000
[PS2] 250,000
[PSP] 175,000
[DS] 475,000
[GBA] 75,000
Click to expand...

npd0705-ranges.gif
 
C

Cheesemeister

Member
bmf said:
I assume you'll be adding an R for reality on Thursday? Come to think of it, we should be able to have a ranking within minutes of the NPD data being released, shouldn't we?
Click to expand...

I'll annotate it as NPD above each bar. You're right, a ranking could be posted very quickly, provided I get the programming done and am home from work when the numbers are posted.
 
T

titiklabingapat

Member
I wonder what Cooltrick thinks about all this "parsing" and "formatting". :lol

I also support the idea of trimming the top and bottom ranges of the results.
 
D

Deku

Banned
Trurl said:
Awesome. It will be pretty interesting to see how close this is.

Also, it would also be cool if we could somehow play this where people's guesses are hidden until the numbers are released; I wonder if the avg would be closer or further from the truth after groupthink was removed. The participation would probably drop by a lot if this were done by PM, though.
Click to expand...


Yes and Ideally this should be done the week before NPD and end on the monday the numbers come out. This way Pachter's NPD preview or other leaks won't sway the contestants. There's also a lot of copying going on where someone might randomly pick a few other guesses and add/subtract from there to arrive at their own.

Secret balloting though probably wouldn't work, and I'm not sure doing this 1 week prior to NPD is going to generate as much interest as usual.

I'm also unsure if Cheese's program can detect last minute edits by contestants after the numbers come out. We'll have to go by the honor system which admittedly I don't have much faith in with this many people.
 
G

Grampa Simpson

Banned
Deku said:
Yes and Ideally this should be done the week before NPD so Pachter's NPD preview or other leaks won't sway the contestants. There's also a lot of copying going on where someone might randomly pick a few other guesses and add/subtract from there to arrive at their own.

Secret balloting though probably wouldn't work, and I'm not sure doing this 1 week prior to NPD is going to generate as much interest as usual.
Click to expand...
I'm going to prep the next one well ahead of time and post it on the Saturday morning preceding. It should literally be a deal where I wake up, do a copy an paste and have this going before I take my shower.
 
D

Deku

Banned
bmf said:
I'm going to prep the next one well ahead of time and post it on the Saturday morning preceding. It should literally be a deal where I wake up, do a copy an paste and have this going before I take my shower.
Click to expand...

Thanks for replying. Do you know how last minute edits will be handled?

Will you be manually checking everyone who ranked in the top 10 or 15 to see if they edited their posts after the numbers come out?
 
E

Epigamic

Member
Gekkonidae said:
I vote for trimming the stats. This means removing the (2 or 3) top and bottom guesses for each category. This will remove guesses that are jsut screwing around.
Click to expand...

The simplest thing is just to take the median of the data instead of the mean. I compiled predictions for two of the previous months this year and the mean and median were generally pretty close to each other (<5k).
 
G

Grampa Simpson

Banned
Deku said:
Thanks for replying. Do you know how last minute edits will be handled?

Will you be manually checking everyone who ranked in the top 10 or 15 to see if they edited their posts after the numbers come out?
Click to expand...
I believe Cheesemeister will run the parser late Wednesday or well before the numbers are out on Thursday, and then make those the official numbers. There will be a cut off time for adjusting your numbers, and any further changes just won't register in the results.
 
C

Cheesemeister

Member
bmf said:
I believe Cheesemeister will run the parser late Wednesday or well before the numbers are out on Thursday, and then make those the official numbers. There will be a cut off time for adjusting your numbers, and any further changes just won't register in the results.
Click to expand...

The parser isn't currently running on a timer, but only when I run it. Who knows when numbers will start leaking out. I'd like to set a deadline, and the earlier the better IMHO.
 
A

apujanata

Member
Cheesemeister said:
By request, here's now the range of guesses stands when the top and bottom two predictions on either side can be ignored...
Click to expand...

parser said:
Number of contestants: 173

PS2 - Avg. = 188,065; Expected Range = 175,000 to 275,000
PSP - Avg. = 169,245; Expected Range = 160,000 to 200,000
PS3 - Avg. = 78,345; Expected Range = 70,000 to 100,000
XBX - Avg. = 888; Expected Range = 122 to 2,000
360 - Avg. = 180,541; Expected Range = 145,000 to 220,000
GBA - Avg. = 78,904; Expected Range = 70,000 to 90,000
NGC - Avg. = 11,207; Expected Range = 6,000 to 15,000
NDS - Avg. = 438,488; Expected Range = 400,000 to 500,000
WII - Avg. = 345,919; Expected Range = 250,000 to 400,000
Click to expand...

Wow at PS3 expectation. The average is lower than GBA.
Wow at Wii expectation range, which is much bigger than NDS (probably caused by supply constrained issue).

Cheesemeister, any possibilities of you creating a parser to note down the ranking of H/W. Like this :
x persons say NDS>Wii>PS2>360>PSP>GBA>PS3>GCN>XBX
y persons say NDS>Wii>PS2>360>PSP>PS3>GBA>GCN>XBX
etc
etc.

The parser isn't currently running on a timer, but only when I run it. Who knows when numbers will start leaking out. I'd like to set a deadline, and the earlier the better IMHO.
Click to expand...

Thursday 9:00 AM, Easter time, should be soon enough (IMO)
 
G

Grampa Simpson

Banned
Cheesemeister said:
The parser isn't currently running on a timer, but only when I run it. Who knows when numbers will start leaking out. I'd like to set a deadline, and the earlier the better IMHO.
Click to expand...
If you want to decide on a cut-off, I'll be happy to put it in the opening post. We can probably talk a mod into putting it into the thread title too if we want.
 
C

Cheesemeister

Member
apujanata said:
Cheesemeister, any possibilities of you creating a parser to note down the ranking of H/W. Like this :
x persons say NDS>Wii>PS2>360>PSP>GBA>PS3>GCN>XBX
y persons say NDS>Wii>PS2>360>PSP>PS3>GBA>GCN>XBX
etc
etc.
Click to expand...

Looks really messy. I was planning on providing the output of everyone's predictions in a tab-delimited text file for importing into Excel, in addition to a formatted post for here.

apujanata said:
Thursday 9:00 AM, Easter time, should be soon enough (IMO)
Click to expand...

I might not be cogent that early. Say 9:30 AM Eastern, Wednesday. That's in 7 hours and 21 minutes. Unless there are leaks before then, in which case I'll use what I've already got now.
 
C

Cheesemeister

Member
Here's a test run of the rankings using the sum of absolute differences from each system's sales, supposing the Pachter numbers were the actuals. These do not represent the actual rankings.

the parser said:
1. perfectchaos007 - 109,000
2. Earthstrike - 110,000
3. Freki - 117,000
4. Deku - 125,000
5. jarrod - 128,000
6. bmf - 130,000
6. kpop100 - 130,000
8. jamesinclair - 131,000
9. All Hail C-Webb - 135,000
10. Hyllian - 143,000
11. Omnicent - 153,000
12. Shin Johnpv - 160,000
13. starship - 162,000
14. Sule - 165,000
14. Warm Machine - 165,000
16. Xzbeat - 166,000
17. dark_preacher - 167,000
18. schuelma - 170,000
18. Taurus - 170,000
20. C4Lukins - 174,000
21. apujanata - 175,000
22. the thoroughbred - 176,000
23. Michan - 177,000
24. Frankfurter - 179,000
25. Patton - 180,000
25. Orlics - 180,000
27. TheKingsCrown - 181,000
27. STG! - 181,000
29. Jammy - 183,000
30. Fio Maravilha - 185,000
31. Saitou - 190,000
32. Mrbob - 194,000
33. Fredescu - 195,000
34. TwinsDad - 196,000
35. sp0rsk - 200,000
35. BrodiemanTTR - 200,000
35. LOCK - 200,000
35. Sgt. Killjoy - 200,000
35. jepense - 200,000
40. Bildi - 202,000
41. B_Rik_Schitthaus - 204,000
41. AirBrian - 204,000
43. Jokeropia - 205,000
44. Branduil - 206,000
45. NinSoX - 207,000
46. mood - 208,000
46. DayShallCome - 208,000
48. Kurosaki Ichigo - 210,000
48. jey_16 - 210,000
48. fanduck - 210,000
48. verplant - 210,000
52. Heidir - 211,000
52. duderon - 211,000
54. Ch Totoro - 212,000
54. Blablurn - 212,000
56. Square2005 - 216,000
57. bycha - 220,000
57. tanod - 220,000
57. MindCollizion - 220,000
60. felipeko - 221,000
60. Chibbi Brady - 221,000
62. ShutEye - 224,000
63. Maxwell House - 225,000
63. Segata Sanshiro - 225,000
63. MikeMyers - 225,000
66. argon - 226,000
66. vicious_killer_squirrel - 226,000
68. RubberJohnny - 228,000
69. Nicktals - 230,000
69. Tf53 - 230,000
69. The M.O.B - 230,000
69. Pedobear - 230,000
69. Brakara - 230,000
74. kkg1701 - 235,000
74. Diablos54 - 235,000
76. Gekkonidae - 237,000
77. GoldenEye 007 - 238,000
78. Dice Man - 240,000
78. TheKurgan - 240,000
78. Wyndstryker - 240,000
81. borghe - 241,000
82. JDSN - 242,000
83. Parl - 243,000
84. titiklabingapat - 245,000
84. KevinRo - 245,000
84. AzureNightmareXE - 245,000
87. Hero - 246,000
88. SuperPac - 249,000
89. Sho_Nuff82 - 250,000
89. rikitikitik - 250,000
89. dammitmattt - 250,000
89. devilscallmedad - 250,000
89. Darunia - 250,000
94. Vagabundo - 251,000
95. duk - 254,000
95. Drensch - 254,000
97. Barf_the_Mog - 255,000
97. rage1973 - 255,000
99. Chiggs - 258,000
100. Mariah Carey - 259,000
101. GhaleonEB - 265,000
101. Innotech - 265,000
101. Mr. Pointy - 265,000
101. JavyOO7 - 265,000
101. DSWii60 - 265,000
106. Cedeo - 269,000
107. underfooter - 270,000
107. Clever Pun - 270,000
109. LiquidMamba - 272,000
109. cvxfreak - 272,000
111. corez - 276,000
112. scionguyXB - 277,000
113. Gaborn - 279,000
114. legend166 - 280,000
115. Mr. Pachunga Chung - 282,000
116. USD - 290,000
116. VanMardigan - 290,000
116. SpacLock - 290,000
119. davepoobond - 295,000
119. Brak - 295,000
119. Snaku - 295,000
122. donny2112 - 300,000
122. kisakiproject - 300,000
122. Rancid Mildew - 300,000
122. clo1_2000 - 300,000
126. JJConrad - 300,001
127. AniHawk - 302,000
128. turtle553 - 311,000
129. gollumsluvslave - 312,000
129. CoryCubed - 312,000
131. hadareud - 320,000
132. pswii60 - 321,000
133. besada - 322,000
134. Pope Benedict XVI - 330,000
134. Mojo - 330,000
134. Odysseus - 330,000
137. DeaconKnowledge - 332,000
138. Miguga64 - 333,000
139. Orgen - 334,000
140. Chumly - 335,000
141. Forgotten Ancient - 340,000
142. John Dunbar - 341,000
143. Haunted One - 342,000
144. BuzzJive - 344,000
145. Alkaliine - 345,000
146. ksamedi - 349,000
147. Ash Sparrow - 350,000
147. BloodAdo - 350,000
149. dyls - 351,000
150. dirtmonkey37 - 360,000
150. PhoenixDark - 360,000
150. neondriver - 360,000
153. MasterMFauli - 364,000
154. Cruceh - 365,000
154. Bo130 - 365,000
156. dogonfire - 374,000
157. Crowza - 375,000
158. jj984jj - 378,000
159. oo Kosma oo - 385,000
160. Eteric Rice - 386,000
161. evlcookie - 387,000
162. flipping_heck - 390,000
162. SpudBud - 390,000
164. Borys - 395,000
165. Flakster99 - 397,000
166. Hammer24 - 410,000
166. DiatribeEQ - 410,000
168. CNL - 420,000
169. Kenka - 423,000
170. crazythan - 425,000
171. kassatsu - 438,000
172. :enemyglider: - 490,000
173. Dizzan - 507,000
174. Ynos Yrros - 510,000
175. Merovingian - 1,120,000
176. Gahiggidy - 1,150,993
177. VALIS - 1,158,000
Click to expand...

Absolute differences from the average predictions...

the parser said:
1. Heidir - 30,633
2. duk - 31,269
3. Kurosaki Ichigo - 35,153
4. titiklabingapat - 44,069
5. Jokeropia - 45,165
6. rage1973 - 47,325
7. borghe - 50,737
8. jey_16 - 51,245
9. MikeMyers - 53,897
10. TheKurgan - 57,685
11. LiquidMamba - 58,553
11. cvxfreak - 58,553
13. Dice Man - 58,941
14. Clever Pun - 60,737
15. Branduil - 61,075
16. DayShallCome - 64,569
17. Gekkonidae - 65,653
18. bycha - 67,497
19. starship - 68,209
20. Maxwell House - 68,553
21. Darunia - 69,593
22. Chibbi Brady - 70,737
23. fanduck - 71,009
24. dammitmattt - 71,657
25. Segata Sanshiro - 72,269
26. Diablos54 - 77,279
27. schuelma - 79,297
28. kkg1701 - 79,337
29. Vagabundo - 81,137
30. donny2112 - 84,069
31. C4Lukins - 84,429
32. Ch Totoro - 84,589
33. LOCK - 85,017
34. KevinRo - 85,329
35. verplant - 86,929
36. davepoobond - 87,029
37. the thoroughbred - 87,109
38. USD - 87,485
39. Jammy - 90,165
40. GhaleonEB - 90,737
41. Wyndstryker - 92,365
42. devilscallmedad - 92,409
43. The M.O.B - 93,069
44. RubberJohnny - 93,829
45. Xzbeat - 94,429
46. hadareud - 96,521
47. VanMardigan - 96,553
48. jepense - 97,433
49. duderon - 97,869
50. AirBrian - 97,949
51. argon - 99,543
52. Omnicent - 100,269
53. kisakiproject - 100,429
54. Mrbob - 101,673
55. STG! - 103,445
56. jamesinclair - 104,911
57. JDSN - 105,389
58. Nicktals - 106,869
59. Chiggs - 108,085
59. NinSoX - 108,085
61. Cedeo - 108,965
62. mood - 109,365
63. SuperPac - 109,897
64. Hero - 110,337
65. JJConrad - 110,590
66. kpop100 - 111,409
67. Hyllian - 111,941
68. DSWii60 - 113,765
69. Mr. Pointy - 115,485
70. Saitou - 116,869
71. apujanata - 117,541
72. Blablurn - 117,593
73. John Dunbar - 117,897
74. SpacLock - 118,593
75. BuzzJive - 118,989
76. pswii60 - 119,461
77. MindCollizion - 122,233
78. Barf_the_Mog - 123,193
79. Rancid Mildew - 124,469
80. Bildi - 125,337
81. Chumly - 125,453
82. Sule - 126,841
83. Mariah Carey - 127,461
84. bmf - 127,497
85. Odysseus - 127,996
86. Brak - 128,509
87. Taurus - 128,565
88. Freki - 128,897
89. sp0rsk - 129,461
90. dark_preacher - 130,273
91. Frankfurter - 130,469
92. Forgotten Ancient - 130,589
93. rikitikitik - 130,593
94. legend166 - 130,681
95. Earthstrike - 131,409
96. ShutEye - 131,633
97. TwinsDad - 132,245
98. Haunted One - 132,297
99. Brakara - 132,857
100. Tf53 - 133,633
101. vicious_killer_squirrel - 133,705
102. Michan - 136,238
103. Drensch - 136,253
104. turtle553 - 138,521
105. neondriver - 144,989
106. Warm Machine - 145,453
107. gollumsluvslave - 147,085
108. ksamedi - 148,459
109. Parl - 148,469
110. Pope Benedict XVI - 152,193
111. Ash Sparrow - 153,685
112. Fio Maravilha - 154,371
113. Cruceh - 154,795
114. Orgen - 157,137
115. DeaconKnowledge - 157,793
116. Pedobear - 157,817
117. dyls - 159,377
118. BrodiemanTTR - 159,713
119. Innotech - 168,205
120. CoryCubed - 168,233
121. jarrod - 169,429
122. Shin Johnpv - 170,673
123. Mr. Pachunga Chung - 172,067
124. Mojo - 172,461
125. Patton - 173,865
126. Square2005 - 175,371
127. Sho_Nuff82 - 176,639
128. Deku - 176,805
129. AniHawk - 178,217
130. Snaku - 180,401
131. dogonfire - 181,165
132. besada - 181,389
133. SpudBud - 184,160
134. Borys - 184,867
135. BloodAdo - 185,285
136. felipeko - 186,245
137. clo1_2000 - 186,629
138. MasterMFauli - 189,423
139. Hammer24 - 189,995
140. GoldenEye 007 - 191,069
141. tanod - 192,009
142. Fredescu - 192,377
143. Orlics - 195,809
144. Miguga64 - 198,033
145. perfectchaos007 - 202,765
146. dirtmonkey37 - 202,891
147. jj984jj - 204,377
148. Alkaliine - 210,033
149. B_Rik_Schitthaus - 213,765
150. Gaborn - 214,601
151. JavyOO7 - 221,245
152. oo Kosma oo - 221,657
153. All Hail C-Webb - 223,141
154. scionguyXB - 223,977
155. Bo130 - 226,081
156. flipping_heck - 227,485
157. Sgt. Killjoy - 228,341
158. DiatribeEQ - 228,653
159. AzureNightmareXE - 237,273
160. Crowza - 246,965
161. CNL - 254,081
162. corez - 254,841
163. kassatsu - 257,165
164. evlcookie - 260,709
165. Kenka - 262,633
166. :enemyglider: - 275,989
167. Dizzan - 287,989
168. Ynos Yrros - 300,165
169. TheKingsCrown - 300,291
170. crazythan - 302,845
171. underfooter - 320,809
172. PhoenixDark - 328,529
173. Flakster99 - 351,309
174. Eteric Rice - 400,113
175. VALIS - 967,365
176. Merovingian - 993,765
177. Gahiggidy - 1,220,926
Click to expand...
 
C

C4Lukins

Junior Member
duk said:
how close does vg charts come to actual npd numbers anyone know? are they reliable?
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I know the first week they did their weekly charts they were off by a large margin on both games and hardware. I have not kept up with it since.
 
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