Chart Track tracking down leak (and also charts)

by Justin McElroy { Apr 12th 2007 at 12:08PM }

You may recall when the internet collectively freaked out last week in reaction to an 82% drop in UK PS3 sales reported by Chart Track. Despite the fact that the stat apparently "didn't mean anything" the agency is now trying to track down exactly who let the commoners in on the secret.

Part of Chart Track's deal with those who subscribe to its information is that they won't publish the data for public consumption, a sacred trust that someone looks to have broken. Now, Next Generation is reporting that the group may have pinpointed the source of the leak; in fact, they've contacted the party they think is responsible. If that doesn't work out, we think the next step is obvious: Jack Bauer, a wooden chair and enough Sodium Pentothal to make Peter Moore admit those tattoos are fake.

Tags: charttrack, nextgeneration, ps3, uk

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 12th 2007 12:27PM

To the Guy that jacked my name:

I didn't waste money on my PS3 or 360.

My gf bought a Wii. We play it sometimes. Right now she likes playing Motorstorm with me.

So EFF off.

Unit @ Apr 12th 2007 12:27PM

i wonder if sony came down on them hard for letting those numbers get out?
@ jack, if you got the 20 gig you now have a collectors item....LOL!!!!

Saneless @ Apr 12th 2007 12:31PM

This is definitely Powder Phil and Sony coming down on them for making them look bad. Sony is mostly upset that their internal "Make Sony Look Bad" department now has less work to do.

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 12th 2007 12:31PM

That's one of the best leak pictures I've seen. And they and the rest of Europe should just fork over the sales numbers at least monthly.

C. Grant @ Apr 12th 2007 12:42PM

Impostor Jack of No Trades has been banned permanently.

Real Jack of No Trades: please try to be a little more diplomatic in your comments in the future (less bashing, k?)

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 12th 2007 12:43PM

Thanks Joystiq. I hate when people steal names.

Buy anyways give the PS3 some time to build up a better library before we yell failure.

Aex @ Apr 12th 2007 12:43PM

I don't think Sony is comming down on Chart Track. I think any company that has a leak of information would do the same. Guess what, companies don't like information to come out before they want it to. Whether the way they want it to come out is on an arbitrary date, someone has to pay for it, or etc... etc...

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 12th 2007 12:44PM

C. Grant

Ok that sounds fair enough.

C. Grant @ Apr 12th 2007 1:03PM

It's a deal then! Apologies for the interruption, let the commenting continue!

Slaziman @ Apr 12th 2007 1:07PM

Ohnoes my favorite troll must moderate himself :(

I can't go on with my life.

Slaziman @ Apr 12th 2007 1:13PM

By the way, lol@Jack Bauer reference

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 12th 2007 1:14PM

Hey Wruh roh

I can still debate with you though.....

But like always I will still come out the winner.

Cheesehead @ Apr 12th 2007 1:33PM

The actual numbers don't surprise me, people in britain are, mostly, quite on the ball when it comes to determining if something is good value for money.

And a lot of brits just aren't willing to pay double for a machine which doesn't do particularly much more than its competitors (most brits havn't heard of blu-ray yet)

Dolla Dolla @ Apr 12th 2007 1:35PM

@Jack of No Trades

How exactly do you play Motorstorm together, lest she have a PS3, too?

And, what's this? Facts cannot poke a hole into the all powerful Sony. Shut these naysaying number throwers up, and let's get back to "proving" Blu-ray has won the HD format war. Hail Sony!

Crono @ Apr 12th 2007 1:37PM

Wait, what happened? I go to lunch for an hour and when I come back the world has been turned on its side.

And on topic, whats the point of tracking a market statistic if only your "subscribers" get to see it, and then they're not allowed to tell anybody else?

Stupid brits and their lack of freedom of information...

Boss Tempo @ Apr 12th 2007 1:37PM

We officially droped the 20 GB model of Jack of No Trades. Long live the Elite Jack!

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 12th 2007 1:42PM

"How exactly do you play Motorstorm together, lest she have a PS3, too?"

Well we take turns on races when we lose. She likes pausing the game during the crashes so she can rotate the camera to see it at different angles. Thats one cool feature on Motorstorm.

SmilingAssassin @ Apr 12th 2007 1:47PM

Why Hail Sony? Why do we need a format winner?
My format winner is neither and I applaud the choice to not increase my 360 in price and force me to rebuy all my cntent. I know it sounds insane but I hate WiFi networking for anything other than my laptop. Hard wiring my connections results in much smoother online multiplayer gaming. I am not bashing the PS3 but it has a lot of technology I don't need or want therefore Sony can't have any of my money. By the time BluRay catches on we will indeed be knee deep in Digital Distribution over the internet. I will also go ahead and make a guess that by the time we really have a significant winner in the format war there will be a new version of the Xbox out anyway. They are already a year and a half into a four or five year cycle.

GamerG @ Apr 12th 2007 1:51PM

Err perhaps I should not tell you the following weeks figures....

Wii 25k
PS3 17k
360 11k

WHOOPS!

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 12th 2007 1:55PM

I have yet to see Blu-ray or HD-DVD in Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. I when into Blockbuster last week to rent Def Jam Icon and when I got to the counter I asked the employee if they have any of the new formats and she said no because Blu-ray and HD-DVD are not at high enough demands to influence the company to buy them.

The format that makes its way to Blockbuster or Hollywood will be the winner of the format war.

Ken @ Apr 12th 2007 1:55PM

Because almost everyone already owns a 360 GamerG. :)

Dolla Dolla @ Apr 12th 2007 2:12PM

Judging from replies, and in case it was missed, my post was in jest.

As in ... sarcasm.

@Jack of No Trades
Well, that's not exactly playing together, now is it? :P For the life of me, I don't know why they didn't have split screen in Motorstorm. That just feels incomplete, no?

And, I think I might sorta agree with your statement about which format makes it to Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. But ... what if they both do? Neither of their sales are spectacular at the moment, and I think both sides are artificially inflating sales by including vouchers for free HD movies and bundling movies with standalone players.

Phil @ Apr 12th 2007 2:21PM

Aex,

Right, it is not Sony coming down on chart track, it is chart track coming down on who leaked the information that chart track gave them on the terms of not releasing it to the public.

Only thing about Sony is the sales records about their product.

Phil @ Apr 12th 2007 2:21PM

tactics @ Apr 12th 2007 2:30PM

wruh roh: yeah... he was like two jack of no trades' duct-taped together...

jack: i actually agree. let ps3 build a library before yelling failure. i can't help but reminisce of the "bad ol' n64" when i look at ps3 though. i don't call n64 a failure... but i do call it a disappointment. i think the ps3 will turn out like nintendo's n64. maybe that's a tired opinion, but it seems to make sense on so many levels: far too advanced technological structure, proprietary media, difficult (supposedly) for which to code, and then there's the whole ego/top dog thing... the major difference is that third parties still *like* sony, where they despised nintendo at the dawn of the n64, so that could help.

anyways, on topic (and obvious): if those numbers don't mean anything... why do they care? ;)

-"superfan" tactics.

GamerG @ Apr 12th 2007 2:46PM

I know Ken, the fact the PS3 only old sold the 360 by 6k units in its 3rd week has to be worrying for Sony, how longs the 360 been out for? 15 months or so?

Crono @ Apr 12th 2007 2:53PM

Dolla Dolla,

There's no splitscreen multiplayer because the PS3 can't handle rendering those 1080p graphics twice at the same time. Hell, motorstorm barely runs on the PS3 as it is (it took major tweaking to get rid of the slowdowns), now you want it to render it twice simultaneously.

Thats why there's no split screen multiplay.

Draco @ Apr 12th 2007 3:05PM

Crono you are aware there are the same amount of pixels in a 52" 1080P running one signal as there is in a 52"1080P TV running split screen?

jaysins @ Apr 12th 2007 3:27PM

@Crono
I'm hope your being sarcastic but how you go on to explain yourself really makes me wonder. Please tell me your not misinformed enough to believe that.

Crono @ Apr 12th 2007 3:56PM

Your misinformed...

Seriously, why else. The damn game barely chugs along anyway. Its not the number of pixels on the screen, its calculating 2 different views simultaneously. You guys do know that the who track isn't rendered all the time right, just what you can see.

Whether is processor or low memory is anyone's guess, but the lack of split screen multiplayer is due to the fact the hardware can't do it.

And if not, then tell me why there isn't split screen multiplayer?

Crono @ Apr 12th 2007 3:57PM

Damn there's lots of typos there.

"Whole track" not "who track"
"Whether its" not "whether is"

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 12th 2007 4:08PM

You missed "You're misinformed" not "Your misinformed"

Phil @ Apr 12th 2007 4:15PM

I think Crono is right, even if he may not be saying it correctly.

The physics and information on particle velocity, shape and location is only being calculated once (if not then the developers need to go back to school). However, rendering the information on two different views at once taxes the processors too much (although given time, I am sure the developer would have been able to better optimize their code to do it).

Aex @ Apr 12th 2007 5:22PM

All the physics calculations are being done anyways. If someone crashes off screen, it doesn't make the crash not happen because you can't see it. Maybe they just didn't want to lower the visual effects to make split screen viable.

There are a few games on the Xbox 360 that lack a splitscreen playability, Lost Planet comes to my mind. Are we going to claim that the Xbox 360's processor can't handle split screen because of Lost Planet? No, that is a stupid assumption and those that make it are idiots. It's not that they couldn't have done it, it is just they didn't.

Matt @ Apr 12th 2007 6:07PM

C. Grant, can you ban Jack of No Trades also, he is really annoying all the other posters.

He only trolls and starts flamewars....

On-Topic, ChartTrack cannot be trusted anyway. They always seem to appear during a sony launch, posting shipped numbers and then they dissapear for a year or so.

wackychan @ Apr 12th 2007 6:26PM

Sorry about keeping this off topic. But the F1 game that came out for PS3 didn't have split screen either. I'm starting to think the ps3 cant handle splitscreen racing with 1080p. So much for all the jazz. Maybe they will have it for gran turismo though. They better have it for gran turismo...

Rubang B @ Apr 12th 2007 7:51PM

Who needs splitscreen when I can play 4 player Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat on my NES? They put the WHOLE course on the screen at once so I can see ALL the action! It's intense arcade gaming at its finest. Now you're playing with power.

@topic, Chart Track is dumb. Their figures don't matter enough to track down.